Have your say: how can we better protect vulnerable marine ecosystems in the high seas?
VMEs are fragile and sensitive areas, home to a wide variety of marine life, including many slow-growing and long-lived species in deep waters. Damage from bottom fishing gears can compromise the ecosystems’ integrity by, among others, impairing their long-term natural productivity.
In 2008, the EU adopted a regulation on the protection of vulnerable marine ecosystems in the high seas from the adverse impacts of bottom fishing gears. The European Commission is currently evaluating the performance of this regulation and is asking for feedback to better shape this initiative.
The Commission invites all stakeholders, including the fishing industry, non-governmental organisations, academic, scientific, social, and economic partners, and citizens to share their views.
The purpose of this consultation is to gather information and experiences related to the initiative’s implementation. Stakeholders' perspectives on the regulation’s effectiveness are valuable and will assist the Commission in making evidence-based assessments of its performance. This public consultation may also help identify areas for amendment to the current regulation or the need for new initiatives.
The need to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems
VMEs are essential to the health of the ocean:
- They provide important habitat for a wide variety of marine life, and they play a role in regulating the climate. Seamounts, canyons, coral reefs, and hydrothermal vents are biodiversity hot spots.
- They attract large numbers of fish and plants, and organisms like sponges, corals and anemones that are slow-growing and long-lived.
Physical contact with bottom trawling, hydrocarbon prospection, laying of submarine cables, waste dumping or over-exploitation, might result in damaging VMEs, which will require hundreds of years to fully recover.
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(PM European Commission)
The public consultation is open until 05.02.2024.
Further information: oceans-and-fisheries.ec.europa.eu