Let's get the numbers right: What proportion of fish stocks are sustainably managed in the EU?

The document critiques the European Commission's (DG MARE) use of a 99% sustainability figure for fish landings, arguing it masks ongoing overfishing by excluding shared stocks and those without specific scientific advice. It contends that focusing on landing volumes rather than the number of individual stocks ignores depleted species and fails to meet the legal requirements of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). The author recommends shifting reporting to stock numbers and including all harvested stocks to ensure transparency and ecosystem-based management.

• The European Commission's claim that over 99% of landings in the Baltic, North Sea, and Atlantic managed exclusively by the EU are from sustainably managed fisheries is misleading because it excludes stocks shared with non-EU countries (such as Norway or Iceland) and stocks for which only 'precautionary advice' is available due to limited data.
• By reporting on the volume of landings rather than the number of individual stocks, the EU hides the fact that 38% of stocks remain overfished, with 32% existing outside safe biological limits.
• The EU has failed to meet the legal deadline set by the CFP Basic Regulation to exploit all harvested fish stocks sustainably (at or below Maximum Sustainable Yield exploitation rates) by 2020.
• DG MARE's assertion that the MSY objective has been 'broadly attained' based on a median fishing mortality of 1.0 is flawed because it uses a model average that does not ensure every individual stock is sustainable, nor does it account for the obligation to restore biomass levels.

APA

Grossmann, J., & Druel, E. (2020). Let's get the numbers right: What proportion of fish stocks are sustainably managed in the EU? ClientEarth. https://www.clientearth.org/media/o2tfpqaf/lets-get-the-numbers-right-what-proportion-of-fish-stocks-are-sustainably-managed-in-the-eu-ce-en.pdf

Chicago

Grossmann, Jenni, and Elisabeth Druel. Let's get the numbers right: What proportion of fish stocks are sustainably managed in the EU? ClientEarth, 2020. https://www.clientearth.org/media/o2tfpqaf/lets-get-the-numbers-right-what-proportion-of-fish-stocks-are-sustainably-managed-in-the-eu-ce-en.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Grossmann |first1=Jenni |last2=Druel |first2=Elisabeth |title=Let's get the numbers right: What proportion of fish stocks are sustainably managed in the EU? |publisher=ClientEarth |date=July 2020 |url=https://www.clientearth.org/media/o2tfpqaf/lets-get-the-numbers-right-what-proportion-of-fish-stocks-are-sustainably-managed-in-the-eu-ce-en.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{grossmann2020lets, author = {Grossmann, Jenni and Druel, Elisabeth}, title = {{Let's get the numbers right: What proportion of fish stocks are sustainably managed in the EU?}}, publisher = {ClientEarth}, year = {2020}, month = jul, url = {https://www.clientearth.org/media/o2tfpqaf/lets-get-the-numbers-right-what-proportion-of-fish-stocks-are-sustainably-managed-in-the-eu-ce-en.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }