Illegal Fishing: Casting in the Deep

European fisheries ministers concluded the latest round of negotiations on the European Union’s Common Fisheries Policy at the end of last year. As usual, they were attacked from both sides – by the fishing industry for restricting commercial fisheries too much, and by non-governmental organisations and scientists for not being strict enough. The negotiations concluded six weeks after the publication in the magazine Science of a prediction that stocks could collapse within fifty years if commercial fishing was not curbed. British fisheries minister Ben Bradshaw described the warning as the biggest global environmental challenge after climate change.