Saving Europe's oceans

For the past few weeks, Greenpeace Germany has been placing stones in the North Sea in an effort to halt destructive fishing and encourage the governments of Germany and the Netherlands to create more fully-protected marine reserves. For the past three years at Greenpeace, I have been working to protect the German Sylt reef area of the North Sea and overseeing efforts to place large stones in this amazing ocean area. The Sylt reef is home to rare harbour porpoises- which are all too often entangled in fishing nets and other fishing gear used by fishing operations there.
The Sylt area is declared a priority area for protection under the Natura 2000 agreement, under which European governments decided to protect the most seriously threatened habitats and species of the continent.  Greenpeace is demanding that important oceans-saving measures, such as the creation of fully protected marine reserves in ecologically important areas such as the Sylt reef, be key to the upcoming reform of Europe’s Common Fisheries Policy. Currently under the first review in ten years, the CFP reform process represents Europe’s best hope to create oceans policies that work for Europe and the future of our oceans, not just narrow fishing interests.

Today, I presented the German public with an independent legal assessment of the Natura 2000 agreement, showing that fishing should be off-limits in the Sylt reef area. It is outrageous that the German government would say that the area is ecologically sensitive and deserving of protection and then allow bottom-trawling, gill-net fishing and sand- and gravel extraction to all take place, further endangering the rare harbor porpoise and degrading our oceans.  The rare stone reefs and shallow sandbanks should be left alone and our oceans should be allowed the chance to recover, not futher overfished.
At the press conference this morning, I also urged the German government to take a more active role in improving the CFP. For decades, Europe has failed to have any sensible fisheries policy and instead has allowed the large-scale fishing boats plunder Europe’s waters of fish and then hand them huge subsidies to keep destroying the oceans. The current reform period of the CFP is our chance to get it right- since over 90% of European commercially used fish stocks are at risk of collapse. Time is running out for our oceans and we’re working here in Germany to put politicians on the right track to defending our oceans. Keep checking back here for updates on how Greenpeace is working to make Europe an oceans champion.