Posted on January, 16 2015

Spain has launched an investigation into pirate fishing – a major cause of overfishing, which also damages the marine environment, and disadvantages legal fishers and whole fishing communities. Together with other organisations, WWF applauds this first use of Spain’s new fisheries law, which is also the first to link to the EU’s regulation on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities, which aims to keep illegally-caught fish out of the EU market.  Spain is Europe’s largest fishing country, with 20% of EU fishing capacity, and biggest importer and exporter of fish products, making this action against IUU fishing highly significant. With the other organisations, WWF calls on other EU States to approve similar laws in order to effectively fight illegal fishing globally.

Original article posted on: 16.01.15       Updated on: 19.03.15