Maintaining or restoring fish stocks at levels that are capable of producing maximum sustainable yield is a legal obligation under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and has been given the deadline of no later than 2015 in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation of 2002. Here, we analyse stock assessment data of all major fish stocks of the Northeast Atlantic to determine whether Europe will be able to deliver on this commitment, which it has helped to bring about. The analysis shows that, if current fishing pressure continues, 91% of the European stocks will remain below target. If European ministers in charge of fisheries were serious about meeting their obligations, they would have to reduce drastically fishing pressure and halt fishing completely on some stocks. But even if fishing were halted in 2010, 22% of the stocks are so depleted that they cannot be rebuilt by 2015. If current trends continue, Europe will miss the 2015 deadline by more than 30 years. We argue that, from a legal perspective, such repeated enactment of fisheries management measures, which are incapable of maintaining or restoring Bmsy, does not comply with the requirements contained in UNCLOS and may constitute a breach of the precautionary principle of European Community law.

Twenty years after the world's nations agreed upon the Convention on Biodiversity, there is still a global decline in biodiversity. At present it seems unlikely that the Aichi Targets of halting biodiversity loss by 2020 will be met. Although the European Union is often seen as a pioneer in this regard, as its "Habitats Directive" represents one of the strongest legal tools in nature conservation, biodiversity continues to decline even in Europe. We outline four major problems in the current implementation of the directive. First, prioritization needs to be based upon comprehensive scientific knowledge. This requires a maximized number of red list assessments of European species and a regular adaptation of the annexes in order to focus on those sites with the highest conservation value. Second, strategic conservation plans need to be compiled for highly threatened species and adaptive management plans need to be implemented in each reserve. Third, an improved "on-ground" monitoring system is necessary, focusing on population trends of priority species and feeding back to management plans and red list assessments. Fourth, substantial financial resources have to be invested in the implementation as well as education in order to reach a societal consensus on the necessity for conservation.

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, polymath, playwright, Nobel prize winner, and the most prolific letter writer in history, was an advocate of English spelling reform. He was reportedly fond of pointing out its absurdities by proving that 'fish' could be spelt 'ghoti'. That is: 'gh' as in 'rough', 'o' as in 'women' and 'ti' as in palatial. AbstractIn European fisheries, most stocks are overfished and many are below safe biological limits, resulting in a call from the European Commission for new long-term fisheries management plans. Here, we propose a set of intuitive harvest control rules that are economically sound, compliant with international fishery agreements, based on relevant international experiences, supportive of ecosystem-based fisheries management and compatible with the biology of the fish stocks. The rules are based on the concept of maximum sustainable yield (MSY), with a precautionary target biomass that is 30% larger than that which produces MSY and with annual catches of 91% MSY. Allowable catches decline steeply when stocks fall below MSY levels and are set to zero when stocks fall below half of MSY levels. We show that the proposed rules could have prevented the collapse of the North Sea herring in the 1970s and that they can deal with strong cyclic variations in recruitment such as known for blue whiting. Compared to the current system, these rules would lead to higher

Seafood counters used to be simpler places, where a fish was labeled with its name and price. Nowadays, it carries more information than a used-car listing. Where did it swim? Was it farm-raised? Was it ever frozen? How much harm was done to the ocean by fishing it?Many retailers tout the environmental credentials of their seafood, but a growing number of scientists have begun to question whether these certification systems deliver on their promises. The labels give customers a false impression that purchasing certain products helps the ocean more than it really does, some researchers say.Backers respond that they are helping transform many of the globe's wild-caught fisheries, giving them a financial incentive to include environmental safeguards, while giving consumers a sense of what they can eat with a clear conscience.To add to the confusion, there are a variety of certification labels and guides, prompting retailers to adopt a hybrid approach, relying on multiple seafood rating systems or establishing their own criteria and screening products that way.As of Sunday, for example, Whole Foods stopped selling seafood listed as "red" by the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Blue Ocean Institute -including octopus, gray sole and Atlantic halibut -because these species are overfished or caught in a way that harms ocean habitat or other species. The move has sparked criticism from New England fishermen, who are now barred from selling to the upscale chain. Whole Foods also sells only pole-or line-caught canned tuna, which harms fewer species than conventional tuna-fishing methods.Target no longer sells farmed salmon -which has come under fire for consuming a disproportionate amount of forage fish and creating several other problems -and has pledged that by 2015 it will sell only fresh and frozen fish that are "sustainable and traceable." Wegmans said it will not obtain seafood from the Ross Sea in the Antarctic, which many environmentalists say should be off-limits to fishing, and this fall it will start selling oysters from plots it has leased in the Chesapeake Bay as part of a fishery restoration project. Beginning in June, Wal-Mart, the nation's largest seafood retailer, will require all of its fresh and frozen wild-caught and farmed seafood to be certified by a third party as sustainable or have a plan in place for suppliers to be certified. At this point, 76 percent of its suppliers are certified.Blue Ocean Institute President Carl Safina, a scientist who published the first sustainability rankings for commonly eaten fish in 1998, said that a decade ago, eating a piece of fish was akin to eating a piece of bread."You just picked it up and ate it. It wasn't subject to any discussion or inquiry," he said. "Now it's a broad discussion about where it came from, about whether it's sustainable. This is enormous progress compared to the change we've made to any other form of food production in the same amount of time."The most stringent and commonly used certification is that of the Marine Stewardship Council, which has cert...