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Why This Matters: One of the key issues in the Brexit negotiations that will begin after the U.K. formally leaves the EU on Friday is bound to be fisheries – right now all EU nations have free access to the U.K.’s lucrative fishing grounds. President Macron of France vowed that fishing will be treated “as an essential economic interest for our country that must be defended” in the talks. And with climate change, the stakes are even higher for France and other EU nations because the U.K. is on the “winning” side of the fish migrations that will only get worse as the waters of the North Atlantic continue to warm. From the looks of it, neither the EU or the UK is willing to back down when it comes to fishing rights. That could scuttle the entire Brexit deal and set off a trade war between the U.K. and Europe at the end of 2020 when negotiations must conclude.
Fishing Is Important to the Economies of Coastal Communities in the U.K. and the EU
According to the Financial Times, “EU diplomats fear that a post-Brexit negotiation covering everything from trade in goods to financial services — which accounted for 6.9 percent of UK gross domestic product in 2018 — could become snarled up on fish.” Under current EU law, there are catch limits on fisheries that limit the volume of fish that can be caught from each stock and then these quotes are divided up among the European nations. After Brexit, the U.K. won’t be bound by the EU fishing limits, and they can bar European fishers from fishing in U.K waters. And the U.K.’s Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has promised to not “trade away” the U.K.’s fishing rights in the negotiation.
But, but, but if the U.K. bans European fishing fleets from its waters going forward, then the Europeans may block or put high tariffs on fish products imported into Europe from the U.K. — thus essentially blocking their markets from U.K. fish exports. And that could hurt U.K. fishers because half of all the fishcaught there are currently sold in the EU.
This week, we have featured this series of videos by the Environmental Defense Fund about the impacts climate change is having on the ocean as observed by the people who live and work there — fishermen and women. Their stories have been compelling and provided a sense of the ways that climate change is harming and shifting global fish stocks.
Why This Matters: On Tuesday, pursuant to President Biden’s climate executive order, NOAA announced: “an agency-wide effort to gather initial public input” on “how to make fisheries, including aquaculture, and protected resources more resilient to climate change.
It’s not just men in the fishing sector who are impacted by climate change, overfishing, and COVID-19 — women are too. Women like Alexia Jaurez of Sonora, Mexico, who is featured in this Environmental Defense Fund video, do the important work of monitoring the catch and the price, and most importantly determining how many more […]
By Ashira Morris, ODP Staff Writer Last summer, Florida created its first aquatic preserve in over 30 years. The Nature Coast Aquatic Preserve protects about 400,000 acres of seagrass just north of Tampa on Florida’s Gulf coast. These are part of the Gulf of Mexico’s largest seagrass bed and borders other existing preserves, creating a […]
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