overfishing is falling in Europe, but climate change threatens fish stocks

Good and bad news for the seas. The good news: overfishing has been declining for 20 years in Europe, according to a report from the European Commission presented on Tuesday May 24 by the French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer). The bad news: climate change continues to threaten fish populations according to Ifremer, which calls for continued vigilance.

“Nothing is guaranteed for the future”, recalled Clara Ulrich, deputy scientific director at Ifremer, who underlines that climate change affects the chemistry of the oceans and therefore the distribution of fish populations, their diet and their growth. Consequently, nearly 20% of the biomass of marine animals could disappear by the end of the century on average, according to estimates based on IPCC climate models.

Another cause for concern is that overfishing is not declining in the same way everywhere in Europe: in the Mediterranean, 86% of fish populations assessed are considered overexploited. In February, Ifremer estimated that 56% of the fish consumed in France came from sustainable fishing, far from the target 100% fish from sustainably exploited populations in 2020.