HALIEUTIQUE MER ET LITTORAL

A socioeconomic analysis commissioned by Seas At Risk and carried out by New Economics Foundation has revealed that a ban on bottom-contacting gear (bottom trawling and bottom dredging) in Marine Protected Areas would yield net benefits as soon as four years after the ban comes into force.  The study highlights that after 13 years of such a ban, there would be €3.41 returned for every €1 spent, with a cumulative net gain equivalent to €8.4 billion over a 20-year period.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has an ambitious vision: “By 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people”.

To achieve this vision, the CBD set out 20 Aichi Targets to be met by 2020. Yet, today we are on the cusp of 2020 and biodiversity is still significantly declining with no apparent slow down. The steepest biodiversity decline of all has been observed in freshwater ecosystems, where one third of species assessed are considered to be at risk of immediate extinction (IUCN, 2018) and where vertebrates have declined at twice the rate of those within terrestrial and marine ecosystems (WWF, 2018).