French fishing zone for Med
Area 70 miles off the Mediterranean coast will become exclusively controlled by French quotas says environment minister
FRANCE is planning an exclusive French fishing zone up to 70 nautical miles off the Mediterranean coast.
Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said the measure was necessary to “protect French fishing, but especially to protect fish.”
He hopes to stop powerful industrial fleets from around the world depleating the Mediterranean’s stocks. It was unacceptable to allow them to continue to fish uncontrolled, he said.
The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea allows for states to establish an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) where they control fishing rights up to 200 miles from the shore, well outside the 12 miles of “territorial” waters.
An EEZ allows a state to set catch quotas and deliver licences within the area.
Up to now few Mediterranean countries have taken up the measure, which could theoretically apply to the whole of the sea if all of them were to establish such zones.
Mr Borloo made the announcement on a visit to Cassis, near Marseille. He said the zone would be the same as the existing ecological protection zone which enables France to prosecute ships that dump waste at sea.
He hopes to see more European states set up EEZs in the context of the Mediterranean Union.
