The Pot

Inside the Stew

Select an ingredient  to explore: 

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• 1.Context and Preferential Treatment in Marine Protection: The Delinquent Appearance of Equity

The UK exhibits its unequal class system [go].

  Users and stakeholders of England's surrounding marine resources are involved in extensive consultations to determine conservation zones of English waters while exiled inhabitants of the British Indian Ocean Territory are barely acknowledged in their own struggle. Stakeholder concerns and complaints over-rode many of the designations around England, favoring use and access over environmental concerns. Budgetary constraints effectively crippled many more. Consideration extended to the British Indian Ocean Territory stakeholders (the Chagossians) when designating the Chagos MPA fell far short of equitable attention.

  Read this BBC report on marine conservation zones around Great Britain while considering the context of the Chagos MPA and the plight of the Chagossians and their efforts just to be heard.  

• 2.Britain's Bloated Fisheries - Influencing and Impacting World Wide Fish Stocks

The UK and the EU encourages and subsidizes its fleets far beyond reason - it's just plain unsustainable [go].
  Fixing the world's fishery woes is vital, but the UK has a fire raging in its own kitchen. While denying the Chagossians fair and reasonable consultations, the UK pays its fleets to reap the world's fish stocks beyond its limits. The Chagossians still petition to regain something lost, a real connection. It is only proper to examine potential solutions for a reasonable return. 

Where do the Chagossians fit in the big picture of the UK fishery policy? The UK preaches like pedophile priests proclaiming abstinence and piety while they themselves practice in depravity...

Read Oceana's report on The European Union & Fishing Subsidies; with a summary commentary by Andrew Revkin of the New York Times' 'DotEarth' [go].

• 3.Europe's Methods are Heading the World's Fisheries to the End of the Line

Our entire philosophical approach has to change - it's not going to be the same ocean we knew [go].
   The UK is in a position to learn about managing fisheries and improve its parctice. Silencing reasonable voices in the fishery discussion is unbecoming of their current stature. A people with such difficulties managing their own fisheries should be magnanimous when considering a petition of reasonable nature.

• 4."Houston, We've got a problem..." - Earth to Europe, do you Read? Earth to Europe, are you there?

WWF Living Planet Report 2012 [go].
  Europe, your fisheries are crashing. Do you care? You've decimated cod. The bluefin is headed for extinction. Now you're targeting the blue shark. What are you going to do about it? What's that you say? Make a giant no-fishery zone in the Indian Ocean? I'm sorry, that just doesn't make any sense... I think we have a bad connection...

• 5.Message in a Bottle - from the World to EU

EU, stop what your doing and the way you're doing it. Work with People [go].
  Europe! Stop and listen. Be fair. When it comes to fisheries, you're just not there.

• 6.Stop Bankrupting Our Oceans - How to Improve the Way the EU Fishes in the World

With awareness, comes solutions: Become aware, Britain! Be aware, not a bully... [go].
  The current Chagos MPA is naive and its claims misleading. Britain needs to fix its own fisheries to become a respectable partner on the global seas. Only then can Britain lead in a positive way, using its true potential for good.

• 7.The Spatial Expansion of Fisheries (1950 - 2005)

The Chagos MPA was "Protected" before April 1, 2010 when it was officially designated by the UK [go].
  Reported landing records show that the 200 nautical mile limit around the Chagos (the "EEZ") had significantly lower fisheries activity than the surrounding Indian Ocean long before the MPA existed. The UK heralded "Protection" for an already protected area. By far, a greater benefit would have been achieved in spending political and real capital toward reforming UK and EU fishery policy in the surround Indian Ocean region, where it was needed. 

• 8.Breakin' da Law - Europe's Other (Big) Fishery Problem, IUU

Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) activities of EU Fisheries: it's a bad situation [go].

  Europe has a very bad case of IUU Fishing in and outside of European home waters.  Europe's lack of fishery management and regulation likely extends to its lack of will and ability to enforce its existing laws. The UK's attempt to snatch the already protected waters of the Chagos EEZ "off the table" likely stems from a well founded lack of confidence in their own abilities to manage fisheries at home.

• 9.Take Stock of Thyself - Examine the Actual Landings of the UK EEZ

Fishery landings of UK EEZ far surpass that of the Chagos (and the Indian Ocean too) [go].

  Far more fish are landed from UK waters than from those of the entire Chagos EEZ.  The Sea Around Us project by PEW provides a tool to take stock of local extractions: a window into recorded landings. And as seen, these extractions are at detrimentally high rates and target many threatened species. The UK's level of illegal fishing is much higher than the global average. When diving into Indian Ocean fishery management, the UK would be wise to construct a stable platform from which to launch.

• 10.And Various Additional Items to Mull...

A few more serious items are worth a look too... [go]

  A look at Bluefin Tuna stocks of the North Atlantic and Blue Sharks in UK waters. These are at dire levels and are adrift amid decidedly mean seas. The UK has made the error of judgment in thinking that because the Chagos islands are in the far off Indian Ocean, there are no stakeholders that matter (matter to them, that is, or rank with their own importance). But it's flatly untrue. It is true that all oceans need our attention and protection... and all stakeholders must be part of the solutions.

• And a Few Others...