Low-impact fishing is a path rather than a fixed destination. It entails a constant reevaluation of our practices, asking ourselves: how can we continue to feed millions of people while minimising fisheries’ negative environmental impacts, maximising societal benefits and improving policies and governance? Because fisheries are as numerous as they are diverse, there is no single response to this question. Similarly, as we learn more about the effects of the climate and biodiversity crises on the ocean, in addition to expanding our scientific, technical and technological horizons, responses to this question are continuously evolving.
To finally concretise and operationalise the EU’s objective of ecosystem-based and sustainable fisheries, fishers, scientists, government authorities and civil society must join forces to evaluate each fishery’s impacts, identify and address its shortcomings as best as possible, evaluate and measure progress to make practices more sustainable and, once this is done, repeat the process anew. This publication and the assessment methodology prepared with it aim to support this process and thus enable a prompt and meaningful transition towards low-impact fisheries that benefit all life below and above water.
To prepare this briefing, WWF has developed a publicly available methodology as a tool to evaluate the current impact of a given EU fishery based on 28 criteria and 11 principles across three dimensions (“socio-economic”, “ecological”, “governance and management”). A preliminary assessment made using this “Low Impact Fishing tool” (LIF tool) can be used to identify strategic next steps and act as a benchmark from which to measure progress in a fishery’s low-impact fishing journey.
