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It’s War – France & Britain Face Off at Sea
The French and British are at it again, as always. The British Royal Navy and French police boats patrolled offshore from the Isle of Jersey’s port of Saint Helier. French fishermen are angry about losing access to waters off the Jersey coast, thanks to Brexit, and have some 70 ships gathered for a protest calling for a blockade of Saint Helier.
Two Royal Navy ships, equipped with machine guns and helicopter landing pads, were sent to track the French demonstration. Macron sent gunships armed with a cannon. So here we have the old traditional hatred between the French and English that extends back to the 13th century. There was an English invasion of France in 1230, which was a military campaign undertaken by Henry III of England in an attempt to reclaim the English throne’s rights and inheritance to the territories of France held prior to 1224.
The House of Plantagenet was a royal house that originated from the lands of Anjou in France. Plantagenets’ two cadet branches, the houses of Lancaster and York, held the English throne from 1154, with the accession of Henry II at the end of the chaos until 1485, when Richard III died in battle. It was the Plantagenets that transformed England. The Plantagenet kings were forced to negotiate compromises, which led to the establishment of the Magna Carta. During the 15th century, the Plantagenets were defeated in the Hundred Years’ War which led to political, economic, and social problems which included English nobles raising private armies.
Eventually, a rivalry between the House of Plantagenet’s two cadet branches of York and Lancaster led to the famous Wars of the Roses, which lasted for decades. English succession culminated in the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 when the reign of the Plantagenets and the English Middle Ages both met their end with the death of King Richard III.
So the rivalry between France and England has remained in the blood. During the negotiations over Brexit, the French always presented the greatest opposition.
EU can shut off power supplies if UK tries to seize control of fish stocks, small print of deal reveals
EU can shut off power supplies if UK tries to seize control of fish stocks, small print of deal reveals
Cables under Channel meet 8 per cent of demand – raising threat of higher prices and possible blackouts.
The EU has secured the ability to shut off gas and electricity supplies if the UK tries to seize control of disputed fish stocks in future, experts are warning.
The sanction – which would hike prices and possibly trigger blackouts – makes a mockery of the prime minister’s claim to have “taken control” of British waters in his trade agreement, they say.
The little-noticed clause in the vast 1,255-page text allows Brussels to kick the UK out of its electricity and gas markets in June 2026, unless a fresh deal is agreed.
The date set is – deliberately – the same as for the review of fishing rights, when Mr Johnson has insisted the UK will finally grab a large share of stocks, having failed to do that in his agreement.
The Institute for Government said Brussels had been determined to secure a connection “between energy and fish” in the negotiations that finally concluded on Christmas Eve.
“It seems that, in the weeds of the deal, they’ve succeeded,” Maddy Thimont Jack, the IfG’s associate director, told The Independent:
“By including annual negotiations on energy from 2026, it would be very easy to leverage access to the EU’s energy market in the annual talks on fish – also starting in 2026.
“This is just another reason why the UK will likely struggle to take back control of any more of its waters in the years to come.”
Losing power supplies could have a significant impact on the UK, which brings in about 8 per cent of its demand through huge power cables under the Channel.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Warmer waters leave Irish anglers fishless
Warmer waters leave Irish anglers fishless
WTO Ruling on Dolphin-Safe Tuna Labeling Illustrates Supremacy of Trade Agreements
International trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) need to be carefully examined piece by piece because they can take precedence over a country’s own laws.
Case in point: the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Friday ruled that dolphin-safe tuna labeling rules — required by U.S. law, in an effort to protect intelligent mammals from slaughter — violate the rights of Mexican fishers.
As a result, the U.S. will have to either alter the law or face sanctions from Mexico.
I wrote a few weeks ago about how the “investor-state dispute settlement system” baked into trade agreements can force countries to compensate corporations when regulations cut into their profits.
The long-running quarrel over tuna reveals another way that domestic laws can be overturned by trade agreements: when countries can file trade challenges on behalf of domestic industries.
“This should serve as a warning against expansive trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership that would replicate rules that undermine safeguards for wildlife, clean air, and clean water,” said the Sierra Club’s Ilana Solomon in a statement.
In the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) of 1972, the United States banned importation of yellowfin tuna harvested with netting that also scooped up dolphins, which often swim in the eastern Pacific Ocean above yellowfin schools. Since the 1950s, millions of dolphins have been killed in the tuna fishing trade, but the MMPA resulted in significant reductions in dolphin deaths.
Mexico, which has more lax fishing standards than the U.S., launched trade challenges in 1990 to overturn the import ban. Other nations piled on to the trade challenges, seeking to force the U.S. to change its dolphin conservation practices.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The race to fish: how fishing subsidies are emptying our oceans
The race to fish: how fishing subsidies are emptying our oceans
Fish numbers are rapidly dwindling globally, and fishery subsidies are one of the key drivers behind this decline. In 2009, these subsidies totalled about US$35 billion, creating incentives for fishers around the world to increase their catch. But this short-term “race to fish” is jeopardising the long-term environmental, social, and economic security that fisheries offer us all.
My group at the University of British Columbia recently cast our net into the troubling waters of fishery subsidies, to see how this ship might be turned around.
Overfishing: a major issue facing our oceans
According to the recently released World Wildlife Fund Living Blue Planet Report, our oceans are in a bad state. Climate change, habitat destruction, and deep-sea mining are wreaking havoc on marine biodiversity.
But overfishing is in a league of its own.
The WWF report found that population numbers of utilised fish (those species used by humans for subsistence or commercial purposes) have fallen by half in the four decades from 1970 to 2010. A full 90% of fish stocks globally are now classified as either overexploited or fully exploited. Common seafood choices such as tuna, shrimp, whiting, and salmon are among the worst affected.
Only the very deepest parts of the oceans are currently safe from the pressure of fisheries. But how long this remains the case is yet to be seen. The demand for fish is growing the world over, driven by population growth, increased wealth, and the continued mass subsidisation of the fisheries industry.
Fishing subsidies are a global problem
The US$35 billion of subsidies that we estimate that were handed out globally in 2009 is not trivial. In fact, this figure constitutes between 30% and 40% of the landed values generated by marine fisheries worldwide.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Little Fish with Big Impact In Trouble on U.S. West Coast
Little Fish with Big Impact In Trouble on U.S. West Coast
Scientists are concerned that officials waited too long to order a ban on U.S. Pacific sardine fishing that goes into effect July 1. The dire state of the sardine population is a cautionary tale about overharvesting these and other forage fish that are a critical part of the marine food web.
One of the most spectacular fisheries collapses in U.S. history occurred off the West Coast in the 1950s, when hundreds of boats severely overfished a Pacific sardine population already in decline from a natural down-cycle. The resulting crash decimated the largest fishery in the Western Hemisphere, closed down Monterey, California’s famed Cannery Row, and so depressed sardine populations that they did not recover for nearly 40 years.
Given that record, it’s easy to understand the recent dismay of many fisheries scientists, who have watched U.S. Pacific sardine numbers plummet as fishing has continued amid another natural downturn. In April, after documenting an estimated 90 percent decline in the stock — from an estimated 1.4 million tons in 2007 to roughly 100,000 tons today — the Pacific Fishery Management Council decided to close the sardine fishery. That moratorium takes effect July 1.
The impacts are huge for the West Coast fishermen and seafood processors who have once again come to depend on sardines. In 2012, when nearly 100,000 tons of sardines were caught off the U.S. coast, this fishery was worth more than $21 million. But scientists are particularly concerned about what this means for the marine food web. Many fisheries experts, including some scientists working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), think the fishery closure has come too late.
‘We’ve failed to respond quickly and that’s pushed these fish to lower levels,’ says one scientist.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
