MARINE ENVIRONMENT AND FISHING COMMUNITIES

That this House notes the publication of the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership Report, which indicates that the cod species has moved northwards in the North Sea as a result of sea warming changing the distribution of plankton; calls for these findings to be accorded serious consideration by policymakers in the UK fishery departments and the European Commission who have been pursuing a deeply damaging policy designed to restore the cod species to areas of the North Sea that may be no longer suitable, thereby occasioning drastic fishing-effort reductions which have impacted on the allowable catches of plentiful species such as haddock and nephrops; and demands that no further attacks on the livelihoods of coastal communities be contemplated without a proper understanding and review of the complex forces at work in the marine environment.