Greenpeace  24 April, 2015: ‘A full judicial review into the government’s decision to continue to give nearly the entire UK fishing quota to domestic industrial and foreign corporations, at the expense of local, low impact fishermen, has been given the green light by the High Court.    Justice Andrews granted permission to Greenpeace to argue that this decision by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) is unlawful because it contravenes new European fishing law, the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).’

Jerry Percy of the Low Impact Fishers of Europe said:

“It remains a fundamental travesty that massive, foreign controlled vessels, towing huge nets in relatively shallow inshore waters, with engine power 80 times bigger than many local boats, are given vast amounts of British fishing quota by our government, when our own smaller scale sustainable fishermen’s boats are tied up and facing bankruptcy. The government needs to put this law into action and put low impact, local fishermen first in the queue for quota.”

Greenpeace believes that according to the CFP, local, low impact fishermen should receive more fishing quota because they fish more sustainably, have lower CO2 emissions and provide greater employment and job creation opportunities than the industrial scale fleet. The reformed CFP requires EU Member States to set out the criteria they will use to decide how fishing quota will be allocated to fishing businesses.  DEFRA has not changed its criteria for the way it distributes fishing quota publically since the new CFP came into force in January 2014.  To read more go to: