The European Union’s (EU) fishing fleet has struggled with overcapacity, which has led to overexploitation of fish stocks. Since the 2013 Common Fishery Policy (CFP) last reform, efforts to promote sustainable fisheries have resulted in healthier fish stocks and a reduction in fleet size. While EU fleets now comply with capacity limits, challenges remain, threatening sustainability and the fishing sector’s viability. Despite i...

Marine litter is recognized as a global environmental concern. Seafloor litter can provide important information to help assess the status of the marine ecosystem and is relatively easy to collect on a regular basis. The Belgian fisheries area covers different parts of the OSPAR Greater North Sea region and the Celtic Seas. In these regions, seafloor litter data were gathered by quantifying the litter items caught in the trawl...

Monitoring the occurrence and trends of microplastic contamination in the marine environment is key to establish microplastic (MP) data baselines, to work out policy mitigation measures, and to assess the effectiveness of waste regulations. To establish MP contamination baselines in the marine environment, marine biota species can be selected as monitoring matrices to track plastic pollution in the environment. The aim of this...