The European Commission will make deep cuts in fishing quotas in 2009, it announced Friday. Eighty-eight percent of E.U. fish stocks are overexploited, the commission says, as compared to 80 percent a year ago. Total allowable catches for some species will be sliced by more than 25 percent. Scientists have advised that fishing for some species be halted altogether, but the commission is concerned about putting fisherfolk out of business. Notes the commission’s Ernesto Penas Lado, “If the fishing industry is against measures, then experience shows us that they are very difficult to implement.”
