EU farmed fish policy reform roadmap brief
Summary
- The report argues that the highest value objective is improving the conditions of the species of fish farmed in the largest numbers of individuals and life-years in the EU: sea bass, sea bream, and (small) rainbow trout.
- The report argues that humane slaughter looks like the most
promising EU policy ask this year, and provides concrete
recommendations of what needs to be done to secure the most impactful version of
this policy
- There is a lot of economic and political precedent the aquatic
animal advocacy movement needs to start creating years in advance to make the
most of EFSA opinions on farmed fish welfare - the report discusses
what sort of evidence the movement might need in the report.
- The report discusses how the movement can reallocate resources and change
tactics depending on how the larger EU animal legislation reform is developing,
namely by shifting attention to gathering evidence on rearing
reforms.
- Please reach out to neil@rethinkpriorities.org to arrange a call to discuss the report.
Acknowledgments
This report is a project of Rethink Priorities–a think tank dedicated to informing decisions made by high-impact organizations and funders across various cause areas. The author is Neil Dullaghan. Thanks to Daniela R. Waldhorn for her guidance, Sagar Shah, Kieran Greig, Alice Di Concetto, Ren Springlea, Míriam Martínez, Doug Waley, Gautier Riberolles, and Dr Krzysztof Wojtas for their helpful feedback, and Adam Papineau for copyediting.
If you are interested in RP’s work, please visit our research database and subscribe to our newsletter.