Oceans and seas || Protect and restore the health of oceans and maintain marine biodiversity by mitigiating the impacts from human activity Could include ecosystem approach to management of activities, habitat degradation, threatened species, ensuring protected and sustainably managed areas within and beyond national jurisdictions || Ensure sustainable fisheries (healthy fish stocks) Could include restoring fish stocks to levels that can produce maximum sustainable yield, fleet overcapacity, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, by-catch and discard, and use of ecosystem approaches ...[+++] || Ensure access to fisheries at local, regional and global levels by subsistence, small-scale fishers. Could include small-scale and artisanal fisherfolk, women fish workers, as well as indigenous peoples and their communities. || Reduce marine pollution and litter including from land-based sources Could include land and marine sources, marine debris. || ||

3. The CFP shall implement the ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management so as to ensure that negative impacts of fishing activities on the marine ecosystem are minimised, and shall endeavour to ensure that aquaculture and fisheries activities avoid the degradation of the marine environment.

An ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management needs to be implemented, environmental impacts of fishing activities should be limited and unwanted catches should be avoided and reduced as far as possible.

'ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management' means an integrated approach to managing fisheries within ecologically meaningful boundaries which seeks to manage the use of natural resources, taking account of fishing and other human activities, while preserving both the biological wealth and the biological processes necessary to safeguard the composition, structure and functioning of the habitats of the ecosystem affected, by taking into account the knowledge and uncertainties regarding biotic, abiotic and human components of ecosystems;

|| Multi-annual plans focused on essential objectives, targets, boundaries and time frames, based on the ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management

On 13 October 2003, the Council adopted conclusions concerning the Commission’s Communication to the Council and the European Parliament on the improvement of scientific and technical advice for Community fisheries management, describing the Community’s needs for scientific advice, setting out the mechanisms for providing advice, identifying the areas where system needs to be strengthened and suggesting possible solutions over the short to medium and long term.