Fish discards. (Photo: YouTube/hughsfishfight)

Baltic illegal discarding worsens despite landing obligation

EUROPEAN UNION
Friday, November 17, 2017, 21:50 (GMT + 9)

Compliance with the reformed Common Fisheries Policy’s Landing Obligation is almost non-existent in the Baltic Sea, exposing the European seafood supply chain to unprecedented levels of illegal behaviour, a new report warns.

The document, titled Thrown Away: How Illegal Discarding in the Baltic Sea is Failing EU Fisheries and Citizens and published by campaign group Our Fish, urges EU Member States to immediately act on implementation of proven monitoring and enforcement programs in order to end illegal and wasteful discarding.

The analysis finds EU government responses to the Landing Obligation have in some cases made discarding worse while clear advice on effective tools to monitor and control the law is being ignored.

The campaign group insists that this situation is failing the almost 900,000 EU citizens who actively supported a ban on discards during the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).

“EU citizens expect national governments and EU authorities to uphold the laws they have signed up to – yet fisheries ministers are not keeping their end of the bargain,” said Our Fish Programme Director Rebecca Hubbard.

“If EU governments are serious about ending wasteful and illegal discarding, it is clear that they have to stop dodging responsibility, and put in place effective electronic monitoring and enforcement programs, only giving quota top-ups to fishing fleets who can prove that they comply with the law,” she stated.

Hubbard pointed out that retailers and customers throughout Europe may be shocked to find out that cod on their supermarket shelves is likely to be from a Baltic fishery that is illegally discarding.

In her view, retailers should insist that electronic monitoring is promptly implemented in order to ensure compliance in the supply chain, clarifying that the problem of discards is particularly alarming in the case of Baltic cod, but not at all limited to these fisheries.

The published report outlines how 90 per cent of undersize Baltic cod is still being discarded – in 2016 alone, some 11.5 million Baltic Sea cod were discarded illegally. In addition, it stresses that the reduction in Minimum Conservation Reference Size for eastern Baltic cod has resulted in a worsening of fishing selectivity, through the incentivising of commercialization of smaller size eastern cod, and has had no apparent effect on reducing discard rates.

Furthermore, the report includes a series of recommendations, such as:

• Initiate electronic monitoring programmes, starting with demersal mixed trawl fisheries, to improve data collection and compliance rates, and gather evidence of suspected violations;
• Allocate TAC adjustments to national fishing fleets that have high at-sea monitoring coverage or can demonstrate that they are complying with the LO; and
• Reallocate quota at a national level to those vessels that can demonstrate they are operating in compliance with the LO.

 
editorial@seafood.media
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