EU commission urges fishing cuts

By Richard Black

April 21, 2009

The European Union has far too many fishing boats, and major cuts are needed
to make fishing sustainable, according to the European Commission.

The commission's green paper on Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform also
says fishermen should be given more responsibility for managing stocks. A
copy obtained by BBC News prior to publication on Wednesday says 30% of EU
fish stocks are beyond safe limits. It says member states "micro-manage"
decisions for political reasons.

Despite major reforms in 2002, it concludes, the reality for EU fish and
fishermen consists of "overfishing, fleet overcapacity, heavy subsidies, low
economic resilience and decline in the volume of fish caught".

Eighty-eight percent of EU stocks are fished beyond their maximum
sustainable yield - the highest catch that can be maintained over an
indefinite period - and for some, such as North Sea cod, the vast majority
of fish are caught before they have reproduced.

Fishermen would end up richer, the commission concludes, by reducing catches
until depleted stocked recover - but the system is set up to ensure
short-term profits are the driving factor. Many aspects of the commission's
analysis agree with the positions that environmental groups have taken down
the years.

Across the EU, fleet capacity has come down, the commission says, but only
about 2-3% per year. Meanwhile, technological improvements are making boats
2-3% more efficient every year - so the capacity reductions are having
little effect.

The commission's scientifically derived proposals on sustainable catch
levels are routinely revised upwards when EU environment ministers meet,
traditionally in late December, to set quotas for the year following.

Although fishermens' groups often blame the commission for quotas they
consider too low, the green paper argues that many member states have been
guilty of seeking to maintain high quotas on depleted stocks for political
reasons.

Falling stocks mean lower catches, and what the document describes as "a
vicious circle of overfishing, overcapacity and low economic resilience
(resulting in) high political pressure to increase short-term fishing
opportunities at the expense of future sustainability of the industry".

Without naming names, the paper's wording makes it clear that the commission
thinks some countries have a much better track record on this point than
others.

The green paper recognises that achieving sustainable catch levels means
working with fishermen, encouraging them to develop their own methods of
sustainable management and creating incentives that promote a long-term
perspective.

One option raised is expanding the use of transferable quotas, where
fishermen "own" the right to fish for many years, so gaining from managing
the stock sustainably.

SeaFish, the UK's government-supported industry body, broadly welcomed the
green paper.

Among the commission's other ideas are:

* removing all remaining subsidies, such as cheap fuel
* increasing the effectiveness of inspections and penalties for
rule-breaking
* differentiating between the rights of small-scale community-based coastal
fishing boats and large industrial concerns
                Source: BBC News
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8008939.stm