The current measures to try and help ailing cod stocks to recover have had a disastrous knock on effect of the entire whitefish fishing fleet, local MEP Sir Robert Atkins said earlier today.
Cod stocks were given a boost recently after the European Parliament backed proposals from the European Commission that aim to update the failing 2004 cod recovery plan, which until now only covered cod stocks in the North Sea, Kattegat and Skaggerak, the Eastern Channel, the Irish Sea and West of Scotland but will soon also include the Celtic Sea, south of the Irish Sea.
Under the current system of micromanagement, fishermen are forced to throw back (or discard) tonnes of healthy fish when they are abundant in catches. New proposals first mooted by the Fisheries Committee will attempt to overcome this by encouraging both fishermen and member states to engage in cod-avoidance programs and efforts to reduce discards of perfectly healthy fish.
The Committee has also proposed that all cod caught ought to be landed, rather than discarded, so as to enable proper scientific evaluation of stocks.
“Every year tonnes of healthy edible fish is tipped back into the sea, despite current food shortages, because of the EU’s obsession with recovering cod stocks,” Atkins commented.
“More and more fishermen are going out of business because of what is now a futile attempt to preserve a species that has moved out of our waters anyway.”
Atkins feels that unless global warming is reversed and the North Sea cools down, cod will not return to our waters and blames climate change, not over fishing, for the decline in fish stock numbers.
There is eveidence to suggest that climate change has contributed to cod decline. A published study of cod stocks off Canada and New England in 2007 showed that the cod stocks grew and declined at about the same time, revealing that environmental factors played a stronger role in the collapse of the cod fishery than previously thought.
Recent scientific advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) now suggests that the reductions in cod catches arising from the collective effect of total allowable landings (TACs), technical measures and complementary effort management measures have been far from sufficient to reduce fishing mortality to levels required to allow the cod stocks to rebuild.
None of the four cod stocks covered by the current recovery plan show clear signs of recovery, “although Committee MEPs say that stocks in the North and Celtic Seas are showing some signs of improvement.
“While I back the new proposals, the EU must end its obsession with cod stocks,” says Atkins, “otherwise more fisherman will go out of business and we’ll continue to see tonnes of perfectly healthy fish simply tossed away.”