Thursday 18 October 2001

Now or Never – the cost of Canada's cod collapse and the disturbing parallels with the UK, shows that our fishing industry is disintegrating before our eyes. Between the mid-1960s and 1999, total UK landings by the UK fishing fleet declined by 55 per cent and the value of these catches was reduced by 77 per cent - a decline of £684 million. The profitability of a major part of the industry fell to an unsustainable 0.1 per cent of cash invested in the business.

Imminent collapse
Dr Sarah Jones, WWF's marine policy officer, said: "Canada's cod stocks never recovered, and the disaster continues to cost hundreds of millions of pounds each year. Europe has yet to learn the fundamental lesson from the Canadian experience: repeatedly putting off long-term benefits due to short-term costs resulted in expensive disasters. Successive UK governments have ignored the advice from their own scientists, leaving fish stocks and the fishing industry facing the threat of imminent collapse."

"In the UK, current measures to conserve fish are so restricted that it would be astonishing if North Sea cod did not collapse. For almost 15 years, cod catches agreed by EU governments have generally exceeded the advice of scientists. However, it's not just North Sea cod that is threatened; the problem extends to the Irish Sea and to the West coast of Scotland. Indeed all the other major fish stocks are now threatened, including haddock, whiting, saithe and plaice."

A strategic recovery programme
The report argues that a strategic recovery programme for UK fish stocks is urgently required. This would result in major economic, social and environmental gains, as well as increasing future tax returns. However, because the fishing industry cannot absorb the short-term investment necessary for such a programme, it is now essential that the Treasury indicate that it is willing to underwrite the process, providing a robust economic case is made and steps are taken to ensure that the agreed measures are implemented. WWF is already working with industry, retailers and other interest groups to ensure that these conditions can be met. This approach is very different from the damaging and unjustified subsidies of past policy.

A successful UK recovery programme for the major stocks alone could result in fish being landed to the value of £400m a year (as it was before 1980) compared with the £196m realised in 1999. This does not include the added value from fish processing or the detrimental impact on our balance of payments of importing more fish.

"If the Treasury does not act, the fishing industry will inevitably damage the environment in a desperate struggle for short-term survival," said Matthew Davis, leader of WWF's Oceans Recovery Campaign. "The damage will be long-term and may be irreversible, as shown by the failure of the Canadian cod stocks to recover."

Decommissioning of surplus fishing capacity is likely to be one important element of recovery programmes. The Scottish Fishermen's Federation, supported by WWF, called for funding for decommissioning and – in a change of policy since devolution – has won the agreement of the Scottish Executive to provide up to £25m this year, which could make a substantial difference. In contrast, in England and Wales, just £6m of additional funds was eventually found in response to the crisis. In Canada the lost fishery is estimated to have cost in the order of C$1.75bn (about £875m) a year.