Thursday 22 December 2005

The meeting in Brussels, chaired by UK fisheries Minister Ben Bradshaw, agreed in the early hours of this morning on quotas for critical stocks such as cod and plaice.

Even though the quota for cod has been cut by 15 per cent, this is not going to be enough to guarantee the recovery of the species. WWF is concerned that 2006 quotas for other fish stocks such as Nephrops (Dublin Bay Prawns), which include significant accidental catches of juvenile cod, have also been increased by EU Ministers.

"It makes no sense to continue to allow targeted fishing on a stock that is on the verge of collapse. This decision gives cod only a small chance of recovery," said Andrew Lee, Director of Campaigns at WWF. "Once cod has disappeared from UK waters the EU fishing fleet will increasingly target other cod stocks in Arctic waters, putting them under similar pressure."

One area of particular concern for WWF is that the bycatch of cod is still too high, especially when the fishermen use nets with small mesh sizes which means that the young fish cannot escape.

Nephrops are one of Scotland's most valuable fisheries and the independent scientists of ICES recently advised no increase in effort for 2006 for the fishery to remain sustainable. However, despite this advice, the EC has allowed a substantial increase in the catch for Nephrops fisheries around Scotland's coasts, without incorporating adequate technical measures such as increased net mesh sizes, that are necessary to allow juvenile cod to escape.

Helen Davies, WWF Fisheries policy officer said: "In a mixed fishery such as the UK, fishermen should use selective fishing gear and larger meshed nets to ensure that they catch fish stocks that are in a healthy condition and reduce fishing pressure on stocks already at risk."

For the last four years official fisheries scientists - the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) - have recommended a zero quota for cod even though the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) over the last three years has been above 81,000 tonnes in total.

"If the EU continues this madness of setting quotas above what the species can support, other fish stocks will follow the same route to collapse as North Sea cod. Skates and rays in the North Sea, leafscale gulper sharks, Spurdog, and Portuguese dogfish are also near collapse but quotas have still been set - against independent scientific advice," added Claire Pescod, Marine Policy Officer, WWF Scotland.

One bright spot on the horizon was the banning of the highly wasteful gill net fishery for deepwater monkfish off the west coast of Scotland. Thousands of kilometres of fine meshed nets are thrown overboard every year catching vulnerable deep sea species such as sharks and orange roughy.