| 22/12/2005
- Brussels, Belgium – With last night’s decisions, EU
Fisheries Ministers have effectively written off cod in
the North Sea. WWF, the global conservation organisation,
condemns the outcome of the annual Fisheries Council decision
on quotas for fishing in EU waters for the coming year
as totally unsustainable.
Despite the last three years’ scientific
advice from ICES recommending zero catch for cod, the
EU Fisheries Council has once again given a green light
to fishing cod in the North-Sea. Not only has the quota
for the last three years in total been above 81,000 tonnes,
but the 2006 quotas for other fish stocks with significant
accidental catches of cod – such as nephrops – have also
increased compared to last year.
“It makes no sense to allow fishing
on a stock which has collapsed”, says Charlotte Mogensen,
Fisheries Policy Officer at WWF European Policy Office.
“Now it is clear that cod has no chance of recovering
and this is just the first of many fish stocks that we
are losing because of the mismanagement of European fisheries.”
With 80 per cent of commercial fish
species in EU waters now below safe biological limits
or classified as being at risk of overfishing, the EU
must listen and respond to ICES advice.
“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 cod in the North Sea. Spurdog, skates and rays in the
North Sea, leafscale gulper shark and portuguese are also
near collapse but quotas have still been set - against
independent scientific advice”, added Charlotte Mogensen.
Note:
• According to ICES (the International Council for the
Exploration of the Sea) , North-Sea cod suffers reduced
reproductive capacity and is being harvested unsustainably.
Zero catch is therefore recommended to avoid further depletion
of the stock. |
