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.