[A-List] Europe's fisheries near collapse

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

From New Scientist News Service:-


"Make or break" for Europe's fisheries

10:33 29 May 02 Debora MacKenzie, Brussels

The unveiling of the European Commission's last-ditch effort to save
Europe's fisheries on Tuesday has unleashed a desperate political battle in
Brussels.

"It's make or break time," said Franz Fischler, EU fisheries Commissioner,
as the Commission approved a proposed Common Fisheries Policy that would
slash Europe's fleet, pay fishermen to change jobs - and finally pay
attention to scientists after a decade of warnings.

Now the plan must be approved by EU fisheries ministers, but there will be
immense opposition. The reason is clear: Europe must slash its fishing
fleet to halt overfishing, but those cuts will result in tens of thousands
of jobs being lost.

In launching its new plan, the Commission stated that "10 vessels are
chasing fish that five or six could catch without damaging the fish stocks
or harming the environment".

Fischler wants to cut fishing effort by 30 to 60 per cent, and to cut fleet
tonnage by 18 per cent, by 2006. Spain has by far Europe's largest fleet
and therefore has most to lose. It is unlikely to give in without a fight.


Permanent collapse

Yet scientists at the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas
in Copenhagen warn that without such measures, Spain's and every other
European country's fishermen could find themselves permanently unemployed.
Some stocks, especially cod in the North Sea, are perilously close to
potentially permanent collapse.

In an unusually frank memo accompanying the proposal, the Commission noted
that since 1987 Europe's fisheries ministers have consistently set catch
quotas higher than scientists recommended.

Quotas are set once a year at an all-night political session. The new plan,
the Commission promises, "will end the annual political horse-trading about
... quotas, and replace it with multi-annual catch targets within safe
biological limits".

Most innovatively, the Commission proposes using 460 million Euros
earmarked for "modernising" fishing vessels - funds that often ended up
surreptitiously increasing fishing capacity - to instead find fishermen
other jobs.

The threat of unemployment in fishing regions is the main reason ministers
have been unwilling to cut catches and capacity in the past. But the
Commission notes that falling catches lost the industry almost a quarter of
its jobs during the 1990s.