Balticsea 2020

Fishery: The discard ban – now is the time for action

Discards has been one of the major problems of the EU's Common Fisheries Policy. Approximately one-fourth edible fish caught within the EU is thrown back, making it a total of 1, 7 million tons of fish per year. In the Baltic Sea about ten percent of the catch is thrown back in the sea. Completely unnecessarily.

The EU has now decided on a new fishing management which means that all fish that are caught need to be landed - the so-called discard ban. The discard ban will be implemented in Europe in the beginning of January 2015. In line with the new regionalization of fisheries management the member states can submit proposals on how they want to implement the ban.

BalticSea2020s proposals on the implementation of the discard ban

BalticSea2020 has developed a proposal for the Baltic Sea, which we believe will help the fishermen adapt to the discard ban, not to mention simplifying the rules so that the fishermen have more freedom to develop their fishing gears. It will give fishermen the opportunity to develop fishing gears and fishing patterns to avoid unwanted by-catches. The proposal also provides significant regulatory simplification that provides opportunities for fishermen to use their knowledge and ideas, for example, to reduce the fuel consumption of fishing gears. This proposal builds on an earlier proposal from Denmark and consists of two options:

1) Either fishermen can choose a less stringent control, similar to the present and continue fishing according to the present regulations of gears, efforts and quotas.
2) As an option fishermen can choose the more tight control of a fully documented fishery but will be excepted from regulations on fishing gears and therefore free to design their fishing gears in the optimum way, fish as many days as the need to catch their quota and also catch the whole quota. In order to provide exceptions to these rules without risking illegal fishing, fishermen need to prove that their recorded catch is correct. They therefore have to have CCTV cameras onboard filming the catch (not the crew), or have observers on board.

We think this option would pave the way for an introduction of a results based management and allow for a gradual testing and introduction of new tools without disrupting the present management system.

Read more in the brochure Discard ban – Now is the time for action (in Swedish).