While the EU has given the subject a wide birth so far, Member Governments such as Ireland and Spain and other countries around the world have been busy researching possibility of uncovering new species with commercial potential.
Ireland, for example, has been researching deep sea fishing possibilities in its waters since the late 1980s. The Irish Government believes there is substantial sustainable fishing opportunities on deep sea species, which it says could greatly assist European Union fishermen diversifying from traditional coastal fisheries requiring reduced outtakes.
Irish Fisheries Minister Frank Fahey said earlier this year in an interview with World Fishing that the EU should take three steps in relation to deep sea fishing. He suggested the EU should as a conservative measure address the very large and flexible deep sea fishing opportunities which it grants to third world countries in EU waters. Secondly he said the EU should require mandatory scientific data collection on all EU vessels fishing for deep sea species.
He also said that the EU should be working more closely with regional fisheries such as the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission to develop a common approach.
But scientists are keen to warn fishermen that deep sea fishing can never replace coastal traditional fishing. One man that shares that view is Professor John Beddington, head of the Department of Environmental Science and Technology at Imperial College in the UK.
He says that basically deep sea fishing is completly different from coastal fishing and there is no way it can been seen as a replacement.
"Deep sea fishing will not be a viable alternative in the future, it is just not possible to fish all deep sea areas sustainably, or in the way we have been fishing coastal waters," says Professor Beddington.
From a purely scientific point of view, Professor Beddington says the areas around which most deep sea species are found presents a problem.
There is generally a low level of energy and many species are slow to breed and grow. Some stocks in the deep sea can live to well over 25 years and therefore this has a knock on effect to yields and this also means that it the long run it is difficult to fish these areas sustainably.
"The deep seas are vastly less productive as a region than the waters on the continental shelf. In consequence their productivity in terms of producing large amounts of fish are strictly limited. They are unlikely to produce anything other than a relatively modest contribution to world fish catches, although the value of some of the species involved may be very high," says Professor Beddington.
Management of deep sea areas is also difficult, according to Professor Beddington. Firstly, deep sea species in Europe, for example, are often outside Member states 200 mile EEZ's and therefore come under regional fisheries management which often creates complex management problems.
Professor Beddington also says that EU is now on the right track as far as European fishing is concerned although he agrees with the majority of the industry that say the Common Fisheries Policy has not been very successful.
"It is fairly clear it has not been successful. The major problem has been global exploitation," says Professor Beddington, adding: "There are serious problems with the industry itself, people are not making any significant money but the EU is finally going in the right direction by reducing level of fishing capacity which can only be a sensible thing."
But Professor Beddington says the real issue is about complience: "What the industry and scientists need is effective good quality information to asses stocks but unfortunately quota management doesn't lead itself easy to complience, some form of effort control would be potentially much more easier to control to ensure complience and quality data," he says.
"I think we are moving towards mechanical quotas as well, but basically though the CFP has failed the industry in a bid way but If it wasn't in place the industry would probably be in a worse state."
Professor Beddington hopes the new CFP will produce the goods. He agrees that ending grants could be sensible if Europe is trying to reduce capacity.
"Scraping grants for new vessels is of cause sensible if there is over capacity but on the other hand you don't want lots of unsafe, old vessels in the fleet either. The real question is how do you modernise while reducing capacity. "
He adds: "The basic issue for European fishermen to remember is that you can clearly make profit from sustainable fisheries but you can't do it unless capacity is reduced in the first place.
I have a lot of sympathy for the views of European fishermen. Scientists and more importantly the data which they use can be wrong."
The EU has plans to reduce subsides in the new CFP. Between 1994 and 1999, the EU fishing industry received nearly EUR 3 billion in subsidies with two thirds of that coming directly from the EU.
Part of the remit for Professor Beddington and his colleague David Agnew is to give advice to various Governments, regional committees and other organisations on the management of fisheries.
South Georgia is just one example. As David Agnew states, it is also one area in the world where stocks are fairly healthy. Its waters also hold one of the most valuable stocks on the worldwide market at the moment, the toothfish.
Apart from toothfish there are two other main species, icefish and kril. The Icefish is currently in a rebuilding mode due to extensive fishing in the 1980s.
According to David Agnew, the tooth-fish stocks are stable. Level of illegal fishing is lower due to intensive patrols and tight regiemes. The country has a number of initiatives on control and operates a satillite programme which identifies vessels in the EEZ.
Kril is traditionally seasonal around South Georgia. There are currently a number of vessels fishing in South Georgia to take Kril and there have been developments into the on-board processing of the fish.
Vessels wishing to fish in South Georgian waters have to be members of the Antartic commission CAMALA and have to be licensed by the South Georgian Government.
"There is always very healthy interest in licences," says David Agnew.
Toothfish has been the topic of major disscussion in the past few years as it has become one of the main targets for the black market.
Because of this concern there could be soon regulation that restricts the trade of tooth fish that come from sustainably recognised fisheries.
David Agnew is keen to point out that there has been little illegal fishing for toothfish in South Georgia because of the successful control measures.
Professor John Beddington is Head of the Department of Environmental Science and Technology at Imperial College. He is the author of some 100 or so scientific papers in the field of fisheries and fisheries management. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2001 for his scientific work in fisheries and he is Chairman of the Marine Resources Assessment Group, a consulting company whose clients include the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK Dependant Territory Governments, Government, the Australian Government, theItalian Government and the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation.
