EU Green Paper

It starts with a fictional “Vision for European Fisheries”: fish becomes staple high-quality produce for the more than half a billion European consumers; decline of European catches stops around 2015; the increasing fish imports trend is starting to reverse; overfishing becomes a thing of the past.

And the science fiction continues: fish stocks are restored to their MSY, increasing considerably from the 2010 levels; fishermen earn more so that young people return to fishing; Europe’s fishing industry becomes environmentally friendly, just of the right size for the TACs, and far more financially robust, so no need for financial support; small-scale fisheries now integrated with other economic sectors happily produce high-quality, valuable fresh fish for which there’s a growing demand; CFP is cheap and simple; fishermen are responsible and well-behaved and even consulted on technical matters.

Well, the science fiction carries on with the fantasy also outside Europe until the GP returns eventually to its blue reality and gets down to brass tacks - admitting that the “vision” is a far cry from the current reality of overfishing, fleet overcapacity, heavy subsidies, low economic resilience and decline in European catches. In an obvious understatement it says that “the current CFP has not worked well enough to prevent those problems".

I still remember the 2001 GP, which also painted the situation of European fisheries under CFP in gloomy colours, promising reform and improvements. The 2009 GP hardly finds any of those. This time it promises to really tackle the root problems. This time, it says, it must be "a sea change cutting to the core reasons behind the vicious circle in which Europe’s fisheries have been trapped in recent decades”.

Many scientists and fishermen question the usefulness of fixing TACs for separate species and applying them to multi-species fisheries. The 2001 GP suggested that "it may be preferable to manage groups of stocks for well-defined fisheries. The setting-up of a true effort management regime could be one of the means to approach multi-species management”, which "may imply the need for measures tailored” to specific situations. Fair enough, but what the 2001 GP had failed to mention was that multi-species management would require almost “revolutionary” changes in the system based on single-species models – since the 1950s the Alpha-and-Omega of the stock assessment methodology.

The GP digs up indeed a root problem, saying that single-species quotas applied to mixed fisheries create unwanted bycatch, which leaves fishermen with no choice but to discard the fish that they are no longer allowed to land. In other words, large amounts of perfectly marketable, but already dead fish are dumped at sea, because they are the wrong species (no quota), too many (insufficient quota), or, when the catches also contain smaller fish, to make place (within the quota) for more valuable/large fish (highgrading). On the top of it, unreported dumping and highgrading distort the data on which stock assessments are based.

The GP bravely states that "the future CFP should ensure that discarding no longer takes place”, and even dares to suggest considering management based on fishing effort such as limiting the days at sea instead. No doubt, to eliminate discards, the whole quota system as applied to the EU fisheries must be reviewed, or at least, the Norwegian way applied of obligating fishermen to land all fish captured.

On the other hand, however, the GP doesn’t even mention that there’s a major problem with selective fishing. The multi-decadal practice of creaming the larger and faster-growing individuals off commercial fish populations, so that what’s left is mainly the smaller and slow-growing ones, has been questioned by several researchers quoting both experimental and theoretical studies. But, in the eyes of the official science and management such selective fishing is a holy gospel, while in the eyes of the doubting Thomasses – a “holy cow”, if not a “holy crocodile”.

Doubtless, larger and mature fish become rare when fisheries target only them, dwarfing the size composition of fish populations, perhaps also genetically (see this column of July 2008). Unfortunately the GP seems unaware of the above mentioned criticism and related studies. The most it says is (with respect to management means) that the new CFP would “give industry the authority to develop the best solutions economically and technically”. However, in this case, it’s is not the technical improvement of selective gear that is needed, but serious revision of the whole selectivity principle, which is not just a “technical” question. This issue requires a full scientific re-evaluation of the generations-old practice.

So, how adequate is the scientific advice supplied to the EU’s fisheries management The 2001 GP had said that: "There are significant gaps and weaknesses in scientific advice and information” and that the limited number of "competent fishery scientists and economists …are often … too involved in the year-to-year routine” and have no time for innovative thinking and for producing management alternatives. That GP had said that more interdisciplinary effort was needed to learn how to integrate fishing into aquatic ecosystems, etc., etc. It also said that they "must maintain an open channel to fishermen’s own knowledge". Well, well, I found all this also in the 2009 GP. Different language, perhaps, but mostly more of the same. So what has happened during the last eight years in terms of better management? My conclusion: not much, and since the degree of compliance depends very much on the fishermen’ assessment of the validity of the science fed to the management, not much will happen without putting the whole fishery science and its methodology under a serious and open discussion.

But the 2009 GP raises also many other questions prodding for comments and ideas. Those should be addressed to: mare-cfp-consultation@ec.europa.eu.