Oceana has urged the Agriculture and Fisheries Council of the EU to rebuild Baltic stocks by prioritising science and long-term sustainability over politics, reminding the Council that it is legally bound to return fisheries to sustainable levels before 2020.
The organisation has just released its science-based recommendations for setting Total Allowable Catches (TACs) and quotas in the region to rebuild overexploited fisheries.
These recommendations come just ahead of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council of the EU meeting which will be held in Luxembourg on 22 October where annual negotiations on catch limits for the Baltic Sea will take place.
"European fisheries ministers must stop ignoring scientific advice and definitely abandon the political short-term perspective. The consequence of their approach is that 4 out of 10 Baltic stocks are still being overfished,” said Lasse Gustavsson, executive director of Oceana in Europe.
In order to end overfishing in the Baltic, Oceana recommends in its report that the Council of EU fisheries ministers sets the TACs for eastern cod stock at no more than 29,220 tonnes and maximum 7,797 tonnes for western cod stock, according to the advice of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES).
It also recommends that it stops all directed sprat fisheries in areas 25-26 and redistributes fishing effort to the northern areas to allow cod stocks to recover.
The western cod stock has had a long history of overfishing. Oceana said that the European Commission failed to present a proposal for 2016 and left the decision over this stock entirely to EU states.
