A new study of the implementation of the landing obligation (LO) has found control and enforcement remain challenging.
The study by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries also looks at the impact of LO on discard rates. The landing obligation has been fully in force since 2019 after a phasing-in period from 2015.
In addition to control and enforcement of the landing obligation remain challenging, the study found that Member States have not adopted the necessary control measures and that significant undocumented discarding of catches occur.
Traditional v modern control
A key aspect of the study concerns the effectiveness and efficiency of traditional vs modern control tools to monitor the landing obligation. The study concludes that remote electronic monitoring (REM) tools are the most effective and cost-efficient means (although some stakeholders raised issues such as privacy and costs). REM has been trialled by various Member States, but not been rolled out on a large scale.
In its proposal for a revised fisheries control system (COM/2018/368 final), currently negotiated with Council and Parliament, the Commission supports the use of such modern control tools. On the other hand, the study points to important shortcomings of traditional control tools (at-sea inspections and dockside/auction inspections of the landings/logbooks), as they only provide a snapshot of compliance at the time of monitoring.
No clear trends
Secondly, the study concludes that the discard rates do not yet show clear trends or patterns as a result of the landing obligation. It was considered that there is a lack of evidence of changes in discarding practice, and that discarding is still taking place. Stakeholders contributing to the study identified a number of possible explanations, including complex legislation and regulation and the substantial adaptation to be undertaken on board vessels. The study provides suggestions on how to alleviate these challenges through improved logbooks and trainings. While stakeholders have already worked on this during the transition phase, further room for improvement remains, according to the study.
