Bakalar

FINAL CALL

for Eastern Baltic cod

Protest of Polish small-scale fishers. Warsaw, 27 February 2019 (photo: M. Ruciński)

Warsaw, 15th of March 2019

Marcin Ruciński

Sustaining the Eastern Baltic cod stock has been priority a for LIFE, given the historical importance of this stock as the very basis for livelihoods of many of our Members in the Baltic Sea…

Well, that is now history as far as the fishers’ livelihoods are concerned!

LIFE’s call for action[1] by the decision-makers in the last Baltic fisheries Council in October 2018, based on thorough analysis of different drivers of the stock situation, largely went unheeded. Things have gone from bad to worse since that time. Already last November, a drastic deterioration in the situation of the stock was visible thorough increasingly empty cod nets of many fishers. This was confirmed by the annual series of research cruises organized by the national scientific institutes.

Thanks to the timely initiative by the Baltic Sea Advisory Council[2], there was an opportunity to hear about the preliminary results of the latest scientific work already in late January; perhaps a discussion about the virtues of spawning protection could have been added. The mood at this hearing was as grim as the deterioration of the cod situation the participants witnessed. BSAC has unanimously agreed that Eastern Baltic cod is in acute critical state and that all possible measures must be explored in establishing an emergency plan for this stock.

A week later, the key scientific experts and their most renowned benchmarking counterparts met for an ICES benchmark workshop on Baltic cod. They have, at long last, made decisive progress towards establishing an assessment model for the Eastern Baltic cod stock – at least that’s what the author was given to understand as a non-scientific observer to this workshop. In terms of the stock status, the mood in the room was as grim as at the BSAC meeting, summed up by one scientist who speculated that the best we can do is “leave the biomass in the water and hope for the best”.

Some three weeks on, many of the Polish small-scale fishers protesting in Warsaw[3] declared that they have not yet caught any cod this year – or just a few. They urgently called that the decision-makers be informed of their grim situation, so that they act without delay.

Well, dear decision-makers, LIFE is informing you! It is time to act.

Given the very serious situation described above, which is at last seen by others (see the attached European Commission letter to BALTFISH and BSAC Chairs), the time for pondering how the stock got into this state or in pointing the finger to defend one’s own interests, is over. The time for decision has come.

LIFE’s proposal is straightforward and based on the wise words of the scientist cited above, coupled with the fundamental need for recruitment success to guarantee sustainability for any commercial fish stock.

LIFE advocates establishing, already for this year 2019, for the cod pre-spawning and peak spawning time, a biological rest period for the Baltic: a complete closure for all the fisheries targeting cod and pelagic species, the main food for cod, as well as all other fisheries known for significant cod by-catch risk, in subdivisions 25 and 26, between 1 May and 30 September. The affected fishers may be compensated for this harsh measure with temporary cessation monies from the EMFF.

We must avoid the Newfoundland cod scenario from the 1990s happening in the Baltic!

♦ ♦ ♦

[1]https://lifeplatform.eu/action-plan-for-eastern-baltic-cod/

[2]http://www.bsac.dk/getattachment/Meetings/BSAC-meetings/BSAC-Executive-Committee-meeting-(4)/BSACExComThememeeting29012019REPORTandSTATEMENTFINALOK.pdf.aspx?lang=en-GB, „theme meeting” part

[3]https://lifeplatform.eu/poland-ssfs-protest-against-the-situation-in-the-baltic-sea/

A Glimmer of Hope for Baltic Cod, overshadowed by discards and food scarcity in the East 

Ribolovne mogućnosti u Baltičkom moru za 2018.: LIFE stavovi

Warsaw, 10 July 2017

Marcin Ruciński

As every year, the prospects for LIFE’s members, and the fate of the resources they depend on, hang on the discussions, negotiations, and decisions on setting catch levels and accompanying measures for Baltic fisheries in 2018. Our position, based on numerous discussions with our Members, is outlined below, a position that is also briefly reflected in the relevant BSAC Recommendation[1]. For the sake of sustaining both small scale fishing livelihoods in the Baltic and the resources they depend on, we very much hope to be heard and heeded by decision-makers.

1. Western Baltic cod: building on hope and luck, use the opportunities carefully!

Precaution is of paramount importance for any fisheries management. Too much optimism on Western cod, notable in decisions taken until 2015, has led us to the brink of stock collapse last year. This year, we were lucky with a very strong year class of 2016, which allows us to look at the future of this stock, so immensely important to many small-scale fishing communities, with a glimmer of hope.

A glimmer of hope, however, must not be answered by recklessness. So, no tampering please with the management measures that have enabled the recovery we are now starting to observe. This goes particularly for the extended spawning protection, which LIFE advocated as top priority last year. The closed season enacted last year must not change. Any relaxation here, let alone its abolishment, would be premature and risky for the fragile stock recovery, based as it is on just one year class. It may well be that prolonging the spawning closure in question, enacted back in 2015, allowed for the successful 2016 spawning.

The newly recruited cod need additional protection from being prematurely caught and discarded in trawl fisheries. As the results of EFCA campaigns[2] show, this risk is terribly real with trawls currently in use and industry practices at sea. Therefore, LIFE lends its careful and conditional support for the repeated BSAC calls to promote the use of innovative mobile gears. The condition of our support is simple: there must be strong “checks and balances” by the authorities, at both national and EU level, ensuring that: a) new gears have been proven more selective than the currently used ones in a transparent scientific peer-review process, and b) intensive at-sea inspection campaigns are undertaken to weed out and deter from any practices nullifying selectivity.

On the TAC level, at LIFE we trust in the wisdom of decision-makers, as last year. We hope they will be mindful of the heavy TAC cut last year, swallowed with big difficulty by small-scale, low impact fleets. Many of us were forced to switch to fishing flatfishes for part of the season, with rather poor economic results. We note that ICES advice allows for a moderate TAC increase (around +9%), in full compliance with the multiannual plan. The real levels of discards in trawls observed by EFCA make case for the use of Article 17 of CFP Basic Regulation even stronger. We therefore very much hope that any increase will predominantly benefit those who behave responsibly and whose activities have the lowest possible impact on the resources.

2. Eastern Baltic cod: curb illegal discarding and think of the food chain!

At first glance, ICES advice for the stock does not differ very substantially from that of last year. The difference in advised level of catches is about 3%. There are two particularly worrying signs though: the decline in stock size indicator and the level of discards, which ICES considers to be much higher than officially reported. This is confirmed by what our Members observe, and the situation seems to be even worse than last year in certain areas. It is therefore of paramount importance that the illegal cod discarding problem in the Eastern Baltic is urgently addressed – both by introducing innovative, more selective towed gears peer-reviewed by scientists i stepped-up at-sea inspections to weed out and deter any practices from nullifying selectivity.

It is equally important to analyze and fully respect the ICES advice, which points to the important role played by large-scale pelagic fisheries in current cod condition, characterized by food deprivation. ICES confirm the view already expressed by LIFE last year[3] that there is excessive effort on forage fish, which makes their long-standing call for a spatial management plan for large pelagic fisheries in subdivisions 25-26 stronger than ever.

Managers must no longer ignore this call. The arguments presented by large pelagic fleet representatives simply won’t wash: modern pelagic trawlers of 25 meters length and (much) more are perfectly able to steam north of Subdivisions 25-26 to reap the benefits of strong pelagic species’ concentrations. ICES confirm that it would also be beneficial for the pelagic stocks there if they did.

As to the TAC level, we hope the managers will take on board that 3 years of consecutive TAC reductions have not relieved the woes of Eastern cod. Please don’t make the small-scale, low impact fishers of the Baltic Sea pay the heavy price for a difficult stock situation that is not of their making.

♦ ♦ ♦

[1] http://www.bsac.dk/BSAC-Resources/BSAC-Statements-and-recommendations/BSAC-recommendations-for-the-fishery-2018

[2] See slides 8-9 of presentation by EFCA Executive Director, Pascal Savouret, available here http://www.bsac.dk/getattachment/Meetings/BSAC-meetings/BALTFISH-BSAC-EFCA-Workshop-on-implementation-of-t/FromEFCA-BSAC-EFCA-BALTFISH-presentation-9-March-2017.pdf.aspx?lang=en-GB

[3]See LIFE comments on 2017 Fishing Opportunities https://lifeplatform.eu/baltic-stocks-comments-highlights/