There is a clear threat of serious or irreversible damage to fish stocks, seabirds and marine mammals caused by the North Sea industrial fisheries if they remain largely unregulated. Over the last 30 to 40 years industrial fishing has doubled the yield from the North Sea, largely through the development of the sandeel fishery. At first the fishery was local, but it soon spread to become the largest, landing a third of all fish. In recent years the sandeel fishery has further shifted into areas close to seabird populations despite numerous warnings, including work published by the Danish Fishing Ministry. The fishery has known no boundaries and has so far escaped any catch limits.
Two decades ago the industrial fisheries became a text book example of the need for effective conservation and management policies. Since then the practices that caused the collapse of Peruvian anchovy in the 1970s have been repeated in other industrial fisheries around the world. In each case, short-term economic and political considerations dominated decisions regarding overfishing of the stocks, to the point of commercial collapse. Biological and related environmental data about the relevant resource was inadequate or, if data was available, fishery managers ignored it .
Fisheries management has not been effective in controlling fishing effort or the industrial fishing fleets. Fisheries scientists, and the European Commission, actually predict that the long-term profitability of the fishing industry would increase if the fishing effort were halved in most fisheries.
On some occasions, EU fisheries scientists and managers believe that they can predict and effectively manage food stocks with no adverse effects on predators. On other occasions, they contradict themselves by saying that they don"t have enough information to accurately predict. In the case of sandeels, fisheries managers themselves admit they do not have the resources to collect information on the scale required to assess these stocks.
Sandeels are shown in various studies to be a significant food source for the survival of North Sea cod. A recent Unilever funded report estimated that up to 60% of the diet of species fished for human consumption consists of the industrial fish species, sandeels and Norway pout.
Studies into the diet of harbour porpoises, grey seals and common dolphins in Scottish waters have shown that they mainly feed on sandeels during the summer. The striped dolphin is known to feed on Norway pout.
The problem of bycatch in the industrial fisheries is clearly seen in the Norway pout and sprat fisheries. The Commission admit that resolving this problem has proven to be unmanageable and only partial solutions have been found.
The distribution of Norway pout extends into the same areas of small haddock and small whiting. The Norway pout industrial fishery now accounts for over 80% of the mortality of immature (less than one-year old) haddock and whiting caught as bycatch.
In the case of the sprat industrial fishery, approximately 6.9 billion immature herring were landed in this fishery in 1995. Despite herring being banned as an industrial catch in the 1970s, substantial quantities of herring, almost equal to that landed by the human consumption fishery, will have been legally landed as bycatch in 1996 mainly in the industrial sprat fishery.
In contrast to the EU, Norwegian fisheries managers have adopted precautionary measures by closing the industrial fisheries for capelin recognising its vital importance as food for cod. One prominent Norwegian scientist has criticised EU scientists for not advocating similar policies on North Sea fisheries to politicians and fishermen.
European fisheries scientists (ICES) have recently advised the Commission that a 'precautionary' Total Allowable Catch for sandeels of 1,100,000 tonnes might be established which would be greater than any recorded catch. ICES advise that a lower limit would require more data, in direct contradiction of the precautionary principle.
The precautionary principle applied to the industrial fisheries, including those for industrial purposes, requires that the less robust the data, the more stringent the controls. The principle would also require the protection of important nursery areas for human consumption fish, and prevent the capture of juveniles by small-mesh trawls used by the industrial fisheries. A precautionary approach to the industrial fisheries requires giving the benefit of the doubt to the marine ecosystem and the more important human consumption fisheries industry.
RecommendationsSandeel fishery
Sprat fishery
Norway pout fishery
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Read Lowrie's View of this report in the Shetland Fishing News