Dramatic limits on North Sea fishing

North Sea cod stocks are at an all-time low

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Fishing in parts of the North Sea is to be temporarily banned under emergency European Union powers designed to allow stocks to replenish.

The restrictions are to come into force for 12 weeks from February 12 during the crucial spawning period in a desperate bid to revive dangerously depleted stocks.

The area affected covers an area reaching up from the Thames estuary in England, eastwards towards Denmark and then curving back to the Orkney Islands, Scotland.

The move, announced in Brussels on Wednesday, represents the most drastic conservation effort ever undertaken in Europe and covers almost 40,000 sq miles of the North Sea.

"It's around a fifth of the area of the North Sea," a spokesman for the European Commission (EC) said.

The ban will affect fishing fleets operating out of, among others, the UK, Holland, Belgium, France and Scandinavia

Scientists have warned that North Sea cod stocks are now so low that there is a serious danger of the total collapse of the fishery.

Doug Beveridge, assistant chief executive of Britain's National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations, told CNN.com Europe: "Some of the fishing fleets will face some big problems as a result of this, including having to find alternative fishing grounds.

"But the industry recognises the problem with some stocks and we have been involved in detailed discussion with the EU and member countries about it."

An EC statement said that the EU and Norway had agreed measures to help the recovery of depleted stocks.

"The emergency measures will include setting up a temporary controlled area where spawning takes place," it said.

"All fisheries likely to catch cod will temporarily be forbidden in this area to allow the maximum survival of fish from the reproductive activity of this year's spawning stock."

Trawlers will be banned from an area covering almost a fifth of the North Sea

The EC also said that, as cod live at the bottom of the sea, pelagic fishing (directed at mid-water species) will be allowed to continue during the closure period.

It said measures for policing the ban will include the introduction of special fishing permits, new obligations on fishermen to report their catches and the placing of observers part-time on board vessels using the controlled zones for non-cod fishing.

Only last month EU fisheries ministers agreed major cuts in this year's cod catch quotas -- and agreed that the EC should draw up a comprehensive cod recovery programme similar to one already set up in the Irish Sea.

EU Farm and Fisheries Commissioner Franz Fischler said at the time: "These are the most drastic cuts we've ever had since quotas were introduced."

Cod have become so scarce that fishermen have only managed to catch 60 percent of the 1999 EU quota of 81,000 tonnes, and the last time the entire quota was taken up was in 1995.

The current shortages are partly because the species is currently suffering from the fact that the North Sea is becoming warmer.

But they have also been caused by the fact that the vast majority of cod being landed from the North Sea is aged under three -- meaning they have not had the chance to breed.

According to the International Council for Exploration of the Sea, nearly 48 million juvenile cod were caught in the North Sea last year, compared to just 6.4 million older fish.

That compares with the 250 million fish -- 300,000 tonnes -- taken from the North Sea in 1972 when cod were plentiful.

Mike Park, chairman of the Scottish White Fish Producers' Association, told the UK Press Association: "If the fleet were affluent just now, this measure would seem fine. But the fleet is just managing to exist at the moment.

"Some of our members are just hanging on at the moment, and I think that by the end of April we are going to see several casualties in the industry."

Reuters contributed to this report.

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November 29, 2000

The European Commission - Fisheries
UK Ministry of Fishing

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