March 1, 2011

expert reaction to banning of fish discards

The European Commission set out new plans for fisheries management.

Professor Chris Frid, from the University of Liverpool’s School of Environmental Sciences, said:

“Globally around 8% of the fish catch is thrown back to the sea; this material consists of species with no market value, for example starfish, hermit crabs and unpalatable fish, as well as fish heads and guts that are generated from processing the catch. In addition fisheries regulations require that individuals of marketable species that are too young or small are thrown back and once a fisherman has caught his quota of a species any further catch of that species must also be thrown back. This means that in some fisheries, particularly those recovering from over-fishing where the quota is small and the catch dominated by young fish, the amount of discard may be more than half the catch.

“At a simple level returning these fish to the sea seems to make sense, the problem is that over 90% of most fish returned to the sea are either already dead or so injured that they subsequently die or fall victim to predators such as sea birds. This removes the ecological basis for discarding and suggests that having caught the fish we should find a beneficial use for it. For marketable species this is the market; for unpalatable species this might mean conversion to fish meal for use as feed in fish farming. On a planet facing a food crisis throwing potential food away makes no moral or ecological sense.

“In my experience fishermen dislike the waste that is discarding but they must make a living and that means filling their holds with fish they can sell, and not with unmarketable material. So while banning this wasteful practice is good from both a food security and an ecological point of view the actual measures must ensure that fishers get due economic reward for the material they land, without stimulating a market that promotes destructive fishing practices such as the targeting of young fish.

“At this stage the European Commission are discussing the principle, the devil will be in the regulatory detail. We must find a way of making fisheries sustainable, limit ecological damage and deliver economic benefit to fishing communities. This is could well involve more prescriptive regulation and considerably more scrutiny of fishing practices.”