Greenpeace ship the MV Esperanza, currently in the Dogger Bank area of the North Sea, was yesterday presented with a huge pile of discarded fish and other marine life by a Belgian fishing vessel.
The fisherman donated his 'bycatch' to Greenpeace to express his disgust at being forced to waste fish and other marine life by the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). The current CFP 'quota system' means that each fisherman throws back thousands of dead or dying fish into the water on every fishing trip because they exceed their allotted quota, are too small, or from the wrong species.
Greenpeace later examined the discard from the beam trawl onboard the Esperanza. A total of 11,000 dead or dying marine animals were identified in the discard - the product of a single two-hour beam-trawl. The discards included a variety of flatfish, small cod, mackerel, sole, norway lobster, edible crab and starfish.
In total an estimated 720,000 tonnes of waste fish and other creatures are discarded annually in the North Sea every year (1). The discard of unwanted catch in this way is a major threat to the health of the North Sea.
Even endangered fish are being caught as bycatch. In 2000 and 2001 data from North Sea fisheries indicates that around 12% of the total cod catch and 40% of the plaice catch (by weight) was discarded (2). This is despite the fact that North Sea cod is classified as a 'threatened and declining species' and that in 2003 the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), declared that plaice stocks were outside 'safe biological limits.'
Two types of fishing practice - beam trawling and otter trawling - where nets drag the ocean floor - are particularly prone to picking up non-target marine species because of their inherently indiscriminate nature.
Greenpeace is calling for a new approach to fisheries management and the protection of the North Sea that looks at the ecosystem as a whole, rather than as segmented issues to be managed separately. They are proposing the establishment of large-scale marine reserves - essentially national parks at sea - to address a number of the environmental threats currently in danger of damaging the North Sea beyond repair.
Greenpeace oceans campaigner Oliver Knowles said, 'A fishing policy that leads to such an enormous waste of fish and other species is a policy that needs to be rapidly abandoned if we are to protect the North Sea and the marine life it supports.'
He continued, 'Fishing needs to be sustainable wherever it takes place if we are not to empty the oceans of fish and other marine life. Creating large-scale Marine Reserves would give large parts of the North Sea protection from continual fishing and other destructive activities, providing areas in which fish stocks would have a chance to recover.'
Further information
For more information about the Esperanza tour of the North Sea call Greenpeace press office on 020 7865 8255 or visit weblog.greenpeace.org/northsea/
Esperanza is now into the fourth week of a ten-week tour of the North Sea. During the tour the ship's crew have been documenting the state of the Dogger Bank and Viking Bank areas of the North Sea. To organise a place on the ship please contact the press office.
(1) Source: Garthe et al 1996.
(2) Source: ICES 2003.
(3) North Sea Cod, along with common skate and spotted ray (Raja montagui), has been included on the list of threatened and declining species by the OSPAR Commission for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North East Atlantic.
