EU calls for sharp cuts in cod quotas

[October 16, 2009]  BRUSSELS (AP) -- The European Commission called Friday for sharp cuts in cod quotas -- up to 25 percent in some areas -- saying the prized fish is sliding toward commercial extinction in several historic Atlantic fishing grounds.

The EU's executive commission said "things took a turn for the worse" last year when more of the threatened fish was caught in the North Sea, the eastern English Channel and Scandinavia's Skagerrak strait than in any other year in the past decade.

The threat is so great that the Commission wants to go well beyond a guideline maximum cut of 15 percent in fisherman's quotas to a 25 percent in the most threatened fishing grounds.

In the EU's other major fishing ground, the Mediterranean, the situation is just as bad for the famous bluefin tuna, which has been ruthlessly overfished for years to satisfy the world's increasing demand for sushi and sashimi.

The demands of the EU Commission will be discussed by the bloc's 27-member states in a Dec. 14-15 meeting, when the fishing quotas for 2010 will be finalized.

In 1970 cod stocks in the North Sea, eastern Channel and Skagerrak exceeded 250,000 tons a year but now they now barely scale 50,000 despite years of conservation efforts.

"What is more, there are not enough older, spawning fish and too few young fish coming into the stock since 2005," the Commission said.

Illegal fishing has wrecked havoc with policies to bring the stocks back to sustainable levels.

On Monday, fisheries ministers will decide whether to take some recreational catches into account for the overall quotas, illustrating how dire the situation has become.

Restrictive quotas have been at the heart of EU policies over the past decades, but have consistently failed to replenish Europe's seas. All too often, scientific advice was ignored to allow for more catches out of political expediency.

Last month, the EU's Mediterranean nations refused to back even a temporary a ban on catching bluefish tuna. The environmental group Oceana estimated that illegal fishing doubled the amount of tuna caught.

[Associated Press; By RAF CASERT]

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