Last week, the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) which answers to the European Commission on fisheries management questions, gathered in a joint venture with ICES in Rostock, Germany to discuss various management issues regarding the Baltic and the North Sea.
The first two days of this meeting mainly focused on compiling current knowledge of ICES’s work on multispecies interactions in the Baltic, the economic status of fleets and enforcement issues were also discussed. Scientists, economists, members of the Baltic Sea Regional Advisory Council (BS RAC) and a few external observers attended the meeting.
At a preceding workshop, ICES presented a “multispecies” model for determining catch quotas which accounts for the ecological interactions between the main Baltic fish species (cod, herring and sprat) in the central Baltic and northern Baltic proper. Several concerns were raised regarding the predictive capabilities of the model and the implications for management that would follow such an advice.
In Rostock, many of these aspects had been revised and improved but it was concluded that too many “question marks” remain for a safe implementation of any advice. One problem that once again was raised was the dated cod diet records used for the modeling, these could skew the results and the STECF committee urged for more contemporary data to be used.
Regarding the western cod stock, it was advised that no changes be made to the current management plan, see STECF report from July 2011, since no new information has been put forward to confidently improve current management plans.
Other aspects concerned the economy of the fishery as well as enforcement and control of fishing activities. Trawling for sprat and herring was identified to be the most fruitful fishery today, especially among fleets operating in the northern parts of the Baltic. In terms of enforcement, a switch towards a more administrative approach to control was proposed and it was suggested it could be more cost-effective than the current “at seas control”. To this end, transferrable fishing concessions were suggested to be a complement as if they reduce capacity, this would yield fewer units to control. However, experience shows that TFC systems also tend to raise the costs of control for Member States.
For more technical details about the revised multispecies model see attached PDF.