In the struggle against high grading the Swedish Board of Fisheries has put forward a proposal to ban the discarding of fish that is suitable for landing.
As with fisheries world wide, discarding of unwanted fish is one of the main problems plaguing Swedish fisheries. Each year, huge amount of fish is thrown over board usually as a result of the quota being filled or the fish being too small.
A recent proposal put forward by the Swedish Board of Fisheries aims at solving the problem with fish being discarded due to bad practices, where fishermen keep the best individuals of the catch in order to make a higher profit. The fish that is found unsatisfying is discarded, even though they meet the minimum landing size requirement. As a result the fish mortality is higher than intended.
The Swedish Board of Fisheries has now suggested a ban of this catch upgrade starting the 1 June this year. In practicality this means that all fish caught that meets the current landing size requirements must be landed.
The topic is also discussed on the EU level. In January this year the European Parliament accepted a commission communication setting out a policy to reduce unwanted by-catches and eliminate discards in European fisheries. The Commission is now consulting the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee on Fisheries (STECF) and stakeholders to find suitable fisheries which could be the first candidates to start the gradual discard ban. The intention is to expand this gradually to include all European fisheries.