In a ”historic” move, Sweden’s and Denmark’s Ministers for Fisheries have decided on a no-fishing zone in the Kattegat.
There was no set date for the ban, but Axel Wennblad, Director General of the Swedish Board of Fisheries, said the “extremely gratifying” step would be implemented “as soon as possible”. “The plan is necessary in order to save the seriously threatened stock of cod in the Kattegat, and I consider it a good start to continuing close cooperation”, he added.
In 2005, the Board was told by the Swedish Government to set up six areas protected from fisheries, three in the Baltic Sea and three in Kattegat-Skagerrak. In view of the extremely bad situation for the Kattegat cod, on the brink of extinction, the Board said those waters was “a natural choice” for the first of those areas.
It was soon clear, however, that a one-sided Swedish ban would have very limited effect, since Sweden and Denmark share fisheries in those waters. Instead, scientists from both countries’ Institutes of Marine Research worked out a common plan. After consultations with various stakeholders, the ministers now agreed on the plan that includes a series of measures.
The area affected will be divided into three zones (see map):
- Zone I (red): Closed for all fishing, all year. This will hopefully provide conditions for a long-term increase in local spawning stock biomass, improving the recruitment of Kattegat cod.
- Zone II (green): Closed for all fishing with tools that may catch cod, all year. The ban includes leisure fishing, as well.
- Zone III (white, inside the red line): Same restrictions as for Zone II, but only during the cod’s spawning period (January 1 – March 31; February 1 – April 30 in the part of the zone that counts as Öresund).
As for the five remaining areas to be set aside as protected areas in Sweden, plans are being considered for a zone surrounding a lobster reef off Göteborg and part of the fjord outside Uddevalla in the Skagerrak, and in the Hanö Bay off the southern East Coast.
The decision was made as the Swedish and Danish Ministers for Agriculture and Fisheries took part in an ongoing Council Meeting that had no fisheries issues on the agenda. They noted that a cod recovery plan that included the Kattegat was adopted at the Fisheries Council earlier in the month, but said the measures in that plan were not enough.
“This agreement will mean further possibilities to improve conditions for the Kattegat stock. Conditions are moving in the right direction in the Baltic, and I hope the forceful measures we’ve agreed on now will result in the same improvement for the Kattegat cod,” said the Swedish Minister Eskil Erlandsson.
Erlandsson’s satisfaction was at least partly echoed by Svante Axelsson, Secretary General of The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC), who called the agreement “a big step forward”. In October, SSNC and its Danish counterpart sent a joint letter to their respective Ministers for Fisheries, demanding zones with total fishing bans in the Kattegat. The present agreement does admit more fishing than the two conservation groups demanded, but also provides “strong incentives” for the use of more selective tools, SSNC noted.