With a strong emphasis on area-based management, the Swedish government has published a complimentary “in-depth” response to the Commission Green Paper on a future Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).
Introducing what it calls “the concept of area-based management plans (ABMP)”, Sweden speaks up for “a significant step” toward achieving an ecosystem-based fisheries management.
With the aim of a more integrated, cross-sector, ecosystem-based approach, ABMP would be complementary to the already existing instruments of recovery plans and long-term management plans (LTMP).
ABMPs would serve to harmonise different management measures, to link single stock long-term management and recovery plans in a specific area to each other and thus strengthen the an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management and focus on measures to manage, rebuild and protect habitats and species not covered by LTMPs, the Swedish paper explained.
The fundamental principle, it added, should be that “the most restrictive stock” would guide the tailoring of the plan.
“It is vital to fully recognise the impacts that fishing activities have also on other aspects of the marine ecosystem, such as biodiversity, vulnerable habitats, food-webs and threatened species. In order to achieve sustainable use of the oceans, the fisheries policy should act in concert with other policy areas such as the environmental policy”, the Swedish government concludes, adding that the up-coming CFP reform “ is an excellent opportunity to establish fisheries as a maritime activity within the Integrated Maritime Policy and also to address the issues where the CFP has so far failed to ensure that fisheries activities do not harm the marine environment in general”.
As for long-term management and recovery plans, the paper stressed that all commercial stocks, or groups of stocks, within a defined time period should be covered. Strict time frames for reaching the objectives should be included, as well as measures to be taken if the targets are not met.
Initially the document takes a strong stance for the ecosystem approach “in order to ensure that the social benefits of the harvesting of the resource do not threaten the stability of fish stocks and the resilience of the ecosystems as well as the wider marine environment”.
It also calls for regionalisation of the decision-making process, “dealing with fleet overcapacity in a systematic manner”, a stop to all subsidies “that increase or preserve overcapacity”, and a discard ban “in combination with a management regulating catches instead of landings”.