The report reveals the inefficiency of a European fisheries management system which rewards those who underperform in social, economic and environmental terms and punishes those that generate more societal benefits.
Over the period 2006-2008, the report compared two types of fishing – gillnets and trawlers – by the value created for society in terms of net revenues, employment, subsidies, discards, and greenhouse gas emissions. The results found that gillnets produced far higher value within the cod fishery and that trawlers were much more heavily subsidised through public funds.
Criticisms were also made of the way in which quota distribution methods in the EU have failed to provide societal benefits. Currently, the EU allocates fish resources on the basis of relative stability, and then each member state allocates their share of TACs to different sectors of the fleet based on histrorical records. However, this fails to prioritise fishing activities which deliver the most benefit to the public. The report recommends that as fish are a public resource, the implementation of access criteria as a means to provide priority access to those fishing in the most environmentally and socially sustainable way would provide greater benefits to the public while also being conducive to rebuilding the perilous state of fish resources.