The flagship investigative journalism series “uppdrag granskning” from Swedish public broadcaster SVT1 will show a film on the collapse of the Baltic wild salmon population and the management failures that have caused the situation ahead of Thursday’s European Parliament plenary on the salmon management plan.
The once thriving Baltic salmon, which flowed through eighty rivers in Sweden, is now threatened due to a combination of damming and poor planning of building projects, overfishing and lax management. The fishing industry is in continual decline and the anglers’ paradise has long since disappeared.
Sweden is often seen as “best in class” on fisheries issues within the EU. They are supportive of Commission proposals to rebuild fish stocks and strive to end subsidy dependence and overcapacity in the industry. However, according to the programme makers the “whole salmon policy is described as a failure”.
Instead they analyse how thousands of jobs in rural areas could be generated along with tens of millions of euros in revenue were the salmon stocks viable once again.
The salmon quota for next year in the Baltic main basin is 108,672 individuals, shared between the eight EU Member States. This is double what scientists from ICES recommended. Russia has a separate quota of less than 1,000 salmon.
Just last year though, the quota was over 300,000 individuals. Legal landings were significantly lower than this, although these figures masked the rampant illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing which has blighted the Baltic salmon.