At the latest Executive Committee meeting of the Baltic Sea Regional Advisory Council (BS RAC), stakeholders endorsed much of the advice provided by ICES for this year and elected to continue down the path of fishing at or below Fmsy, with but a few exceptions.
For the cod stocks, the RAC supported a slight rise for the Eastern cod and a 15% reduction for the western stock which is the maximum permissible under the management plan that is in urgent need of reform. The RAC emphasised this by stating that “the BS RAC commends the fisheries ministers for going beyond the management plan and the Commission proposal in 2012 to set a TAC closer to the estimated FMSY.”
However, the RAC diverged from the ICES advice by stating that no further restriction in days-at-sea should be used to impair fishermen. The proposed reductions in effort were rejected partly as they would likely result in higher discarding.
It is currently expected that 15 million juvenile cod will be discarded in 2014 in the Baltic Sea. Regional governments have been unable to accelerate plans to implement the landing obligation in 2014, earlier than other EU fishery regions, at the latest round of BALTFISH meetings which is a shame as valuable lessons would have been learnt for other fisheries across the continent.
There was unanimity in the RAC with regard to the pelagic stocks. Managing stocks according to the MSY principle was agreed to by all stakeholders. The exception was with regard to the sprat and also western Baltic herring stocks. The former suffers from variable stock estimates and the the latter, the latest assessment has revised downward the stock’s biomass but also asserts that the stock is growing. Here FISH voted along with the minority position to follow the position in the most recent assessment.
With regard to salmon in the main basin, support for the increased TAC is conditional on accurate landing figures being submitted. There has been a clampdown on salmon IUU fishing, as they are known to be mislabeled and caught as sea trout, or not recorded at all, and this has allowed for scientists to advise for a higher TAC without increasing the level of mortality. Some improvements have been made in recent years on this front with Poland in particular having been identified as having a significant issue. For the salmon in subdivision 32, FISH supported the scientific advice and minority position of not allowing a targeted fishery on the remaining wild stocks.
Russia was also represented at the BS RAC, by their Fisheries Counsellor at the embassy in Copenhagen, as efforts to conclude a fourth year of stalemate between the EU and Russia on revising their fishing agreement draws on. On 8-9 July, discussions between the two parties will continue at the Joint Baltic Sea Fisheries Committee meeting in Brussels.