On November 26 the Marint Centrum together with Lund University, Skåne County board and Simrishamn municipality hosted a one day conference to discuss the future of small scale Baltic Sea fisheries. Participants explored the challenges and opportunities faced by fishers in Sweden’s Southern Baltic coastal communities.
many small scale fishers are
going bankrupt due to the low
revenue per kg/fish caught
The main take-home messages from the day was that the small scale fishers and the county board sees two paths of moving forward. Either follow the same path as now, where the majority of catch is sold to the international market with low prices to the fisher. Or shift trades towards the Swedish market with focus on a local/regional scale with high quality fresh fish and higher revenue for the small scale fisher. Moving forward along this path would help bring a solution to another take home message, that many small scale fishers are going bankrupt due to the low revenue per kg/fish caught.
This one day conference will take place yearly until 2020 to follow up on actions taken during the previous year and to develop and pursue a road map for the future of regional fisheries. The Fisheries Secretariat is supportive of this initiative and will follow progress with interest.