Photo: Tommy Svensson/Mostphotos

"Industrial fishing won the day, again", says Henrik Svedäng, fisheries researcher at the Baltic Sea Centre.

As the spawning biomass of herring in the central Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia is at dangerously low levels, the European Commission recently proposed an end to all targeted fishing on both stocks next year. In order to maintain the sprat fishery (sprat and herring are caught simultaneously in pelagic trawling), it proposed relatively low by-catch quotas for herring - 1 000 tonnes in the Gulf of Bothnia and just over 28 5000 tonnes in the central Baltic Sea.

But this was not something that EU fisheries ministers were prepared to support. Before Tuesday's negotiations, the Swedish government and the Sweden Democrats also announced that they would not support the Commission's proposal.

On Tuesday, the Council of Ministers instead decided that 55 000 tonnes of herring may be fished in the Gulf of Bothnia next year, a reduction of 31% compared to this year. 

“It would probably not have been possible to find more herring there even if the quotas were set higher. Industrial fishing thus has its needs met while coastal fishing is not protected," says Henrik Svedäng.

One problem that is often raised in connection with the lack of herring along the Gävle coast is that the large-scale offshore fishing takes up the herring before it reaches the coast to spawn.

"There are coastal fishermen up there who were prepared for a total stop and considered it justified. It is a mystery to me how Minister Peter Kullgren can consider that the needs of coastal fishing have been protected," says Henrik Svedäng.

Fish are not getting smaller - they are getting fewer

For the herring stock in the central Baltic Sea, next year's quota will be just over 40,000 tonnes, which is a reduction of 43% compared to this year.

"Here too, large-scale industrial fishing will be given carte blanche to continue fishing hard for both herring and sprat," says Henrik Svedäng.

According to him, the EU ministers are taking great risks, as excessive fishing can lead to the depletion or complete disappearance of sub-stocks, which weakens the herring population and can take a very long time to restore.

“The major risk is not that the fish will become smaller but that they will become fewer. The many sub-stocks of herring are genetically different and have different adaptations. Waiting for nature to rebuild them is a never-ending story. It can take decades, or even longer," says Henrik Svedäng, recalling the situation of the Norwegian spring-spawning herring.

“After almost 30 years of no fishing, you can fish that stock again, but it is much less productive and yields less than it did before the depletion in the 1960s,” he says.

Continued mixed fishing

The sprat quota will also be reduced next year but will remain above 200 000 tonnes. This means that pelagic trawlers will have to catch a smaller proportion of herring and a larger proportion of sprat in order to fully utilise their quotas.

Something that Henrik Svedäng believes will be difficult for the fishermen themselves to control.

"It is only when herring has become sufficiently rare and scarce that by-catches decrease," he says.

The trawlers themselves often claim that it is quite possible to achieve relatively "clean" sprat fishing, if you just fish at the right place and time of year.

“The large trawlers from the west coast basically only fish sprat in the Baltic Sea. And the by-catch of herring is not a problem. The sprat stock looks good, so I think they should have doubled the quota for next year," says Anton Paulrud, CEO of the industry organisation Swedish Pelagic Federation PO.

At the same time, ICES, among others, has long pointed out that there is probably more or less systematic misreporting in pelagic fishing, which makes it more difficult for researchers to make correct stock estimates.

Furthermore, ICES points out that the latest two cohorts of sprat are among the worst ever observed. If this trend continues, it is likely that there will be less sprat in the future.

Criticised decision

The Council's quota decision struck a “fine balance” between the needs of the fishing industry and the sustainability and recovery of fish stocks, according to Luis Planas Puchades, Spain's Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, who chaired the meeting.

Peter Kullgren (KD), Sweden's rural affairs minister, was also satisfied.

"As usual in compromises, no one is one hundred per cent satisfied, but for Sweden I must admit that we are close to the Swedish position," he told the Swedish News Agency TT after the meeting.

However, the compromise was strongly criticised from several quarters on the day of the decision. Emma Nohrén (MP), chair of the Environment and agriculture committee in the Swedish Parliamnet, told Dagens Nyheter that she found it "unbelievable" that the Council of Ministers is talking about a good balance between stocks and fishing "when science says we have such low biomasses that the Commission is proposing a zero quota for herring".

Sten Frohm from the Swedish Anglers Association said the Council's decision on herring quotas was "outrageous".

"The consequences of this affect the ecosystem, recreational fishing and small-scale coastal fishing for human consumption," he said.

“Political recklessness"

According to the ICES scientific advice, certain paragraphs of the multi-annual management plan allow the fishery to be allocated herring quotas of up to 48,000 - 63,000 tonnes in the Gulf of Bothnia and 41,000 - 52,000 tonnes in the central Baltic Sea next year.

But a little further down, ICES also notes that even zero quotas would not be enough to comply with another paragraph of the plan - namely paragraph 4.6, which states that the probability of spawning biomass falling below the minimum sustainability limit (Blim) must not be greater than 5 per cent.

According to Charles Berkow, policy analyst at Stockholm University's Baltic Sea Centre, EU ministers chose to ignore these warnings in this year's negotiations.

"Instead, they decided to take huge risks with herring in the Baltic Sea proper and the Gulf of Bothnia," he says.

According to Berkow, Tuesday's decision is an example of the same political "recklessness" that caused the western herring and western cod stocks to crash in 2019 and 2022 respectively.

In those cases, too, the quotas were eventually reduced, after much wrangling.

“But in both cases, the reductions were far too small and came far too late," he says.“If the legal basis for the Commission's by-catch proposal for herring stocks was weak, the ministers' decision appears to be completely out of line. It will be interesting to see if anyone dares to ask the Court of Justice for an interpretation of the rules, or if they simply decide not to pretend they exist.”

Text: Henrik Hamrén

Note: 
A preliminary version of the Council decision indicates that the ministers also decided on temporary fishing closures for the central Baltic herring different periods of one month in different areas. There are also reports of a commitment to close the herring fisheries for a few weeks in early summer in the Gulf of Bothnia. There is, however, some question as to the details and the value of these closures.