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Baltic Sea region governmental representatives will meet in Tallinn, Estonia on 4 - 8 September 2000, within the International Baltic Sea Fishery Commission (IBSFC), to decide on fishing quotas for salmon for the year 2001.
The use of long drift nets in the salmon fisheries in the Baltic must be phased out as soon as possible. The deadline for the phase out of drift nets set by the EU i.e. the end of 2001, should apply also to the Baltic Sea Area.
Baltic Sea region governments and EU now have a chance to decide on a far-sighted policy for a more sustianable fishery in the Baltic Sea.
Main reasons for stopping Baltic Sea Drift-net fisheries.
The United Nations has adopted a resolution for a global moratorium on drift-net fishing.
The countries in the South Pacific have taken joint action through the signing in 1989 of a Convention for the Prohibition of Fishing with Long Drift Nets in the South Pacific.
EU Council of Ministers decided in June 1998 to ban the use of drift nets in the Atlantic and Mediterranean from 1 January 2002. Once again, and following heavy lobbying by the governments of Denmark, Sweden and Finland, the Baltic Sea Area was exempted from the EU decision. This allows some 350 fishing vessels to continue using this destructive fishing technique to explore perhaps one of the most endangered fish species in the world - the wild spawning Baltic salmon. EU should apply the same rules to the Baltic Sea.
90% of the Baltic salmon stock are reared and released salmon, and only 10% are naturally spawing salmon. The wild Baltic salmon is threatened and can become extincted within few years. Drift-net open-sea fisheries on mixed salmon stocks, cannot separate the very threatened wild Baltic salmon from reared and released salmon. Fishing techniques that cannot separate wild Baltic salmon should not be used.
Drift-net fishing techniques cause by-catches, mainly of sea-birds such as guillemots, but also of harbour porpoises.
A new study on guillemots in the Baltic Sea estimate the population at 45 000 guillemots today. During the period 1912-1998, 43 000 guillemots have been ringed, and 2500 of these was killed in fishing gear. This means that the impact of fisheries is a bigger threat for seabirds than oil-pollution. Such fishing practices is not acceptable. The Baltic population of harbour porpoises is endangered.
Recommendations from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) say that a by-catch rate of 1 per cent of the estimated abundance of 1200, should be cause for concern. 50% of the by-catches are taken in salmon drift-nets. As few as 6 porpoises by-caught in salmon drift nets annually could have serious effects on the small Baltic population.
Baltic region governments have signed the Biodiversity Convention in Rio in 1992, for protection of the biological diversity and threatened species. Now it is time to take strong and concerted actions to save the Baltic salmon before it has been extincted.
For more information contact:
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Mr Gunnar Noren CCB-secretariat Sweden Ph +46-18-71 11 70 Mobil +46-70-560 53 52 |
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