Total marine fisheries extractions by country in the Baltic Sea

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8 Total marine fisheries extractions by country in the Baltic Sea: 1950-present, Rossing, Booth and Zeller the physical and biological components of the sea. Currently, the human population inhabiting the drainage area of the Baltic Sea is approximately 85 million (this includes estimates from non-coastal states that are within the drainage area of the Baltic Sea) and it is estimated that 27 million people live within 50 km of the coastline (Hannerz and Destouni, 2006). Human activity has influenced the productivity of the Baltic Sea, with excessive inputs of nutrients contributing to eutrophication and algal blooms that cause large hypoxic/anoxic areas affecting the biological communities. Inputs of toxins from both point and nonpoint sources affect water quality, and there are ongoing studies detailing levels of pollutants in the sea‘s organisms (HELCOM, 2003). The amount of salt- and fresh-water, and hence the salinity gradient, in part, determines the species composition of the aquatic ecosystem, which comprises marine, fresh water and diadromous species. The western portion near Denmark has the highest number of fish species (~100) while the north-eastern portion in the Gulf of Finland has only 20 fish species (Voipio, 1981); see Appendix Table A1 for a listing of taxa considered in this report. From a fisheries perspective, salinity levels heavily impact whether the system is an Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) or herring (Clupea harengus)/sprat (Sprattus sprattus) dominated system. Higher biomass and larger catches of cod from both the eastern and western stock have traditionally been considered to occur under more saline conditions, whereas herring and sprat biomass and catches increase during less saline conditions (HELCOM, 2003). Increasing salinity levels are associated with increased fluxes of saltwater entering through the Kattegat, which also results in increased oxygen levels. Higher salinity levels and the associated increased dissolved oxygen concentrations in the deep basins where cod spawn increases the survivorship of cod eggs (Nissling and Westin, 1991). Increased inflow of saltwater to the Baltic also leads to high population levels of marine copepods, the dominant food of pre-adult cod (Hammer et al., 2008). The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) reports 153 taxa (including fish, mollusks, bivalves and crustaceans) being landed in fisheries, but cod, herring and sprat are the commercially most important species, accounting for over 90 per cent of reported landings. Fisheries catches and analysis have been previously documented for the Baltic Sea Large Marine Ecosystem (Heileman and Thulin, 2008) using analysis techniques documented in Pauly et al. (2008). Fishing is known to also impact heavily on the resources and state of the Baltic Sea. Currently, sprat, Gulf of Riga herring, and cod are considered to be overfished in relation to fishing mortality and long-term yield (ICES, 2008a; 2009b), and this affects ecosystem functions and services. The decline in cod biomass since the 1980s (due to both decreases in habitat and excessive fishing mortality) has led to altered trophic relationships that affect the ecosystem. Declining abundance of cod and the increase in biomass of sprat and herring has led to an increase in hypoxic events due to trophic cascades (Österblom et al., 2007). Increased sprat and herring biomass result in increases predation on zooplankton, leaving less zooplankton biomass. Less zooplankton can cause an increase in phytoplankton/algae biomass, resulting in increased levels of eutrophication and hypoxia (Casini et al., 2008). Information on total catches (in contrast to reported landings) from the Baltic Sea are not readily available, nor have they been comprehensively accounted for. ICES is the agency responsible for disseminating information about the state of the living resources in the Baltic Sea (based on information received from the individual countries), and provides scientific advice to governments and the international regulatory bodies that manage the Baltic Sea (ICES, 2009c). From 1973-2004, scientific advice from ICES, including recommended Total Allowable Catches (TACs) for cod, herring, sprat and salmon estimated through scientific stock assessment procedures, was taken under consideration by the International Baltic Sea Fishery Commission (IBSFC). The IBSFC members negotiated and considered socio-economic factors and political considerations, which generally resulted in higher TACs being allocated for the species covered under the Gdansk Convention (cod, herring, sprat and salmon) than stock assessments recommended. It is important to note that in some years agreements could not be reached and no TACs were agreed upon, leading to even higher fishing mortalities on these species, especially in the mid-1980s. Since 2005, with the changes in the membership of the European Union, TACs are now negotiated between the EU and Russia (Aps et al., 2007). Since 2006, the Baltic Sea Regional Advisory Council advises the member states of the EU and the European Commission on matters concerning the management of fisheries under the EU Common Fisheries Policy. Changes in the fishing areas within the Baltic Sea where national fleets were allowed to operate have also changed during the time period considered here. In earlier time periods, countries claimed a 3 nm

Total marine fisheries extractions by country in the Baltic Sea: 1950-present, Rossing, Booth and Zeller 9 territorial sea, which later increased to 12 nm. In 1978, Sweden became the first country in the Baltic to claim a 200 nm Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) under the provisions of the United Nations Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), but because of overlapping claims, the mid-line principle was used to settle claims. The changes brought about by the introduction of EEZs during the later part of the 1970s had the effect of shrinking the fishing areas of some countries (e.g., Denmark; Borberg, 1976). However, with the adoption of the Common Fisheries Policy by members of the EU in 1983, fishing fleets of member countries had access to each other‘s fishing areas (outside of the 12 nm territorial waters, unless fishery access agreements between individual countries were established). With EU membership expanding since 1983, more area of the Baltic Sea has come under EU management. The officially reported fisheries data, as represented by ICES sources, are known to almost exclusively account for landings, not total catches. ICES stock assessment working group reports do provide some information and data on unallocated (unreported) catches and discards for some species, but unfortunately not in a transparent manner. The unallocated (unreported) catches from working group reports are presented as Baltic Sea-wide total amounts, and not by country, even though it is known that not all countries report these catches. Unfortunately, the default approach by the working groups is to substitute ‗zero‘ for those countries not presenting data for unallocated catches. This approach leads to under-estimation in this catch categories because there is no expansion (or substitution with estimates) methods used to account for countries not reporting. Further, the working group reports do not indicate which countries‘ data are included. This incomplete accounting in scientific stock assessment reports is apparently done for confidentiality reasons, but does not lead to a transparent and publicly accountable catch accounting system. It also hampers attempts to comprehensively assess the true nature of fisheries catches. Yet, to fully account for all catches, estimates of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated catches (IUU), discards and recreational catches need to be assessed and included to better estimate likely total fisheries catches in the Baltic Sea. A further data source, presently called ‗Fishframe‘ (FishFrame, 2009) that contains information on discards by gear type, species, country and year, as well as some data on unallocated catches is available to authorized users. However, these data are also considered confidential, and access to these data was not given. This database is maintained by Denmark‘s National Institute of Aquatic Resources (DTU Aqua). Additional data sources used include national data, published and grey literature case studies, unpublished reports, media sources and personal information based on communications and discussions with country- and region-specific experts from around the Baltic Sea region. Interestingly, many of the personal sources were very willing and keen to share their knowledge and information with us, but have expressed a clear preference for not being named, i.e., wanting to remain anonymous, usually out of concern about their perceived scientific standing, or concerns about their job security. Throughout this report, we treat such concerns seriously, and cite ‗anonymous source‘ for such material. We also endeavor to use such information in a manner so as not to make the original source apparent. However, the scientific and public community in Europe should consider it as a point of concern if scientists, environmental and fisheries experts are not willing to speak publicly on their knowledge and experience. The approach to retroactively estimate total catches uses a bottom-up approach to reconstruct catch time series (Zeller et al., 2007; Pauly et al., 2008). Such an approach often requires assumption-based inferences and interpolations, but is justified, despite data uncertainties, given the less acceptable alternatives that users of official data will interpret non-reported or missing data components as zero catches (Pauly et al., 1998). Estimates of total catches derived from catch reconstructions will clearly not be statistically ‗precise‘ in the sense of having small uncertainty. However, of importance here is the realization that, given our conservative approach to estimation, the estimates that will be derived are ‗less wrong‘ i.e., likely more ‗accurate‘ in the sense of being closer to the ‗true‘ value than the currently assumed ‗zero‘ catch substituted for ‗no data‘ by stock assessments. The rational for fisheries catch reconstruction lies in creating a baseline of total catches rather than reported landings to better inform policy makers and the general public, and to contribute to the development of ecosystem-based fisheries management, which cannot be done without a comprehensive time-series of fisheries catches. It is hoped that by casting the net wide, and not relying on one set of data, that a better and more comprehensive picture will emerge on the likely total catches taken in the Baltic Sea over the last 50+ years.

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