Total marine fisheries extractions by country in the Baltic Sea

Total marine fisheries extractions by country in the Baltic Sea: 1950-present, Rossing, Booth and Zeller 25
Minimum Landing Size, and in countries such as Norway and Iceland where ‗no discard‘ policies have
been instated (Kelleher, 2005).
We included estimates of recreational catches for all countries in our catch reconstruction. These catches
were found to contribute approximately 3% to total catches for all taxa in all countries. Thus, overall,
recreational fishing does not appear a significant component. However, for several species (e.g., cod) and
in some countries (e.g., Sweden and Finland), recreational catches are substantial and therefore important
components to be addressed in resource management (see several country reports, this volume). Very
little information was available for the non-commercial sector (except in the case of Finland), and
although recreational catches were a small proportion of our overall catch, they still represented a total of
approximately 1.5 million tonnes over the time period considered (1950-2007). This is not an insignificant
amount, and countries should implement more rigorous systems to regulate and record or estimate
recreational catches so they can be included in ICES databases. This will help all stakeholders become
accountable for all forms of human-induced fisheries mortalities.
Our efforts to reconstruct total fisheries catches in the Baltic Sea LME used all data and information
available to us. Under the guidelines of the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), it is the responsibility of
the Member States to record national fisheries catch data to pass on to the governing scientific body (ICES,
in most cases) before negotiations are undertaken for management purposes. Often the data passed
between Member States and ICES represent only reported landings, and exclude reports or estimates of
IUU catches. Landings statistics are often updated or corrected by the respective countries, and these
changes are usually not made to the public data presented in the ICES database. Thus, we had to use data
presented in the ICES stock assessments, or national data (when available) to cross-check and adjust any
misreported landings in ICES landings statistics. Since no estimates of IUU catches were presented in
ICES landings statistics, and at best, estimated rates of IUU fishing were provided by fisheries experts in
some Baltic nations, we often relied on Baltic-wide sub-set estimates of unreported landings and discards
from ICES stock assessment working group reports. It is unknown exactly how many countries were
considered by ICES to contribute to these totals, since ICES can choose to either estimate or ignore IUU
catches, and proceed only with the information provided by the country or stock assessment surveys
(BSRAC, 2007). Thus, since it was known to us that at least one country (Sweden, in the case of
unreported landings) was not included in the Baltic-wide estimate of unreported landings (Persson, this
volume), our calculations were likely underestimates, since our derived rates for estimating unreported
landings were weighted by the reported landings of all Baltic countries (less those of Sweden).
Unfortunately, our catch reconstruction was limited in depth and scope by a lack of transparency and
accountability on the part of Member States and ICES databases, which (in theory) serve to disseminate
information on the state of the living resources of the Baltic Sea (ICES, 2009c). For the information ICES
does have regarding IUU catches, there are confidentiality agreements between Member States and ICES
which prevent ICES from revealing the true nature of all available data. This lack of accountability from
Member States to document, report and publish total catches as opposed to total landings, presents a
hindrance to public accountability and implementation of ecosystem-based management systems (as
planned in the reform of the CFP in 2012; Veem et al., 2009). The amounts of IUU catches estimated in
our study provide evidence of substantial non-compliance on the part of fishers to stay within the TACs
agreed upon by the European Council of Ministers.
Some preliminary efforts to increase transparency, accountability and compliance have been implemented
in the Baltic Sea. These have included mandatory Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS) on boats greater than
25 m since 2005 (Witt and Godley, 2007). Denmark has proposed implementation of mandatory video
recording to eliminate discards while increasing the volume of catches permitted to be landed; providing
fishers less incentive to high grade (Anon., 2009). The most reliable method, however, is 100% observer
coverage (including video coverage), but historically, observer coverage has not been used to its full
potential. Unless observer coverage is 100%, fishers‘ behavior is known to change when an observer is
onboard (Kelleher, 2005). Observers could be used to document extractions of all marine life while at sea
to help generate databases including comprehensive data on all species affected by the fishing industry.
Complete (100%) observer coverage is also instrumental in enhancing buy-in, trust and co-operation
within industry and between industry, science and management, as has been shown elsewhere (e.g.,
Canada). Greater enforcement is also required at ports to eliminate the possibilities for fishers to not
report all landed catches. One of the main criticisms of the TAC system is that it is thought to result in a
‗race-to-fish‘ (Sutinen and Soboil, 2001), leading to greater potentials for irresponsible fishing practices in
some fisheries (Kelleher, 2005). The proposed alternative is a reduction of overall effort in a system with