Total marine fisheries extractions by country in the Baltic Sea

Catch ( t x 10 6 )
Total marine fisheries extractions by country in the Baltic Sea: 1950-present, Rossing, Booth and Zeller 3
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) catches are a widespread source of underreporting in fisheries,
including in the Baltic Sea, where reported landings from commercial fisheries have been the only form of
landings officially recorded (although stock assessments try to account for some IUU catches). According
to the European Court of Auditors, the incompleteness and unreliability of catch data have prevented the
Total Allowable Catch (TAC) and quota system in the Baltic from functioning properly. In addition, the
regulatory and institutional frameworks have guaranteed neither the exhaustiveness of data collection, nor
the detection of inconsistencies during validation. Consequently, the International Council for the
Exploration of the Sea (ICES) advisory processes related to managing Baltic Sea stocks have only partially
satisfied the requirements of formal analysis. Policy makers therefore often underestimated the impact of
fishing, contributing to the decline seen in some Baltic fisheries, threatening not only important
commercial stocks like cod, but also ecosystem functions and the future economic viability of the fishing
industry.
This study estimated total fisheries catches by the countries bordering the Baltic Sea using a catch
reconstruction approach for the period 1950-2007. There is a need for a better understanding of the
impact of fisheries on marine ecosystems, by providing a comprehensive time series of total fisheries
catches. This will contribute to more effective collaboration between the fishing industry, scientists, policy
makers, NGOs and the general public.
To estimate the total catch (as opposed to reported landings) from 1950 to 2007, four IUU catch
components were estimated for the nine coastal Baltic countries (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany,
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Sweden): ‗adjustments’ to ICES landings statistics (i.e., data source
adjustments), ‗unreported landings‘, ‘discards’, and ‗recreational catches‘. ICES landings statistics were
used as the ‗reported data’ baseline for our reconstruction, since they are the only publicly-available data,
covering all taxa, fishing areas and countries in the Baltic Sea back to 1950. Estimated unreported landings
and discards were applied to landings data on a taxonomic and country-specific basis. Discard estimates
included ‗underwater‘ discards from actively-fishing trawl gear; ‗ghostfishing‘ due to lost or abandoned
fishing gear; ‗boat-based’ discards, generally resulting from fishers‘ intentional behavior; and ‗sealdamaged’
discards representing catch lost because of seal damage. The inclusion of recreational catch
estimates for each country allowed estimates of the likely total catch (as opposed to reported landings) to
be derived.
Information sources included a wide range of primary and secondary sources, including interviews and
collaborations with fisheries experts in Baltic countries, peer-reviewed and grey literature, ICES online
databases and publications, and national media sources. The philosophy behind reconstruction is to utilize
all available data and information to derive ‗anchor points‘ of IUU catches in time and to use
interpolations for time periods between anchor points. To account for some historical differences between
countries, we grouped countries into ‗western‘ (Denmark, Finland, West Germany [1950-1990], Germany
[after re-unification, 1991-2007] and Sweden) and ‗eastern‘ (former ‗eastern bloc‘: East Germany [1950-
1990], Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Russia).
Overall, for the 1950-2007 period, our catch
reconstruction estimated that IUU catches added
approximately 30% to landings officially reported by
ICES landings statistics (Figure 1). When catches
peaked in 1997, total catches were likely 43% higher
than reported landings, while for the 2000s (2000-
2007), total catches were on average 35% (i.e., about
280,000 t∙year -1 ) higher than reported landings.
Comprehensive accounting of IUU catches provides
an improved baseline for managing fisheries in the
Baltic Sea, and aids the transition to ecosystem-based
management.
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
Total reconstructed catch
ICES landings
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Year
Figure 1. Total reconstructed catch (t) for the Baltic
Sea, compared to reported landings from the ICES
catch statistics database (1950-2007).