Box 24B Existing fishing policies and further options

The principal regulatory elements of fishing policies have been the establishment of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) and fixing Total Allowable Catches (TACs). EEZs were established through international law during the 1970s to give countries the right to exclusive fishing rights within 200 nautical miles of their coasts. Within the European area, EEZs exist for the FAO northeast Atlantic area, but not for the Mediterranean (because countries are too close together and because of the geopolitical difficulties). TACs are determined for a commercial species on the basis of scientific and historical considerations. For each species, a quota is fixed for each country. In practice TACs and quotas are difficult to enforce, particularly in Europe, where the need to reduce TACs to rebuild stocks over the long term is opposed by the pressure to increase catches to maintain the profitability of fishing industries in the short term.

The major fisheries policies are listed below. It is also important to remember the relevance of more general policies such as the UNEP Mediterranean Action Plan, which considers fishing along with other human activities.

The European Union: the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) began to be implemented in 1970 (CEC, 1991a). The two main measures used in the CFP to limit catches are the fixing of TACs and technical conservation measures to protect young fish, such as stipulating minimum mesh sizes for nets, minimum sizes of landed fish and levels of by-catch, and by restricting fishing activities in certain zones. Both have proved difficult to monitor and to enforce. As a result the main thrust of the CFP now consists of five-yearly multi-annual guidance programmes which establish fleet sizes for all Member States (in terms of tonnage and engine size), with the objective of reducing the fleet sizes by 2002 to a capacity which would not permit them to exceed optimum levels of exploitation on the stocks. Recent criticism has been levelled at the CFP for failing to reduce the size of its fishing fleet, and suggestions have been made that the efficiency of fishing vessels be taken into account when determining fleet sizes.

Other Western European countries: TACs, implemented in one form or another, are used for regulating fisheries elsewhere, including the Baltic Sea, Iceland, Norway and Greenland. In most cases TACs are set as part of multinational agreements, except in the case of Iceland which has virtual autonomy over exploitation of its fish resources and is relatively successful in enforcing legislation. Technical regulations are also enforced in most of these countries and individual transferable quotas (eg, by fisherman, or by boat) were recently implemented in Iceland.

Central and Eastern Europe: the fisheries policies of countries such as Poland, the former USSR and to a lesser extent East Germany were based upon the twin aims of supplying as much fish protein as possible to their populations (much of it coming from non-European waters) and to earn as much foreign exchange as possible. Few of these policies contained measures aimed at conserving fish stocks. The former USSR used TACs in order to manage its fisheries. Since independence, some of the former Soviet republics have implemented changes in fisheries policies. Estonia's reformed Fishing Law in 1991 and 1992 (Kangur, 1993) abolished limits on netting and catches except for internationally regulated species. The effect of such policies on the fisheries of the Baltic, which are generally declining, remains to be seen. It is difficult to assess the effectiveness of policies in Central and Eastern Europe due to lack of data. The enclosed Adriatic Sea is endangered by overfishing, in part because there is no agreed common policy between Italy and Croatia.

Regional policies: there are independent regional bodies in place in the northeast Atlantic (Northeast Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC)) and the Baltic (International Baltic Sea Fishery Commission (IBSFC)). Individual species stocks in these areas are managed by a series of TACs, set annually following scientific evidence from ICES. In the Mediterranean, the FAO has set up the General Fisheries Council for the Mediterranean (GFCM) and, in the Black Sea, the Mixed Commission for Black sea Fisheries (MCBSF). NEAFC has a regulatory role, but only in international waters as a result of the extension of national fishery limits to 200 miles in 1977. The Mediterranean and Black seas are almost totally unregulated except for national legislation, which applies only within fishery limits extending to a maximum of 12 miles in European waters (the so-called Territorial Sea), though less in certain countries (Greece's limit extends only six miles). Despite the CFP, the system of TACs does not currently apply to the Mediterranean. The Black Sea fisheries are exploited predominantly by the former USSR and Turkey. There are also regional commissions that focus on the management of certain species such as the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT).

Many fishery scientists now favour a switch to control of fishing effort, rather than fixing quotas. Possible additional measures include: limiting the number of boats in a fishery (through licensing), regulating the time spent at sea; reducing the number of nets per boat; use of area or seasonal closures or restrictions for certain shellfish and fishery areas. Sea ranching may lead to stock enhancement of threatened species. Encouraging small-scale local fishing activities rather than large-scale fishing may help reduce pressure on stocks. In the EU, more than 45 per cent of the fishing industry is employed in small-scale fisheries, particularly in the Mediterranean area (European Parliament, 1992b). The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) has recognised that small-scale, community-based fisheries account for almost half the world fish catch for human consumption, employ more than 95 per cent of people in fisheries, and use only 10 per cent of the energy of large-scale corporate fisheries (IUCN et al 1991).