Towards Sustainable Fisheries in Europe Rainer Froese GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany 3rd International Conference on Progress in Marine Conservation in Europe June 2012, Ozeaneum Stralsund, Germany 1

Status of Global Fish Stocks 2

‚Stability‘ in world catches masks decline of fish stocks 3

Global Catches are Stagnating Pauly and Froese, 2012

Global Effort Keeps Increasing Pauly and Froese, 2012

Global Fish Stocks are Shrinking If catches are stagnating while effort is increasing then fish stocks must be shrinking Pauly and Froese, 2012

The method to assess all global stocks proposed by Froese & Kesner-Reyes (2002), subsequently used by others, including Worm et al. (2006) for their 2048 prediction, is sound Global overfishing continues FAO, by using a subset of well-researched stocks, severely underestimates global overfishing 7

Status of Global Fish Stocks Neue Bestände Zusammengebrochen Undeveloped Developing Fully exploited Overexploited Collapsed Froese et al. Marine Biology 2012

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European Stocks and Fisheries 10

Status of all European Stocks 11 Neue Bestände Zusammengebrochen Developing Fully exploited Undeveloped Overexploited Collapsed Froese et al. Marine Biology 2012

The Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982) requires stock sizes that can produce the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) Johannesburg (2002) gave the political goal of 2015 With ‘business as usual’ Europe will miss this goal by more than 30 years 12

Rebuilding European Fish Stocks Average size of 54 European fish stocks (bold blue line). The upper arrow indicates the path, if 75% of the stocks were to reach the internationally agreed target in The lower arrow shows the current trend. Froese et al. Fish & Fisheries

Fishing Pressure on European Fish Stocks Average fishing pressure on 54 European fish stocks. The lower arrow indicates the path if 75% of the stocks were to be fished at the maximum sustainable rate in However, with the current trend that target will be missed by more than 30 years. Froese et al. Fish & Fisheries 2010 UNCLOSCFPFAO/UNFASJPOIDamanaki 14

CFP contains over 600 regulations, some contradictory, without efficient control CFP aims for smallest viable instead of optimal stock size Annual horse-trading leads to overfishing and uncertainty Subsidies waste taxpayers money and create and maintain overcapacity 15

Harvest Control Rules for Future Fisheries 16

Generic Harvest Control Rules for European Fisheries Rainer Froese, Trevor A. Branch, Alexander Proelß, Martin Quaas, Keith Sainsbury & Christopher Zimmermann (2011) Rules for sustainable and profitable fisheries based on 1) economic optimization of fisheries 2) honoring international agreements 3) true implementation of the precautionary principle 4) learning from international experiences 5) ecosystem-approach to fisheries management 6) recognizing the biology of European fish stocks If these rules were applied, catches could increase by 63% 17

Harvest Control Rule Schema 18

European Fisheries 19

Profits in Fisheries 20

Due to several lucky coincidences, the eastern Baltic cod stock is recovering Here we looked at options for management to fully rebuild the stock and make the fishery highly profitable 21

Simulated profits for the eastern Baltic cod resulting from four different management options. Froese & Quaas

The North Sea cod is outside of safe biological limits and the southern subpopulation may be lost Yet, legalized overfishing continues at 3 * F msy What if the fishery had been closed in 2003, following scientific advice? 23

Actual and Possible Stock Size 24 Actual stock size Possible stock size Three year closure Froese & Quaas, in prep.

Actual and Possible Profits 25 Froese & Quaas, in prep. Possible profits Actual profits

Seafood Labels to the Rescue

Definitions of ‚overfished‘ and ‚overfishing‘ that are compatible with international law 19% (FoS) to 31% (MSC) of certified stocks are overfished and suffer from ongoing overfishing But 61% (MSC) to 81% (FoS) of stocks with data are large enough and moderately exploited, which is better than the 15% in uncertified stocks 27

What‘s Coming Fishing industry borrows from natural capital at high shadow interest rates. Martin Quaas et al., in press A simple method for estimating MSY from catches and resilience. Martell and Froese, in press 28

News from the CFP Reform The Commission (Maria Damanaki) has presented an ambitious CFP reform proposal The Council of Agriculture Ministers has now decided upon its ‚compromise‘ position The European Parlament will present its position in November, then a new compromise has to be negotiated 29

The Council Compromise Postpone sustainable fishing for stocks without Fmsy estimates until 2020 Lots of loopholes for continued overfishing, e.g. of vulnerable species in mixed fisheries Administrative monster for reduction of discards Continued subsidies 30

What is the Role of ICES in the CFP Reform? Presented a Harvest Control Rule that allows catches beyond MSY and fishing of collapsed stocks Presented a multi-species management proposal for the Baltic with heavy overfishing for cod, sprat and herringmulti-species management proposal for the Baltic 31

European Fisheries 32 ICES Harvest Control Rule

33 FmsyFproposed F Eastern Cod – 0.65 Herring Sprat

Thank You Questions? Presentation and Papers available from Rainer Froese 34