Monday, 29th September 2008
Time the EU realised that ‘cod is not God’
British Ministers must use today’s EU fisheries council to end the EU's cod obsession, Struan Stevenson MEP (Conservative fisheries spokesman in the European Parliament) said today.
Fisheries ministers are set to discuss the cod stocks recovery plan, but Mr Stevenson is warning that the current system is causing misery for fishermen and forcing them to throw back (discard) tonnes of healthy fish at a time of food shortages, when there is significant evidence to suggest over-fishing is not the main cause of cod depletion.
Mr Stevenson said:
"When 'Cod Recovery' is on the agenda of the Council of Ministers, Scottish fishermen are full of dread. Our fishermen feel that there is an on-going war of attrition over cod.
"Every year, tonnes of perfectly decent food is tipped into the sea, and fishermen are going out of business in what has become a futile attempt to preserve one species that has moved out of our waters anyway.
"It is a sad indictment of the disastrous Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) that after 20 years of quota cuts, TAC (Total Allowable Catch) restrictions, de-commissioning schemes, lay-offs, tie-ups, days at sea limits, emergency closures and redundancies, we have seen 60% of the UK whitefish fleet scrapped and thousands of jobs destroyed.
"Too many fisheries ministers believe that Cod is God.
“Many more fishermen will be sacrificed on the altar of the cod recovery programme before we finally wake up to the fact that the cod will not return until global warming is reversed and the North Sea cools down again.
"British ministers must make it clear that they want the EU to end its obsession with cod."
