Seafish and the fishing industry are cod-a-hoop recently, because it seems that cod stocks are doing better. You may have missed the news, but the story is that the EU's scientific advice suggests that stocks of North Sea cod have increased 5% in the last year, and are up a whopping 40% from the average in 2005-2008.
Sounds like great news. And of course any increase in a rampantly-overfished population of animals is to be welcomed. But it needs to be set in context.
Cod stocks are generally at a historic low in the North Sea. Viewing numbers against last year, or five years ago, may indeed show a slight increase, but basic arithmetic will quickly tell you that 5 or even 40% of 'hardly-any' is equal to 'not-very-much'. We need to look at the level of cod stocks decades, generations and centuries ago. That's what we should be aiming for - managing our seas for the recovery and abundance of species rather than scrabbling around amongst the low digits snapping off every green shoot of recovery as soon as it breaks the surface. Charles Clover puts it into context here.
And then there's the other good news - fishermen are voluntarily taking measures to reduce ‘discards' (whereby marketable species like cod are chucked away dead, being over quota, under sized, or not very sellable). This is indeed great news. I for one am delighted that measures like more selective nets are being used, and that areas are being closed to fishing to try and protect cod stocks and reduce discards. This is eminently sensible, and the sort of thing Greenpeace has been campaigning for for years.
Of course we should minimise discards, they benefit no one.
But again, let's look at the figures in context. As it's not enough to say we have a great scheme for reducing discards, unless it does the job, is it? And what is the EU scientists' news on cod discards in the North Sea ... why, last year they showed a dramatic increase in discards. Yes, an increase. More cod were caught and discarded (chucked away, dead and wasted) than were caught and landed. Most of these were immature fish that will never have the chance to breed.
So, by all means let's applaud those taking measures to reduce fishing capacity, minimise discards, set aside areas free of fishing as Marine Reserves, and use more selective methods ... but North Sea cod are not out of the woods yet. Clamouring for increased quotas and painting such a rosy picture of recovery does the fishing industry no favours.
