Cod, haddock and fishermen are endangered species, which will disappear to be replaced by vast industrial vessels, catching trash fish for producing fish meal and oil. While the quotas for cod and haddock will be cut down to next to nothing, so that more and more small cutters have to give up, the Danish industrial fishery alone can – legally – land 50,000 tons of cod and haddock a year as by-catches in their trash fish cargos. In comparison, the Danish quota of cod and haddock for consumption in 2002 was only 13,000 tons. The question is which fishery policy the EU should support on this background? Where would it be more reasonable to set in, in order to restore the stocks?

The fish and the fishermen are disappearing, because the fishery policy has accepted and supported the destructive fishing methods, which greedily and ruthlessly have been harvesting, without thought of the future generations. The Danish Society for a Living Sea has therefore drawn up the § 1 of the fundament, which the future fishery administration should be build on. Read it at: http://gl.levendehav.dk/uk/dec-hirtshals.htm, and some suggestions for the future fishery policy at: http://gl.levendehav.dk/uk/pro-hirtshals.htm

We hereby encourage the ministers’ council to pass a fishery reform, which removes the vessels and the fishing methods, which are the cause of the current situation, where the European fishery is capsizing. The future fishery should be based on the fact that fishing is a hunt for a living and limited natural resource. Fishing should be done by responsible fishermen, who take this basic consideration, and who are not controlled by greed and carelessness towards other fishermen, present or future.

For further information:

The Danish Society for a Living Sea  

Juelsgеrdvej 27, Ferring Strand  

7620 Lemvig, Denmark  

www.levendehav.dk

Phone: + 45 97 89 54 55