Regulatory Measures for the fishing activity in the Baltic Sea

 

In the interest of the conservation of the living resources and their rational exploitation, the International Baltic Sea Fishery Commission establishes each year in September for the following year "Total Allowable Catches (TACs)" , or catch limits for the main four commercially exploited species: cod, salmon, herring and sprat. These TACs take into account the status of the stocks as described by the ACFM Report of ICES and the economic needs of the fishing industry in the coastal states of the Baltic Sea. TACs have been the main tool or basic tool of the management procedure and they have been introduced first in 1977 for cod, sprat and herring, and in 1988 for salmon. The annual TACs recommended by IBSFC can be found as "Recommendations" in the Proceedings of every Session.

Already during the first IBSFC Session in 1974, Technical Regulatory Measures such as closed periods for fishing and minimum landing sizes and mesh sizes were laid down in the "IBSFC Fishery Rules". They were gradually expanded and fine-tuned; eg. the mesh size for the cod fishery was three times increased in the 80ies from 90 to 105 mm. A summer ban for the Cod fishery has been established since 1995.

Since 1994 special attention was also given to allow the Contracting Parties to strengthen the enforcement and to prevent uncontrolled fishing by increased exchange of information on private quota arrangements, exchange of lists of vessels authorised to take part in fishing operations, exchange of landing statistics of vessels of other Contracting Parties and the refusal of cod transhipments and of landings of exhausted quotas.

In 1997 finally, the "Salmon Action Plan" was adopted; probably the first long term management scheme introduced by a Regional Fishery Organisation. The Commission also adopted the Long Term Management Strategy for the Cod stocks in the Baltic Sea (1999) as well as the Long Term Management Strategy for the Sprat stock (2000). Both will be reviewed not later than in the year 2003. A Long Term Strategy for the Herring Stocks will be further discussed in 2001.

Finally, and under impulse from the "Baltic 21" initiative, Action Programmes for all fisheries were adopted in early 1998. Pending ongoing analysis by ICES, IBSFC intends to implement these Action Programmes by establishing stock-specific "target reference points" and "limit reference points", as provided for in Article 7.5.3 of the FAO "Code of conduct for Responsible Fisheries" with the objective to achieve "sustainability" well before 2030.