Europe's waters are some of the most overfished on the planet. While the fishing industry might think it's cashing in big now, a study released on Friday by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) found that poor management of fish stocks actually costs the industry billions.

The report's authors concluded that if the 43 species they studied were allowed to recover and then harvested at "maximum sustainable yields" - that is, the largest catches that can be sustained indefinitely - fishing companies could haul in an additional 3.53 million metric tons (3.89 short tons) of fish annually. That would increase revenues by 3.2 billion euros ($4.2 billion) and create more than 100,000 new jobs on boats and in processing plants.

"You can always increase your catches by fishing harder, more and building more boats. But these benefits are very quickly outweighed by long term costs," said Rupert Crilly, one of the report's authors and a researcher at NEF. "The end solution is very simple. We just need to reduce fishing pressure. We need to be catching less."

Europeche, a European fishing industry lobby group, was unimpressed by the findings.

"They don't need to study anything to obtain those results," said Javier Garat, the organization's president. "It's obvious. If there are more fish, then there are more fishermen, there are more vessels and there will be more employment."

A developing policy

Garat's concern is the emphasis on maximum sustainable yield. He said the European Commission had been pushing the industry for years to maintain "safe biological limits" that are meant to prevent fish stocks from collapsing without necessarily reaching peak levels.

A reform of the EU's Common Fisheries Policy is currently being discussed in the European Parliament.

"We have complied with the regulations, we have complied with the management plans and we have arrived at the objectives that they wanted before," Garat said. "Okay, so they have changed the rules in the middle of the game. We have to accept it. And we are going in that direction."

But the report from NEF worries that the reform doesn't go far enough. Crilly said that when a stock begins to decline in other regions, fishing is immediately stopped. The proposed reform only calls for gradual reductions in fishing in the case of such a decline - something Crilly said was simply not scientific.

Oliver Drewes, spokesman for the EU fisheries commissioner Maria Damanaki, conceded that European policy on these issues was still developing.

"The objective of the European Union is to have a completely science-based policy," he said, adding that the goal would be to eliminate the annual quota negotiations and base fishing levels entirely on set levels like maximum sustainable yields. "But there is still a long way to go."

NEF's Crilly said his team had found that fishing quotas set by European fishing ministers at the yearly meetings in Brussels were higher than levels recommended by scientists 68 percent of the time.

"There's evidence of subsidies going to very destructive fishing practices as well as [operators] that have had criminal records. This kind of practice needs to stop," he said.

'A public good'

Both Crilly and Drewes said the Commission's proposed reforms would ultimately be watered down in the negotiation process in the European Parliament.

"It's a very vexed discussion, but we have to get it right and we have to get it right soon," said Drewes. "That's why we need a lot of public pressure, a lot of willingness for change and a good compromise between the fishing lobby industry interests and let's say the societal interest - and the recognition that fish is a public good."

Author: Holly Fox
Editor: Sam Edmonds