NewsMar 22, 2023

EU fisheries action plan – Member States need to make it happen

Johanna FoxDirector, WWF Baltic Ecoregion Programme

Hannah Griffiths-BerggrenCommunications Manager, WWF Baltic Ecoregion Programme

It is no news that the Baltic Sea is in peril and many fish stocks are on a downward spiral. If threatened species are to recover, ambitious and time-bound roadmaps with concrete measures for better marine protection from Baltic Sea Member States are required. In addition, strict protection of spawning and nursery grounds should be prioritized to help restore fish stocks.

Forty per cent of the entire Baltic seafloor, an area of 180,000 km², has been disturbed by maritime activities – and in the southern Baltic, the figure rises to 80-100%. Fishing is one of the key pressures on the Baltic marine environment, both through unsustainable fishing and damage to habitats. Baltic cod stocks have collapsed, the alarm has been raised about herring following the same trajectory, salmon is red-listed and the eel is close to extinction. The concept of “fishing down the food chain” seems to hold true for the region. The situation needs to be controlled and resolved.

What is fishing down the food chain?

This concept describes the process where the large, valuable, high trophic level fish of the world (like cod & pike) have been fished out, and therefore fisheries are moving down the food chain to fish out the smaller, less valuable fish at lower trophic levels (like sprat & herring).

Late last month the EU Commission published its Action Plan to protect and restore marine ecosystems for sustainable and resilient fisheries, under the EU Biodiversity strategy. It calls on each Member State to lay out the measures it will adopt to ensure a sustainable future for EU fisheries and marine ecosystems and comply with both environmental and fisheries policies. The Action Plan is also expected to deliver on some of the global commitments taken, including the commitment of the new Global Biodiversity Framework reached in Montreal at the 15^th United Nations Biodiversity Conference of the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15) to protect and restore 30% of global terrestrial and marine areas and restore 30% of degraded ecosystems.

What the WWF Baltic Ecoregion Programme thinks

WWF Baltic Programme welcomes the action plan and its call for Member States to, at long last, urgently adopt time-bound and ambitious measures to deliver an informed, inclusive, fair and just transition towards sustainable and ecosystem-based fisheries management. If fully and timely implemented, the action plan can help reverse the downward spiral. WWF Baltic Programme urges Baltic Sea Member States to submit ambitious roadmaps of concrete measures as soon as possible by the end of March 2024 deadline at the latest.

“There has been a decade-long separation of fisheries and environmental policies and lack of implementation, to the detriment of both ecosystems and those who depend on them. It appears that with this action plan, the Commission has understood the problem, its role in it, and is finally putting much needed pressure on Member States to implement existing legislation,” says Johanna Fox, Director of WWF Baltic Ecoregion Programme.

What would the EU Commission Action Plan mean for improved marine protection?

One priority of the action plan is to ensure better protection of sensitive species and habitats. Most notably, it calls on Member States to phase out and prohibit mobile bottom contacting gears, such as bottom trawling, in marine protected areas. Furthermore, the Commission tasks Member States to establish more and to effectively manage marine protected areas in order to reach the 30×30 target. This includes strictly protecting important spawning and nursery grounds – where no or only limited human activity is allowed – to help restore fish stocks.

WWF Baltic Programme welcomes this action. Currently, the network of marine protected areas in the Baltic Sea only reaches around 11.8% (as of 2018) and is not effective, with many lacking management plans and adequate regulation of harmful activities, including bottom trawling.

“Marine protected areas in the Baltic Sea have thus far not lived up to their name, with many lacking management plans or their implementation and missing regulation of harmful activities,” explains Fox, “as such, WWF welcomes the call to establish both new and to effectively manage all existing MPAs, and to use strictly protected areas as a tool to better protect fish spawning grounds.”

The action plan also aims at improving fishing selectivity and reducing harmful impacts on endangered, threatened and protected species, such as both critically endangered Baltic Proper harbour porpoise and the European eel, amongst others.

WWF Baltic Ecoregion Programme calls Baltic Sea Member States to:

Minimise by-catch of the critically endangered Baltic harbour porpoise by the end of 2023. Current measures to reduce the incidental by-catch of the critically endangered Baltic Proper harbour porpoise are not sufficient to ensure the recovery of the population. With only around five hundred individuals left, by-catch must be reduced to a minimum to ensure the survival of the population.¹ Baltic Sea countries must work swiftly in the regional group BALTFISH to establish additional measures, such as making the use of pingers mandatory on static nets in the entire distribution range of the population, considering establishing additional closures where appropriate and establishing control and enforcement of new and existing measures.
Reduce by-catch of other sensitive and threatened species. The Action Plan further calls for reduced by-catch and incidental mortality of other sensitive and threatened species. To identify such species in the Baltic Sea, the HELCOM Red List of threatened species can serve as a good basis. Close cooperation between BALTFISH and HELCOM is necessary to complete this action.
Improve the protection of the European eel by the end of June 2024. To complete this action Member States have to adopt or update the existing Eel Management Plans under the Eel Regulation. The eel management plans should address the impact of fisheries as well as non-fisheries-related effects. The plans should also address the need for eel habitats restoration, improve the connectivity of rivers as well as transboundary cooperation. The amount of eel (so called “glass eel”) reaching Europe has decreased by roughly 90 per cent since the 1970s. The European eel is therefore red-listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as well as HELCOM. According to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), all human impact on the European eel should be “reduced to or kept as close to zero as possible.²
Ensure that mobile bottom fishing, such as bottom trawling, is phased out in all marine protected areas by 2030. According to the action plan destructive mobile bottom contacting gears, such as bottom trawling, have numerous impacts that go beyond the target species and affect the whole ecosystem. The call from the Commission to phase out and prohibit mobile bottom fishing in marine protected areas is therefore much welcomed. By March 2024 member states must provide detailed plans on how they will prohibit mobile bottom fishing in all MPAs. In addition, they are also called to adopt national measures or submit a regional group proposal to prohibit mobile bottom fishing in the MPAs that are Natura 2000 sites designated under the Habitats Directive to protect the seabed and marine species. This will be an important step to phase out mobile bottom fishing in a gradual manner by 2030.
Establish more and effectively manage all marine protected areas by 2030. Marine protected areas are an important tool to ensure conservation and restoration of marine ecosystems and species. WWF welcomes the EU Commission’s call to increase the amount of marine protected areas. To enable the recovery of marine ecosystems and to provide benefits of larval export and potential spillover of juveniles/adults into adjacent fishing grounds, a network of MPAs supporting representativity, replication and connectivity across the sea basin must achieve at least 30% coverage and be effectively managed by 2030 in line with the Global Biodiversity Framework and the new EU Green Deal for Nature.³
Secure effective cooperation between national authorities and ministerial institutions responsible for fisheries and those for environmental protection, as well as between HELCOM Commission and BALTFISH regional group. To fulfil the commitments of the EU Fisheries Action Plan it is necessary to secure good collaboration between all institutions responsible for environmental conservation and fisheries management, on both national and regional scales. In addition, such improved cooperation would benefit the implementation of the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan, as both action plans complement each other.
By the end of March 2024, prepare and publish roadmaps outlining all the measures needed to implement the action plan. To improve governance and stakeholder engagement each Member State should prepare a plan on how all the measures will be implemented including timelines for their adoption, and proposals to improve coordination between national authorities and stakeholders. WWF Baltic Programme has long called for governments around the Baltic Sea to work collaboratively, across ministries and sectors, to adhere to, implement and enforce existing laws and fulfil requirements towards limiting the impacts of bottom trawl fisheries by delivering on their obligations to the CFP, the MSFD, EMFF, the Habitats Directive, SDG 14 and the CBD Aichi Targets.

It is time to act

The countries around the Baltic Sea have a long history of cooperation in HELCOM and full implementation of the regional action plan is a crucial step. If they are sincere in their ambition to protect the Baltic, Member States must step up the mark and answer this call to action by the EU Commission to fully integrate fisheries and environmental management, and to once and for all ensure that an ecosystem approach is used. Detailed road maps on how they plan to reach the tasks and live up to both EU legislation as well as internationally agreed targets for the protection of biodiversity and the 30×30 target must be submitted by the March deadline.