Land: Sweden

At the December Council, EU fisheries Ministers set quotas for 75 stocks in EU waters, covering the North Sea, Kattegat, Skagerrak and Black Sea. Seafish has produced a table that includes the agreed TACs for 2011 and 2012, along with the ICES advice for each stock (see below).

The Swedish Pelagic Producers Organisation (SPPO) North East Atlantic mackerel fishery was today certified as sustainable against the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) environmental standard for sustainable and well managed fisheries. Around 4 000 metric tonnes of North East Atlantic mackerel will now be eligible to display the blue MSC ecolabel in the market place.

In a recent article published in Marine Ecology Progress Series the German scientists Rainer Froese and Martin Quaas suggest that current exploitation levels should be kept for several years, or alternatively that the fishery is closed for 2 years in order to achieve MSY by 2015.

For the first time ever, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will conduct an open review of national and regional actions to protect deep-sea species and ecosystems– beyond national jurisdiction– from the harmful impacts of bottom fishing. This open review is scheduled to take place at UN headquarters in New York, on 15-16 September, 2011.

Responsible management and rebounding stocks earn Swedish Eastern Baltic cod fishery MSC ecolabel

Growing population of seals has threatened the small-scale fishing industry and so seal-safe fishing gear is in demand.

To protect a dwindling whitefish stock, the Swedish Board of Fisheries is planning to establish a non-fishing zone in the southern Bothnian Sea.

The WWF’s un-listing, under threat, of a popular Vietnamese farmed fish has provoked a heated debate in Sweden – the WWF claiming that in exchange it reached a strong agreement for that industry to clean up its business.

Sweden’s 50 trawlers with license to catch cod in the Baltic will have their quotas allotted for a whole year, the Board of Fisheries has proposed.

The ministers from Great Britain, Denmark and Norway met at Ardoe House in Aberdeen in early October, hosted by Scotland’s Fisheries Secretary Richard Lochhead. They were joined by Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki, making her first official visit to the UK.