Policy

Fisheries

Fisheries

Danish trawler fishing for sandeels, surrounded by gannets and kittewakes

The fortunes of today's seabirds are tied up with fisheries more than any other human activity and fishing has been identified as the most widespread agent of change in global marine biodiversity.

The pattern of fishing in UK waters, repeated world-wide, has proved unsustainable for many fish stocks, the fishing industry and the wider marine environment. Not only has overfishing in the north-east Atlantic run down fish stocks and the fishing industry but it has also had powerful knock-on effects on seabirds and the rest of our marine wildlife.

The RSPB promotes changing the way fisheries are managed to make them more sensitive to the needs of the marine environment, in effect invoking an ecosystem approach to fisheries management.

Fishing practices such as the entanglement of seabirds in nets and on hooked lines kill birds directly but fisheries also exert more subtle indirect effects on seabird populations, destabilising their community structure through manipulating the food chain:

The RSPB promotes changing the way fisheries are managed to make them more sensitive to the needs of the marine environment

Discards and seabirds: Up to half the fish caught by fishing vessels is routinely thrown overboard, dead, as 'discards'. This, along with other fish waste jettisoned, has led to an increase this century in numbers of scavenging birds, notably fulmars, gannets and gulls which find rich pickings behind trawlers, although changes in fish stocks and management are now shifting the balance again. See the RSPB report 'Net loss - seabirds gain? Implications of fisheries management for seabirds scavenging discards in the northern North Sea'.

A bonanza of fish fry: Fishing has reduced stocks of large fish (such as cod and mackerel) which eat smaller fish (such as sprats and sandeels), allowing the latter to multiply. This potentially increases the food supply for seabirds like kittiwakes and puffins.

Industrial fisheries: Not surprisingly, a fishery has developed to exploit this bonanza of small shoaling fish and we need to ensure that it does not aggravate the depletion of the sandeel stock apparently caused by a rise in the sea temperature of Europe’s waters.

The Danish-led 'industrial fishery' takes a massive tonnage of sandeels from the North Sea, including from sensitive areas for breeding seabirds off the east coast of Britain. Industrial fish are not for human consumption but are rendered into fish-meal and oil for livestock feed, most of it destined for the growing of farmed salmon. See the RSPB report 'Assessment of the sustainability of industrial fisheries producing fish meal and fish oil', linked from this page.

Better management needed

In pursuit of better managed fisheries to address all these imbalances, the 2002 review of the EU's Common Fisheries Policy was a major focus of the RSPB's European work. Several of our objectives for the revision of the CFP were achieved, including the commitment to develop an ecosystem approach to fisheries management, a switch to long-term management plans for managing fish stocks, a move towards the decentralisation of management of the CFP through the formation of Regional Advisory Councils (RACs), and the abolition of public aid for building and upgrading fishing vessels.

The RSPB's aim is to ensure that safeguarding the marine environment is given much higher priority in further development of the CFP through:

  • application of the precautionary approach and ecosystem approach to fisheries management 
  • reduction of fishing effort (nearly every single adverse impact on the marine environment would be relieved to some extent by less fishing capacity and effort) 
  • promotion of No-Take Zones (areas permanently closed to fishing) as a tool for restoration of fish stocks 
  • better regulation of North Sea industrial fisheries, especially for sandeels in sensitive areas
  • minimisation of damage from fishing gears to seabirds and other marine wildlife, particularly through measures for reducing seabird bycatch in longline fisheries 
  • promotion of local fisheries management, which delivers better stewardship of the marine environment in inshore waters, including the management of shell-fisheries of importance to birds 
  • development of site safeguards for seabirds and other wildlife in the marine environment; support for marine Special Protection Areas (SPAs) for seabirds as part of a network of Marine Protected Areas.  

In pursuit of these aims, the RSPB promotes its policies on fisheries to fishing organisations, the UK Government, other European member states and to the European Commission and European Parliament. The RSPB represents BirdLife International and other environmental NGOs on the European Commission’s Advisory Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture (ACFA) and is also a member of the North Sea Regional Advisory Council (NSRAC) and the North Western Waters RAC.

While the main focus of our work is on fisheries in the open sea and how they affect fish stocks and birds, we also work to promote better management and regulation of cage fish-farming, especially in Scotland, in order to make the aquaculture industry more environmentally-sound.

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Last modified: 26 June 2007

Downloads

Managing EC inshore fisheries: Time for change (711Kb)
Report by Clare Coffey and Janet Dwyer of the Institute for European Environmental Policy, London. This report sets out some specific policy options for the inshore sector which could promote a more integrated and sustainable future.
Managing Europe's inshore fisheries: Harnessing the European Fisheries Fund (544Kb)
Report from Clare Coffey of the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), London.
Inshore fisheries regulation and management in Scotland: Meeting the challenges of Environmental Integration (572Kb)
Symes, D. and Ridgway, S. (2003). Report to assess how well the current system for managing Scotland's inshore fisheries is working in relation to the integration of environmental concerns into fisheries management.
Assessment of the sustainability of industrial fisheries producing fish meal and fish oil (818Kb)
Final report by Poseidon Aquatic Resource Management Ltd and The University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne to evaluate the sustainability of industrial fisheries used in fish meal and oil production.
Net loss - seabirds gain? (1.2Mb)
S.A. Reeves and R.W. Furness (2002). Implication of fisheries management for seabirds scavenging discards in the northern north Sea.