The economic madness of fish discards

Since 1963, European (EU27) fleets have thrown away billions of cod from the North Sea, dead. No one can possibly appreciate this enormous figure, or what a waste it is. These fish didn’t contribute to the economy – they were never sold. They weren’t cashed in for anything. They barely had a chance to play a role in their ecosystem, being caught mostly small and before they can reproduce.

We recently reported (Money Overboard, 1 August 2011), that almost 7.5 billion cod in the North Sea (and some nearby waters) have been thrown away since 1963. This is far more than the number of cod actually landed. Over the entire period an average of 1.4 cod were discarded for every one landed. In 1980, at the peak of inefficiency, there were 5.5 cod discarded for every one landed, since dropping to around 2.5 today. And, in case you’re thinking this drop is a good sign, the figure below should relieve you of your optimism. The population has greatly declined and now there are too few cod to be throwing away so many.

Number of catches and landings of cod in the North Sea, Eastern Channel and Skagerrak (1963-2008). Cod population (green), cumulative total catches (landings and discards; red+blue), and landings (blue). The red shaded area (above the blue area) represents total discards. We use cod as a case study because of the excellent data available, which is amenable to modelling techniques. Data from ICES.

We have estimated the cost of this waste at £2.7 billion to EU fleets, and almost a billion to the UK alone. This could have supported 711 jobs in the UK for 46 years – jobs which were thrown away. If we were smarter with how we fish, and landed these fish when they were just one year older, doubling their size, the value would have been £3.55 billion. And this is still far from their maximum potential. At their maximum, they would weigh five times more than their discarded weight, and even accounting for drops in prices would be worth some £7.5 billion. Smarter management of the ocean really does pay. Unfortunately, however, we’ve been spending most of our effort and money on technology and boats to catch more and more fish, driving down the populations. This has exacerbated the problems in European fisheries; a dead-end alley that has brought us within sight of fish stocks collapsing.

Why the waste?
The main reasons given for discarding fish are either policy or practice-driven. Policies such as effort controls (when fishermen are in a race to fish as much as possible, as profitably as possible) and a lack of quota for bycatch species particularly in multi-species fisheries all encourage discarding. Fishing practices encouraging discarding include unselective fishing (e.g. small mesh sizes, trawling) and highgrading (throwing out less valuable fish to make room for more valuable ones).

From a commercial perspective, many of the costs of discarding are not borne by the fishermen in the short term. Yes, they pay for all the effort in catching these unwanted fish, and for throwing them away, but the damage this causes to the stock and ecosystem is shouldered by the entire industry (and public). This further encourages discarding.

What can be done about it?
A ban on discarding is the simplest, all-encompassing solution, though the knock-on effects would need to be treated carefully. The key is to prevent the capture of these unwanted fish in the first place, and thereby allow them to grow in size and value (particularly for commercial species) and maintain a healthier population. There has been a drive to create a market for these undersize fish, but this could actually exacerbate pressure on the stock while providing fishermen no incentive to be more selective or sustainable. In this event, the key condition would need to be a sale price (if there is one) low enough to incentivise fishermen to be more sustainable.

There are many potential solutions to the discarding problem, such as time of implementation of a ban, compensation mechanisms and so on, but it is not ideas that are lacking. Since 1963 there has been almost zero practical effort – or political drive – to reduce discards. The famous Project 50% in Brixham is so often quoted because, frankly, there are few others to choose from.

What’s next?
Our report demonstrated that discarding is a costly practice for the economy and fishing industry, as well as the fish themselves. In the cod stock, it is pretty clear from the top graph that if discards make up a large part of the population, then their ban would help improve the health of this overfished population.

But, there are two cautionary points to make: addressing discards should not be at the expense of real reforms to the CFP that would eliminate overfishing, and that overfishing is a far larger problem in Europe and the World than discarding. Discarding makes up around 8% of total landings, while 82% of fish stocks are in either a fully or overexploited state. Discarding may just be the easiest to solve, and about time too.

The Commissioner Damanaki has proposed a ban on discards of quota species. This is a bold move, but falls short for non-quota species where discarding is significant (not all species have quotas, the health of some of their populations is close to unknown, and yet we can still fish them!). The key next step will be to see whether the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament will support this move.

If you’re interested in following the reform of the CFP, this site is a good place to start (here is the official one), and don’t forget to sign Hugh’s petition on banning discards. If you’d like to have your voice heard then, ahem, “Honk if you love justice!”, or so the Tick has been known to say.