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  On the Verge of Catastrophe: Germany Acknowledges Disastrous Over-Fishing

On the Verge of Catastrophe Germany Acknowledges Disastrous Over-Fishing

By Christian Schwägerl

Much of the world's fish population is verging on extinction and the EU earns much of the blame for its poorly managed fishing fleets. Germany acknowledges the enormous problems with Europe's fishing policies -- but it lacks the courage to make any real changes.

Europeans are looters. They remove many more fish from the sea than are replaced through natural reproduction. Their governments tolerate theft, because they hardly oppose illegal fishing. In fact, the governments are accomplices to the crime because they tolerate their overexpanded fishing fleets.

Those were the tough judgments released in early March by the German government in response to questions submitted by the Green Party's parliamentary delegation.

Of course, the government found a more temperate way of expressing its findings: It regretted "the lack of determination in setting reliable fishing quotas," "loopholes in the fishing oversight system," "penalties that are not sufficiently strong enough to provide a deterrent," and "negligence in reducing overcapacity in some fleets."

The United Nations likewise described the consequences of the world's catastrophic management in a new report on worldwide fishing. Eighty percent of the world's fishing populations are overfished to the point of extinction.

If that continues, it's not only the marine ecosystem that will suffer -- so will the great number of people who depend on fish as a source of protein.

"Worldwide fishing is a losing bargain for people and nature," said Karoline Schacht of the environmental organization WWF. "The whole system could collapse by the middle of this century." The economic costs of overfishing reach up to €40 billion per year. WWF is calling for "sustainable management" of the fishing industry, with more protected areas, environmentally friendly trapping techniques and significantly smaller fishing fleets.

So far, politicians and the fishing industry have failed to deliver on their promise to reform the system to prevent chronic overfishing. Asked whether the fishing policies needed a wholesale revision, the German government wasn't willing to take a firm stand. "Neither the communal fishing policies as a whole, nor specific instruments could be considered general failures," the report stated.

The government emphasized that it is actively working on countless improvements to the system. In the future, for example, fishing quotas will be set "on the basis of scientific recommendations." That's already been possible for a quite some time because the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) provides such recommendations. So far, though, they've been ignored by European Union member states, very often with Germany's assent.

Moreover, the government wrote that it will "very soon" ban throwing caught fish overboard back into the sea. Previously, fishers were permitted to bring only the best of their haul back to land. If they weren't permitted to throw back the low-quality catch, there would be less incentive to randomly trawl the water and more incentive to develop targeted fishing techniques.

But the government made its recommendation only to subsequently take it back. Only commercially useful types of fish will be counted towards the fishing quotas -- other fish will go uncounted. And the government also emphasized that the ban on tossing fish overboard "can only be introduced gradually because of its complex effects."

Complex effects? A translation from legalese shows that's a reference to the economic impact the restriction will have on fishers who consistently overfish.

The background for this hesitancy is clear enough. Despite Germany's relatively small fishing fleet, the government still doesn't have the confidence to openly challenge important fishing nations like Spain and Denmark in the halls of Brussels. Germany fears stirring up anger in its European partners and losing their cooperation on other issues.

The Green Party's coordinator for fisheries policy, Cornelia Behm, is understandably disappointed with the government's position. "The government ignores how catastrophic the over fishing in European water is," she says. "The government's delusional stance suggests that the future will also offer only halting reforms of our fishing policies." Behm suggests that if the German government wants to earn credibility with its fishing policies, it quickly has to take the initiative to reduce the number of fishing boats, as well as their capacity.