Eels are facing population collapse, conservation groups have warned, after annual fishing negotiations for key EU waters ended in the setting of quotas above those scientists have recommended.
Eels are critically endangered, and conservation groups and scientists have argued that all EU eel fisheries should be closed, to allow populations space to recover.
However, in the annual negotiations over EU waters including the north-east Atlantic, which ended in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the European Commission agreed only to extend the closure of eel fisheries at sea from the current three-month closure to six months, to cover juvenile eel migration and mature eels swimming between the sea and rivers.
Negotiations between the EU and the UK, and between the EU and Norway, over shared fishing areas covering key fish species such as cod, whiting and haddock are still ongoing.
The UK’s catch levels for 2023 are likely to be set later this week, with a decision expected before the end of Thursday.
The EU’s decision to allow eel fishing to continue, and to set catch limits for some other species that have concerned conservationists, comes as the bloc strives to portray itself as a champion for wildlife conservation at the UN Cop15 biodiversity summit, currently taking place in Montreal.
Jenni Grossmann, fisheries science and policy adviser at ClientEarth, warned that eels were on the brink. “[The EU’s] science-defying reluctance to close all eel fisheries might well turn out to be the final nail in the coffin of this critically endangered species,” she said.
The mysterious lifecycle of eels – including the autumn migration to the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic to spawn – is still only partially understood.
But they are now under threat from overfishing, the obstruction of waterways and pollution. They play a vital role in marine and freshwater ecosystems, where they are prey for many other fish species and birds.
Fishing quotas were also set for cod, plaice and Norway lobster that the European Commission said were at the lower end of scientific advice. But for hake, anglerfish, megrim and horse mackerel in some waters there was a substantial increase in quota.
The EU said the agreement for stocks in the north-east Atlantic and Skagerrak fishing areas was worth about €3.5bn (£3bn) and for the first time could lead to “a very substantial increase in landings” in the Atlantic and North Sea in 2023, worth about an extra €81m, compared with 2022.
Virginijus Sinkevičius, EU commissioner for the environment, oceans and fisheries, said: “Today’s decisions show that the EU is at the forefront of sustainable fisheries management.
“By agreeing to set fishing opportunities in line with the scientific advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), we continue our efforts to manage our stocks at healthy levels. There is still some room for improvement, however, in particular regarding precautionary advice stocks.”
The annual EU negotiations over fishing rights were supposed to be consigned to history, under reforms started nearly a decade ago which should have set multi-year targets based on scientific advice known as the “maximum sustainable yield”.
But the wrangling continues each December as member states have failed to settle on long-term targets and are under pressure from fishing fleets to allow higher catches.
Grossmann said: “Every year, fisheries ministers ignore increasingly dire warnings, set excessive quotas, experts react with dismay, and the cycle begins again next December.
“The longer they do this, the more stocks will end up classed as vulnerable, endangered or worse – it’s not rocket science. This year, the timing is particularly poignant: all this flies in the face of leaders’ proclaimed ambitions to protect biodiversity at Cop15 this week.”
