Environmental campaigners claim to have shut down the EU building in Brussels where fisheries ministers are due to meet this week to decide on new catch quotas. Greenpeace says that almost 200 volunteers have blocked off entrances with metal fences and constructed a 30m-long, 2m high wall that is shutting off the main entrance, sprayed with the words: "Shut down until fish stocks recover". Anyone who wants to leave the building is permitted to do so, but Greenpeace is not letting anyone in. Ministers meeting this week are expected to call for quotas to be increased by 25% for many fish stocks, despite scientific evidence that 80% are being fished outside "known safe biological limits". Greenpeace says that if the meeting goes ahead, ministers will once again impose fishing quotas which will push depleted stocks closer towards extinction.

The campaigners fear that if fishing for species like cod is allowed to continue at the present levels, such fish could be wiped out in the North Sea and other areas. They are calling not only for a halt to unsustainable cod fishing, but also for large areas of the oceans to become protected as "marine reserves". In Brussels, Willie Mackenzie, Greenpeace's oceans campaigner, said: "Every year, these bungling bureaucrats preside over the decimation of Europe's fish stocks, ignore the advice of their own scientists and set fishing quotas which will only push species like cod in the North Sea further towards extinction.

"By stopping this meeting, we're stopping these politicians yet again making a decision which will be bad news for conserving fish stocks and devastating for the fishing industry. "Fisheries ministers have completely failed to conserve fish stocks, and their responsibilities should be taken from them. Environment ministers must step in to protect cod and defend the oceans, starting by listening to the scientific advice. They must also establish a network of large-scale, fully protected marine reserves."

Jonathan Shaw, the UK fisheries minister, said last month he would petition the EU for higher North Sea fishing quotas. He was particularly concerned about the amount of dead fish being thrown back into the water, as a result of the current quotas, which he called "immoral". Trawlers targeting other marine life are forced to discard cod and other white fish because of quotas designed to protect stocks. According to EU figures, fishermen throw between 40% and 60% of their catch overboard.

Conservationists fear that research released earlier this year, which found that cod stocks were showing signs of recovery, will be exploited by ministers at this year's meeting. Currently EU ministers are planning to increase quotas by 11%, which will allow fleets to land up to about 22,000 tonnes of cod. Earlier this year, the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (Ices) announced that cod was making a comeback.

For the first time since 2002, the council, which advises governments on fishing quotas and coordinates marine research, did not call for a complete ban on cod fishing in the North Sea. While the increase in the number of young fish could "contribute substantially" to the recovery of the North Sea cod stock, limits must be enforced to ensure the recovery continued, the scientists warned. The WWF has warned EU nations that one good spawning year for cod does not mean a recovery.

Without clear measures to avoid catching juveniles, the group says, any increase in quota will only result in further young fish being removed from the sea, and continued high levels of discarding. To put an end to this waste and help fishermen avoid non-targeted cod where possible, it is urging EU ministers to agree on and implement substantial measures. The WWF is calling for the closure of key spawning areas, real-time closures where juveniles are found, the introduction of better gear to allow smaller cod to escape while the sought-after catch is landed, and the deployment of on-board observers to monitor operations.

In its new briefing, Hook, Line and Sinker, the WWF points to Canada's Grand Banks, where historic Atlantic cod grounds were made commercially extinct. It says that lie now, decision-makers ignored scientific advice and chose to cash-in on the early signs of recovery, with the result of further deterioration of the stocks.

Helen McLachlan, senior marine policy officer at WWF says: "Europe cannot afford to repeat the same mistakes by fishing out cod at the first signs of recovery. EU ministers and the European commission have to wake up to the reality that what is at stake at the fisheries council is cods' survival in the North Sea." Oceana, an international ocean group, fears scientific advice will again be ignored by the council this year.

It says that over the last 20 years, Ices has given over 1,500 pieces of scientific advice to EU and other governments in the north-eastern Atlantic for the correct management of fish stocks. Of these, only 350 (22%) have been properly respected, it says, and over 1,200 warnings have been totally ignored. "No one should be surprised that Europe's fishing stocks are in such a disastrous situation. The irresponsible manner in which the EU's resources have been managed is unacceptable," said Ricardo Aguilar, the research director for Oceana Europe.

Oceana is urging ministers to support a long-term vision of European fisheries sector that trusts scientific advice. It wants member states of Ices, which includes Belgium, Canada, Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, to allocate more funding to the scientific body in order to hire and train more experts to collect more data and develop more integrated advice on every targeted species.

(The Guardian, 17/12/2007)