EU Split, But Agrees To Some Quota Cuts On Slow-Growing Deep Sea Fish Species

[hatrack]

BRUSSELS - EU fisheries ministers thrashed out a deal on Tuesday setting quotas for deep-water fish, exotic but threatened species that are fast becoming an alternative to overcaught mainstays such as cod and hake, officials said.

With exotic names like orange roughy, black scabbardfish, blue ling and roundnose grenadier, Europe's deep-sea fish grow and reproduce far more slowly than fish in shallower waters and are more vulnerable to overfishing.

As numbers of EU commercial stocks such as cod, sole and hake started to fall from the early 1990s, deep-water fish became an attractive catch as trawlers switched from traditional fishing grounds. Some deep-water fish live for up to 150 years. The two-day debate on setting quotas for 2007 and 2008 split the 25 nations of the EU into a broad north-south divide, while the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, diluted some of the harsh quota cuts it had first wanted to apply.

EDIT

Northern states, including Britain, Germany and Denmark, argued hard to save Europe's deep-sea fish from extinction and wanted to follow scientific advice to ban catches of tusk, blue ling, orange roughy, and black scabbardfish in certain areas. They faced strong opposition from France, Portugal and Spain -- the EU countries with the most developed deep-sea fishing industries, backed by Italy and Poland. The debate between the two sides focused on the basis for calculating the quota cuts.

EDIT

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/39090/story.htm

[One_Life_To_Give]

1. Unfortunatly this seems to regulate "Landed Quantity"

Not that these limits are trivial just insufficient. As there appears to be no limit on the quantity brought in by a factory ship registered and "Landing Catch" outside the EU.

[jpak]

2. Every time I see Orange Roughy for sale, I think "Dodo" or "Passenger Pigeon"

They should ban its sale in the US - and Antarctic Toothfish too...