The Marine Stewardship Council is calling for quotas at the international level, in line with scientific recommendations.
These are two emblematic fish of the Northeast Atlantic. Herring and mackerel stocks are in sharp decline, warns the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), an organization issuing a sustainable fishing label. Countries fishing in the area are called upon to quickly agree on quotas to combat the "collapse" of populations. "This call follows new scientific data (...) which reveal a worrying downward trend", underlines the MSC in a press release.
According to the latest advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), a scientific organization responsible for advising governments, mackerel, blue whiting and herring are overfished, sometimes for several years.
The herring stock in the Northeast Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean has been halved in about fifteen years and "is now below the critical threshold of sustainability, i.e. the point at which the long-term health of the stock is threatened", points out the MSC. The mackerel stock has lost more than 60% of its biomass in nine years and is approaching the critical threshold below which a stock is considered to have collapsed.
An agreement to be found "urgently"
For these fish, fishing catches have systematically exceeded ICES recommendations for several years. "It is urgent to ensure that quotas are set in accordance with scientific advice", estimates the MSC. "Conversely, each nation unilaterally sets its own quotas, and the sum of these individual quotas exceeds the recommendations." According to ICES, the countries fishing the most herring are Norway, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Russia. For mackerel, these are the UK, Norway, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Russia.
“Governments urgently need to reach a quota-sharing agreement that is consistent with scientific advice and that safeguards the health of these stocks for future generations,” said Erin Priddle, MSC Regional Director for Northern Europe, in the statement. “The next coastal states meeting in October 2024 will be an important moment for reaching a quota-sharing agreement.”
