What is the economic cost of discarding to the EU fishing industry?
No global estimates have been made of how much value is lost to the industry through discarding. However, a 2001 study by the Agricultural Economics Research Institute (The Hague) sought to quantify the cost of discards in three specific European fisheries. The authors found that in 1998, the Dutch beam trawl fishery discarded fish of marketable species with a future value of €160 million, or 70% of the value of their 1998 landings. UK North Sea whitefish trawlers discarded cod, haddock and whiting worth € 75 million in 1999, equivalent to 42% of the value of their landings. And the French Nephrops fishery discarded between 20 and 45% of the catch by weight according to species in 1997, representing fish worth nearly 100% of annual landings. In other words, in those fisheries which have the worst records for discarding, the practice can destroy almost as much economic value as the fishery is able to create. What measures can be taken to reduce unwanted by-catch and eliminate discards?
