The fishing capacity for Swedish cod fishers in the Kattegat and Skagerrak and the North Sea, will be reduced by up to 25 per cent, after a new effort-management system was introduced on Feb.1.
The new system, implemented under the EU Cod Recovery Plan approved by the Council last November, is based on the “kilowatt-days” principle, meaning fishing capacity measured in engine power in kilowatts, multiplied with number of fishing days at sea.
Some 180 Swedish vessels have been allotted fishing days under the new system, those of them using trawls and danish seines with a mesh size of 90-99 millimeters being subjects to the biggest reductions of some 25 per cent.
To soften the blow, the Swedish Board of Fisheries intends to work out a system for making the allotted fishing days transferable between fishermen. The Board will also launch a renewed scrapping campaign, a similar effort recently resulting in a ten per cent reduction of the cod trawling capacity in the Baltic by ten per cent.