A new wave of media attention surrounding the situation of the still WWF-blacklisted Baltic cod has rolled over Sweden, a nation where consumers have been more eager than in any other European country to follow the WWF recommendations.
The first round of debate followed the EU Council’s decision last October to raise TACs (Total Allowable Catches) for the Eastern Baltic cod by 15 per cent. The decision was based on a similar recommendation from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), which had seen positive signs of recovery for the earlier severely threatened stock.
The WWF-Sweden kept its advise to consumers not to buy Baltic cod, and a television news show ran a report showing cod being legally caught along the east coast being transported by truck to France, where the WWF had been less successful advocating a boycott.
The WWF cited several uncertainties for keeping the stock on its blacklist. The organisation said it was still unclear whether IUU (Illegal, Unreported, Unregulated fisheries) was really under control. It is still difficult, and often impossible, for consumers to find out exactly from which waters the frozen fish products stem from.
A renewed stream of articles and radio and TV reports came over the weekend, following a national news agency interview with a well-known marine ecology professor, who several years ago stood in the frontline as conservationists started to make the public aware of the dire situation for the species. He now said it was very much okay to buy East Baltic cod (the Western stock is still threatened, and even more so in the Swedish West Coast waters), and gave a generally hopeful outlook for the future.
Inger Näslund, fisheries spokesperson for WWF-Sweden, commented that she still wants to see proof that the positive trend is consistent and that she eagerly awaits the next ICES report in May, adding that it may well leave an opening for a removal of Eastern Baltic cod from the blacklist when a new guide will be published later that month.
Isabella Lövin, a prize-winning journalist who lead much of the debate with her bestselling book “Tyst hav” (Silent Sea) in 2007, and now is a candidate for the Green Party in the June EU Parliament elections, also remains sceptical about an all-green light for East Baltic cod consumption:
“We’re still balancing on the edge”, she told the evening paper Expressen, adding that she instead sees the present positive trend as a great chance to save the species more permanently. She maintained that Swedish politicians now should be careful not to repeat the mistakes made when similar positive figures were seen in the early 1990’s. The TACs were then raised – and the stocks consequently dove.
She, like Inger Näslund, also stressed the remaining difficulties for consumers to determine the exact origin of the products in the grocery freezers. A common labelling would be “caught in zone 27” which includes the Barings Sea, the North Sea and the Baltic, an area of 13 million square kilometres.
“I’d recommend consumers to stick to the KRAV or MSC labels”, said Inger Näslund. “Then you also get a guarantee that the fish has been caught in a sustainable way, with approved gear”.
She confirmed that Swedish consumers generally have been more eager to follow her organisation’s fish guides than people have been in any other country in Europe.
“I think it has to do with Swedish consumers being used to eco-labelling and to be aware of how what they buy has been produced”, she said.