News coverage in Poland in January shows that misreporting and overfishing continues despite last year’s clamp down by the EU. While the Polish Government is striving to implement tougher fishery inspection standards, new cases of severe underreporting of catches were seen in Polish ports. The fishing sector and inspectorates will come under additional scrutiny this year from the Polish Green Federation Gaja setting out to map practices and inform the public.
Illegal fishing, including fishing over the alloted quota and misreporting catch data, has been one of the main challenges to healthy cod populations in the Baltic Sea. Last year, European Commission controls revealed widespread cheating and overfishing in several of the countries, with Poland being the worst. Better implementation of control regulations and sanctions, as well as tougher inspection practices are needed in order to curb the rampant illegal fishing activities.
Last year, the inspections led the European Commission to stop the Polish cod fishery in September, after estimating that the entire quota in the eastern Baltic had already been exhausted. In October, at the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council, it was agreed that an action plan to improve control and enforcement in Poland was to be set out. It was also decided that Poland would have to repay the overfished amounts through a reduction of its cod quota over a succession of years.
The imposed cod fishing ban lasted until the end of the year. In January, however, the Polish daily Glos Pomorza reported that the Polish Regional Fisheries Inspectorate (PRFI) discovered that fishermen have returned to their old patterns and are conducting ”business as usual”. After an inspection in Ustka, it was reported that 5 out of the 8 investigated vessels underreported their cod catch; two vessels underreported by 100 per cent and three by 50 per cent.
The PRFI discovered the discrepancies by comparing catch figures in the log book to the figures recorded at the fish auction in Ustka. The next day, other fishing vessels, this time selling cod to a private fish company, were also caught underreporting their catch.
According to Portal Morski.pl (a Polish website on fisheries and maritime affairs), Marcin Mystek, the vice Regional Inspector of Marine Fisheries in Slupsk stated: “our inspectors made careful notes during the inspection, investigation will follow, which will form the basis of the final penalty decision”. The maximum sanction for misreporting cod catch is 44,000 zloty (12,000 Euro).
Green Federation Gaja, a Polish NGO, is currently highlighting the problems of illegal fishing, particularly of cod. Among other things, it has set out to examine the inpection practices of the Polish institutions responsible for monitoring catches from the Baltic Sea. It is speculated that a letter describing the project sent by Green Federation Gaja to the PRFI in early January may have prompted responsible inspection, although Andrzej Krawczuk, the Regional Inspector of Marine Fisheries in Slupsk, claims the inspection was routine.
A key issue for Green Federation Gaja (GFG) is traceability, from catch to processor to shop, enabling consumers to avoid the illegal fish. Jakub Szumin, the president of the organization, stresses the knowledge gaps in this area and the importance of respecting the European and Polish law. Szumin emphasizes the necessity of tight and transparent fish resource management that will benefit the fishery interests in the long-run; a view not always shared by the fishing industry. According to Jakub Szumin, the overabundance of fish on the market due to overfishing also drives prices down, making fishing less profitable for everyone.
The online Polish daily NazeMiasto.pl reports that GFG will examine catch information collected in ports from Swinoujscie to Gdansk, comparing results to those collected by the fishery inspectorate. In November, a public report on the conclusions of this analysis will be published. The Green Federation Gaja project also includes a mobile exhibition intended to raise public awareness about the plight of cod and the widespread practice of illegal fishing. It will be shown in the major port cities along the Polish Baltic Sea coast.