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The 9th annual seminar awarded Axel Wenblad, former head of the Swedish National Board of Fisheries (Fiskeriverket), with their leadership award for his work on the new proposed Swedish legislation for Marine Spatial Planning and Regulation. Also, the WWF Baltic Sea scorecard for 2011 was launched, which evaluates how successful each of the Baltic countries have been in implementing the environmental agreements and conventions which they have signed up to.

In a recent article published in Marine Ecology Progress Series the German scientists Rainer Froese and Martin Quaas suggest that current exploitation levels should be kept for several years, or alternatively that the fishery is closed for 2 years in order to achieve MSY by 2015.

According to DG MARE staff the Commission is currently planning to develop a multi species plan for the Baltic Sea, including pelagic and demersal species.

For the first time ever, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will conduct an open review of national and regional actions to protect deep-sea species and ecosystems— beyond national jurisdiction— from the harmful impacts of bottom fishing. This open review is scheduled to take place at UN headquarters in New York, on 15-16 September, 2011.

On 12 August, after a long preparation process, the European Commission finally tabled the anticipated proposal for a new management plan for the Baltic salmon.

Published today, in their report ‘Oceans for Sale’, Greenpeace ranks nine largest retailers of fish and seafood products in Poland for the third time since 2008. Some improvements have been noted in terms of the sourcing strategies and the quality of fish and seafood products. The aim of the ranking is to draw attention to overfishing and the problem of poor management of marine resources.

The 5th annual International Clean-up the Baltic 2011 event will take place on 22 September in Hel, Poland, and all organizations around the Baltic Sea are invited to join in! This year’s theme of the campaign focuses on the protection of more than one-hundred fish species that inhabit the Baltic Sea waters, under a slogan: ‘Sea of Rubbish or Sea of Fish?’

On 27 July in Gdynia, during a WWF conference “New Common Fisheries Policy – challenges and chances”, Polish members of OCEAN2012 handed over a commemorative photobook based on the 2011 European Fish Week (EFW) to Leszek Dybiec, the Political Adviser to the Polish Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.

On 27 July a WWF meeting “New Common Fisheries Policy – challenges and chances”, under the patronage of the Polish EU Presidency, explored the proposed measures in the CFP reform package and provided a forum for about 70 stakeholders— NGOs, fishermen, scientists, fish processors— to express their opinions on the current reform proposals.

Only a few weeks after the Common Fisheries Policy reform proposals package was released by the European Commission (July 13), which supports the continued efforts to fight Illegal Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) commercial fishing activities, it was revealed that Polish fisheries inspectors and coast guard in Słupsk found half a ton of illegally caught cod on a vessel from Kołobrzeg.