On Monday, the EU Council of Ministers voted to increase the herring quota in the central Baltic Sea by 71 per cent. Sweden was the only Member State to call for the lowest possible quotas. This has broad political support at home – but not in Luxembourg.
The EU’s new catch quotas for herring in the Baltic Sea are being significantly increased. “It would have been safer for the ecosystem to have waited a couple of years before implementing such a large increase,” says Baltic Sea researcher Sara Söderström.
When the EU’s fisheries ministers meet to negotiate next year’s catch quotas at the end of October, Sweden will be taking a cautious line, whilst Finland wants to push for higher catches. Two countries that could be working together to ensure long-term sustainability in the ocean are instead standing on opposite shores, pulling in different directions. How did it come to this?
It is difficult to say at this stage how much weight issues relating to the oceans and climate change will carry during the next parliamentary term, but three parties with climate and environmental policies have seen their support grow: the Green Party, the Left Party and the Centre Party.
The herring and cod off the coast of Northern Norway almost disappeared completely when new methods made it possible to catch ever-increasing quantities. But when the sea had been almost depleted, fishing was halted, and since then the fish have slowly returned.
Herring stocks in the Baltic Sea have long been on the brink of collapse, but according to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), the stocks now appear to be increasing. ICES therefore believes that quotas can be increased – by up to 122 per cent
The quotas for herring fishing in the Baltic Sea in 2026 have been decided by the EU Council of Ministers. Now, voices are being raised from several quarters that the fishing quotas in the Bothnian Sea and Bothnian Bay are illegally high.
The Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries and Coast Guard recently carried out a number of inspections on Norwegian herring trawlers in the south-eastern North Sea, and the results are alarming.
I am now forbidden to fish for cod and the pike has disappeared from my bay. I'm looking for scapegoats. Who is responsible for the condition below the surface in the Baltic Sea? Small-scale professional fishermen along the east coast have been raising the alarm for several years that the herring has declined sharply. At the same time, the large-scale trawling in the open sea has continued to catch large quantities, which have gone directly to the fishmeal factories in Denmark.
Deep Sea's attention-grabbing film "The Power of the Sea" has set the debate about large-scale fishing in the Baltic Sea in high gear. In the days after Sunday's premiere on SVT, politicians, researchers, and environmental organizations have condemned the EU Council of Ministers and Sweden's Minister of Fisheries. The debaters claim that the ministers' decision, which is against the EU's fisheries law, threatens the herring in the Baltic Sea.
Attempts to change fishing rules after the fact are rejected by the EU Parliament. Now L wants the government to "step up" the protection of the stream - despite the government's satisfied expression on this year's quota decision.
Axel Wenblad, is former director general at the Swedish Fisheries Agency. He was interviewed in Peter Löfgren's latest documentary "Power over the sea". After the film, he got angry and wrote an open letter to Minister for Rural Affairs Peter Kullgren. This is the letter;
The EU fisheries ministers have in a compromise agreed on this years herring fishing in the Baltic Sea next year. As usual, we can continue to fish, despite the fact that, according to many observers, the herring are running out. But there is one law that the ministers seem to forgotten about, which could lead to them having to tear up this year's compromise. Paragraph 4.6 of the EU's multi-year management plan for the Baltic Sea (MAP).
Leaner cods, guillemot, and seals. Sluggish and red-spotted salmon. Several of the Baltic Sea's large animals are being pressured by ill health and new environmental toxins, according to a new report. But for several species it is going quite well – and for one the development is a pure success story.
The fish are running out, the herring and the baltic herring are threatened and the cod is almost completely gone. When there is a competition for the little fish left, many people want to blame the seal. Both that it eats too much of "our" fish and that it destroys our fishing gear. But how is it really? Does the seal eat more than we do, and what does it actually eat? We asked some seal researchers.
A battle for fermented Baltic herring and small fishermen, the government believes when it now takes up the fight against the EU Commission's proposal to stop herring and sturgeon fishing in the Baltic Sea. Heavy night mangling awaits in Luxembourg.
The New Economics Foundation think tank was able to show in a report already in 2019 that EU countries took 300,000 tons more fish into the sea than the researchers in ICES recommended.
Several stocks of the Baltic herrings in the Baltic Sea are seriously threatened according to the World Wide Fund for Nature's latest Fish Guide. The Baltic herring is an engine in the ecosystem and when the stock shrinks, it has consequences, says fishing expert Inger Melander.
The EU Commission proposes a stop to herring fishing in the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia. The reason is that fish stocks are at or below minimum levels.
I sit in the boat and jig. It rhythmically jerks with the same reel as last year, and the year before that. Every weekend before Midsummer, we have been catching herring at sunset in the bay outside Vätö in Roslagen. We have been doing this for 22 years now.
Herring fishing in the Baltic Sea should shrink sharply next year, according to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). The stock is at levels close to or below what is considered sustainable.
Small-scale coastal fishermen in the Baltic Sea have been warning for many years that the availability of herring and herring is declining. The Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management also sees the same development, reports Swedish Radio's Ekot
Now it is scientifically confirmed. The number of herring fry is dramatically decreasing in the Stockholm archipelago. Scientists suspect that large-scale industrial fishing is largely to blame for the disappearance of herring. Today, the big stickleback reigns: "It's like a locust invasion," says Gustaf Almqvist, a fishing expert at the County Administrative Board in Stockholm.
The Stockholm archipelago has been fishing for 9,000 years. Commercial fishing was widespread long before motorization and modern-day industrial trawlers. Herring and cod have been the most important species, and for Stockholmers, fish have contributed greatly to both jobs and protein intake. We go through the fishing history of the area with two experts
