Sweden is praised for its waste management and its commitment to the development of the UN's global plastics agreement. At the same time, large amounts of plastic are leaking into Swedish waters. Experts warn that plastic emissions – where microplastics, overflow and sewage sludge all contribute to pollution – continue to threaten Swedish aquatic environments.
The conflicts within Swedish fishing are very fierce. Small-scale coastal fishermen on the east and south coasts face a small number of giant trawlers from the West Coast. I was looking forward to tough discussions and fruitful exchanges at this year's Fishing Forum. But met with pleasant company in a luxurious mingling environment.
It is early morning sometime late winter last year. Out on the islands in the Skarv archipelago in the sea belt outside Stockholm, female seals and seal pups lie close on the rocks. These are mating times for the gray seals. Sea eagles soar above them. Hungry and ready to attack a weak and lonely pup.
It may soon become easier to start algae and mussel farms in Sweden. This is indicated by a new investigation that suggests aquaculture should be able to bypass shore protection. – It is entirely reasonable for aquaculture to be given the same conditions as other arable industries, but a significant increase in coastal aquaculture could have negative effects on the shore zone, accessibility, and water environment, says Sofia Wikström, associate professor of marine ecology at Stockholm University.
Seal populations rebound after hunting ban and environmental efforts, sparking debate between conservation needs and the impact on fishing. Dive into the story.
Since almost four years ago, we have license hunting on gray seals, since two years on harbor seals and protection hunts on ringed seals since several years ago. We hunt all three seal species along the Swedish coast and there are several reasons.
In 2023, relatively many lobsters were caught in the Swedish and Norwegian waters, but this was not because the number of lobsters has increased, on the contrary.
The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency decided this year that we should shoot 630 harbor seals, 1500 gray seals and 350 ringed seals. Some think that is far too few, others are worried that the seal population will fail again. We asked the scientists and got different answers.
Explore the dramatic journey of the Baltic Sea's seals from near extinction to recovery and the debates surrounding their resurgence.
Sweden, Finland, and Norway conduct hunting for seals as trophy hunting. In most other countries, hunting of large marine mammals has been prohibited. In the USA, they have even banned the import of fish from countries that kill marine mammals to protect their fishing industry. Sweden doesn't have much fish to export, so that import ban is unlikely to affect us significantly. However, we hunt a large marine mammal – and that is unique.
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.
A small crowd has gathered at the edge of Rönne å in Skåne to participate in the annual eel release. Almost a million eels are released all over Sweden every year, to compensate for the fact that they cannot get past the expanded power plants by themselves.
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.
The Japanese Oyster is larger than our domestic variety, and its edges are so sharp that medical services on the west coast have issued warnings to bathing tourists.
I have had many pets in my life. First I had budgies. I particularly liked my first one - Mimi. I once took her to school in the outer compartment of my backpack. In the summer I fished. I pulled up roaches and perch on the jetty. Digged a pit and had my own fish pond. Then there were mice. Rats. Turtles. Rabbits. Chickens and horses. I knew that stuff with animals.
Sweden's only whale is not easy to see. In the Baltic Sea it is acutely threatened, but outside Kullaberg there is a small colony. There, scientists try to learn more about the porpoise's secret life. With the help of new technology, it can be studied both from above and below the water's surface.
"Don’t catch any eels at all” say the scientists, if you want to have any eels left in the future. But according to Sofia Brockmark at the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management (HaV), very few people fish for eel in Sweden and they don’t catch very many.
This is what it looks like when cormorants have taken over an island in Stockholm’s archipelago. It’s not exactly attractive when you were expecting green skerries and peacefully lapping waves.
The small but spectacularly beautiful comb jelly Mnemiopsis leydyi, can reproduce at a dismaying speed, and copes with warm and cold water and even different amounts of salinity. And when it spreads to areas where it isn’t naturally found, it can cause devastating damage. As in the Black Sea in the 1980s.
From 1 January this year, fishing quotas have been reintroduced for spin dogfish, and it is also covered by the discard ban, known as the landing obligation. However, the Swedish Species Information Centre still lists the spiny dogfish as acutely endangered and on the red list. Däremot listar Artdatabasen fortfarande pigghajen som akut hotad och rödlistad.
The film "What have we done?" which shows man's ruthlessness towards our oceans was praised and named "Honorable mention" in the international competition DPG/Wetpixel Masters 2022.
It’s now been scientifically proven. If you stop fishing, the number of fish increases! A new report from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) confirms that no-take zones enhance fish populations and combat the effects of eutrophication.
