Nordic agreement signed to stop throwing dead fish overboard

Ministers in charge of fishing from Denmark, Norway and Sweden on Wednesday signed a joint agreement in Stockholm to stop throwing dead fish back into the sea of Skagerrak, according to a statement from the Swedish Ministry for Rural Affairs. "The EU's fisheries policy has largely been below the mark and not lived up to sustainable fisheries management. My Nordic colleagues and I have therefore decided to prohibit throwing the fish that will not survive back into the sea," said Swedish Rural Minister Eskil Erlandsson at a seminar focusing on sustainable fishing management. Erlandsson said that throwing the dead fish back into sea is a wasting of good and wholesome food resources and undermines the efforts being made to bring about sustainable management of fish stocks. The agreement, which will come into force from January 1, 2013, means that fishermen need to land all the fish they catch, which will not only stop the waste of resources, but also contribute to a better understanding of what are actually caught. Statistics show that 32 percent of world fish stocks are over exploited. Within the EU, dead fish in some cases can reach up to half of the catches. "The dead fish taken back to harbor can be made into powder and be utilized as the feed for other animals. It is an effective action that can be done to promote the sustainable management of fish stocks," explained Anna-Karin Nyman, Press Secretary of Swedish Rural Minister to Xinhua. According to the statement, the ministers from the three Nordic countries hoped that the Nordic initiative will pave the way for a general ban in other European waters. The Skagerrak is a strait running between Norway and the southwest coast of Sweden and the Jutland Peninsula of Denmark connecting the North Sea and the Kattegat sea area, which leads to the Baltic Sea.