"Reform of the Common Fisheries Policy" - Margot Wallström

However, fish farms have their own problems in that they take up space in coastal zones and cause marine pollution.

It has been estimated for example that salmon fish farming in the Nordic countries releases nitrogen in quantities found in the sewage of 3.9 million people. This can cause water eutrophication.

By using fishmeal, aquaculture may also put pressure on wild fish stocks. If it introduces alien species it can have an impact on the local eco-system and bio-diversity.

These are some of the major environmental effects of fisheries that need to be addressed urgently.

What measures have been taken already are clearly not sufficient to prevent a degradation of the marine environment and threats to marine bio-diversity.

The Habitats Directive provides a framework for protecting marine species and must as such be fully implemented by the Member States.

However, environmental requirements have to be integrated into day-to-day fisheries management as well.

The Community's Fisheries Action Plan under the Bio-diversity Convention is an important stepping stone in this regard.

We have to change the fishing practices themselves to effectively protect bio-diversity and the marine environment.

This will certainly require further technical measures with respect to fishing gear. It may include temporal and local fishing restrictions. We need observers on board to monitor by-catches so that we have a better knowledge of the extent of the problem. We need better control and enforcement of the rules.

I see the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy as an opportunity to make progress towards our goal of protecting the marine environment. This means though that we have to go further and include environmental concerns in the task description of fisheries managers and the fishermen themselves.

Fishermen should become the stewards of the resources that they are living off.

Managing a common resource

What sustainable development means and I now turn to the second part of my speech is often difficult to explain. Many people believe that sustainable development is simply another word for environmental protection. Some industry representatives claim that it is first and foremost about economic growth. Both are right and both are wrong at the same time.

There can be no economic prosperity without a healthy state of the environment and natural resources, and the environment is also a value in its own right.

On the other hand, we want economic prosperity for ourselves and our children, and for the many people in the poorer countries of the world.

Fisheries is an excellent example of the link between natural resources and economic prosperity.

The current crisis in fisheries shows what happens if a natural resource is not managed with its long-term conservation in mind. The result is that the livelihoods of, in this case, the fishermen and the regions that depend on fisheries are put at risk. There can be no fishing without fish.

As the EU is committed to the objective of sustainable development, it should now put this goal into practice in the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy.

The example of cod fisheries in the Northwest Atlantic should serve as a warning. The shoals of cod on the Atlantic's Grand Banks were once the biggest cod-fishing grounds in the world.

During the 1950s and 1960s ever bigger and more efficient vessels began to exploit these stocks and catches went up initially. Later, some scientists and local fishermen started warning that stocks were being over-fished, but they were not listened to. Suddenly, stocks collapsed in the early 1990s.

Canada placed a 2-year moratorium on Northern Cod that has since been extended indefinitely, but stocks have not recovered since. Also, many other stocks in Canadian waters are in decline.

The effect has been that the entire cod-based fishing industry in Eastern Canada has been wiped out. About 30 000 jobs were lost and Canada has poured several billions of dollars into the region to revitalise it.

This catastrophe from both a natural resources and a regional economic point of view has been blamed on bad scientific advice and ineffective fisheries management.

That this Canadian experience is dangerously close to home as shown by the collapse of herring stocks in the Norwegian Sea in the 1970s.

They needed 25 years to recover before they could again be fished by our vessels.

And of course, last year the EU put a 3-month ban on cod fishing in the North Sea and imposed major cuts in allowed catches.

These examples demonstrate that you cannot without impunity take more out of the sea than the sea has to provide. Nowhere is it more obvious than in fisheries that the sound management of natural resources is the basis for economic prosperity.

That said, I am concerned that the fisheries sector may be tempted to take these experiences as one-off, local episodes.

However, to dismiss the urgent need for deep cuts in fishing effort and fleet capacity would be a mistake.

The scientific experts tell us otherwise.

In the Northeast Atlantic and the Mediterranean, about 60 to 70 per cent of all fish stocks are outside safe biological limits according to a recent review.

Some stocks have already collapsed. The expansion of deep-sea fishing is another cause for great concern in the light of information that these long-lived stocks are now showing signs of decline. Should they collapse their recovery would take several decades.

The reason for this worrying picture is simple: Too many and too efficient vessels are fishing for a limited amount of fish.