Doomsday scenario as cod stocks at point of no return

THE world’s cod stocks could be wiped out by 2020 because of over-fishing, illegal catches and oil exploration, the environment group WWF said yesterday.

WWF the World Wide Fund for Nature said the world's largest remaining cod stock, in the Arctic Barents Sea, is under particular threat.

In a report, WWF said that the world's cod fisheries are disappearing fast, with a global catch that declined from 3.1 million metric tonnes in 1970 to 950,000 metric tonnes in 2000. "If such a trend continues, the world's cod stocks will disappear in 15 years time."

In the North American cod fishery, the catch has declined by 90% since the early 1980s, while in European waters, the catch of the North Sea cod is just 25% of what it was in the same decade.

"Overfishing of cod continues because fisheries policies are driven by short-term economic interests," said Simon Cripps, of WWF's oceans programme.

The Barents Sea, north of Norway and Russia, is one of the world's richest fishing grounds, accounting for half the global cod catch. Although numbers there appear healthy, this may not last, said WWF.

High fishing quotas for 2004 are unsustainable, WWF claimed. Up to 100,000 metric tonnes of cod is also believed to be caught there illegally every year, further denting stocks. "The onus is on Russia and Norway to prevent the Barents Sea cod stock suffering a similar fate as the Canadian cod stock which collapsed in the 1990s and has not yet recovered," Cripps said.

WWF also said it believes Barents Sea cod are threatened by expanded shipping and oil exploration plans.

Meanwhile, marine mammals and humans are not in competition for the same fish stocks, according to the first global study of its kind.

The research, outlined in this week's New Scientist magazine, contradicts a theory which has been used to justify seal culls and whale hunting.

It shows that around 80% of humans' fish catch comes from regions which are seldom used as feeding grounds by marine mammals. And 99% of marine mammals' feeding takes place in areas which rarely attract fishing fleets, the research shows.

Marine biologist Kristin Kaschner of the University of British Columbia, unveiled the research at the World Fisheries Congress in Vancouver last week.

"Marine mammals are not likely to have a large impact on large fisheries. And the other way around, large fisheries are not likely to have a large impact on wide-ranging marine mammals."

The research was based on estimates of where 115 species of marine mammals were likely to live and feed based on factors such as ocean depth, water temperature, and distance from ice. Analysis of the data showed that the creatures were very rarely in competition with commercial fishermen. However, the early research still gives only a general guide to key marine mammals' feeding sites.

It does not rule out the possibility that fishing fleets target the same sites in some areas.

An estimated 800 million tonnes of fish are eaten by mammals such as whales, seals and porpoises each year.