Baltic States Meet to Save Dwindling Fish Stocks

The nine Baltic states are to stage a crisis meeting in Krakow, Poland, next week to discuss collapsing fish stocks.

Four countries - Finland, Sweden, Germany and Denmark - have already banned cod fishing until at least September 1, by which time ministers should have a new estimate of how much cod is left in the Baltic and what catch, if any, can be allowed.

Even if a new quota is allowed, ministers plan to limit trawling to boats with large mesh nets which let younger stock escape. Some areas will be off limits, and fleet sizes cut.

Anne-Christin Nykuist, the Swedish fisheries minister, said: "We are very vulnerable to the total collapse of the cod stock."

Last year a 75,000-tonne Baltic cod quota was agreed but the fish caught were so small that governments feared the total elimination of the species.

The EU environment commissioner, Margot Wallstrom, backs the new measures, saying that current fishing methods are "close to madness".

"For every fish caught and brought to market three non-target species are thrown back dead into the sea."

Scientists gathering at a conference in Stockholm to discuss the health of the Baltic fear many fish and other creatures are also at risk.

The week-long symposium, which ended yesterday, also issued warnings about pollution, saying that excess nitrates and phosporous in the water from human sewage, fertiliser run-off and factory pollution are promoting annual algae blooms which are often so toxic that hundreds of thousands of fish die.

Ministers believe they can save threatened species, citing action which revived salmon stocks. A plan to bring stocks back to half the original levels by 2010 has already succeeded.