October 11th, 2016 — A stiff wind buffets Ulrik Koelle Hansen’s trawler as he heads out of this tiny fishing village in search of an early morning catch, but it’s nothing to the battering he predicts if the European Union slashes the fishing quota for cod in the western Baltic, as it did late Monday.
According to scientists and environmentalists, the region’s cod stock is on the verge of collapse. While scientists are pushing for the quota to be cut by about 90 percent, conservation groups want to shut it down temporarily.
“If we do not do something in time to allow the cod to recover, it may mean that we lose the (cod) fishery altogether in the near future,” said Inger Melander, a spokeswoman for the Swedish branch of the World Wildlife Fund.
After all-day negotiations in Luxembourg, the European Union late Monday agreed to set tougher cod catch quotas, but stayed well above targets sought by scientists and environmentalists. The EU fisheries ministers agreed on a 56 percent quota cut for the western Baltic cod caught off Denmark and Germany.
Officials said Denmark pushed hard to safeguard the livelihood of its fishermen to make sure there was enough that they would still be allowed to catch.
As Koelle Hansen sees it, cutting the quota would mean the end for the few fisherman still working out of Bagenkop, a sleepy fishing village of less than 500 people on the southern tip of the Langeland island.