Kiel Management Plan for European Fisheries
Summary of Froese, R., T.A. Branch, A. Proelß, M. Quaas, K. Sainsbury and C. Zimmermann. 2010. Generic
harvest control rules for European fisheries. Fish and Fisheries: doi:10.1111/j.1467-2979.2010.00387.x
Most European fish stocks are in trouble. The Figure on the following page shows the status
of sprat, herring, cod and plaice in the North Sea and the Baltic in relation to the requirements
of the Law of the Sea of 1982. Stocks placed to the right of the vertical Bmsy line are healthy
and can produce the maximum sustainable yield (MSY). Stocks that are placed left of the Bmsy
line are overfished and need to be rebuilt.
The green line shows the annual surplus production of the stocks: if catches are above that
line, more fish are caught than are replenished and the respective stock will shrink. If catches
are below the green line then stocks can grow. Catches on green line should maintain their
biomass, because catches equal surplus production.
The red fat line is the Kiel management plan proposed by Froese and colleagues. Only one of
the included stocks, Baltic sprat, had sufficient biomass in 2010 and would easily fit under the
Kiel plan if catches were slightly reduced. North Sea herring already fits the plan. Cod in the
eastern Baltic would fit into the plan if current catches were frozen for 1-2 years before they
are linearly increased to a much higher level. In the other cod stocks as well as in plaice and
western Baltic herring, more was caught in 2010 than could be replenished and these stocks
will shrink. Catches have to be drastically reduced before these stocks can be rebuilt.
The Kiel management plan would stabilize stocks at large sizes, 30% above the
internationally agreed reference point Bmsy. This is meant to account for uncertainty in stock
assessments and for natural fluctuations in stock size. Also, at this stock size, fishing cost per
fish are minimized and profits of the fisheries are maximized, i.e., this is the area of maximum
economic yield. Stocks would be on average four-fold larger than now and catches could be
increased by about 60%.
The Kiel management plan is in stark contrast to an alternative plan currently considered by
the European Commission (ICES 2010a). That plan allows continued fishing on depleted
stocks and catches beyond the maximum sustainable yield (MSY). Uncertainty, natural
fluctuations or economic optimisation have not been considered. With that plan, future
problems of European fisheries are preprogrammed.
Sources:
Froese, R., T.A. Branch, A. Proelß, M. Quaas, K. Seinsbury and C. Zimmermann. 2010.
Generic Harvest Control Rules for European Fisheries. Fish and Fisheries, DOI:
10.1111/j.1467-2979.2010.0387.x
Froese, R. and A. Proelß. 2010. Rebuilding fish stocks no later than 2015: will Europe meet
the deadline? Fish and Fisheries 11:194-202.
ICES 2010a Report of the Workshop on the Form of Advice (WKFORM), 1-3 December 2009,
Lisbon, Portugal. ICES CM 2009/ACOM:53, 15 p.
ICES 2010b www.ices.dk, Advice, Latest Advice, 4.10.2010
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B MSY
1.3 B MSY
1
Sprat, O
Catch / MSY
0.8
Plaice, NS
60% higher
catches
0.6
Herring, wB
4 times higher
biomass
0.4
Herring, NS
Cod, NS
0.2
wB
Cod
eB
0
0
0.5
High
1
Biomass / B MSY
Fishing cost per fish
1.5
Low
Figure 1. Status of some European fish stocks in 2010, with catch and biomass taken from ICES (2010b) and MSY and Bmsy taken from Froese and Proelß (2010). The
fat red line are the catches allowed under the Kiel Management Plan (Froese et al. 2010). NS = North Sea, wB = western Baltic, eB = eastern Baltic.
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