EU eyes cutting cod fishing by a quarter in 2010

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe's overexploited cod fisheries are still at risk and catches must be cut by a quarter next year in all zones except the North Sea where measures have yet to be decided, the European Union executive said on Friday.

Northern cod populations have fallen from 250,000 tonnes in the 1970s to around 50,000 tonnes today following decades of overfishing and quota-busting.

"In the case of cod in the North Sea, eastern channel and Skagerrak...things took a turn for the worse in 2008, when a greater proportion of the stock was caught than in any year since 1999," the European Commission said in a statement.

No decision can be made on North Sea cod until the end of talks with Norway, which jointly manages the fishery.

If the plan is approved by European fisheries ministers in December, fishermen in west Scotland would also face a 54 percent cut to their haddock quota and a 25 percent cut to the amount of whiting they can land.

But west Scotland fishermen, who often object to intervention from Brussels, would be able to catch 12 percent more herring.

"We're conscious they face hardship," Commission fisheries expert Maria de la Fuensanta Candela Castillo told reporters. "This is an area that has been mismanaged to the detriment of these communities."

"We have to try to conciliate their need for survival with the need for some day having again a fishery that way back produced 60,000 tonnes of fish and today produces not even 3,000 tonnes," she added. "It's about trying to convince them of the need to conserve for the future."

Irish fishermen would be able to land 30 percent less Norway Lobster -- a type of prawn with large claws -- 25 percent less Irish Sea sole and 25 percent less herring from the west and north.

But to the south of Ireland, they will be able to catch 72 percent more herring, 7 percent more plaice and 15 percent more monkfish.

Europe's fisheries chief this year called for sweeping policy reform after chronic overfishing for decades pushed 90 percent of stocks beyond sustainable levels.

Fishing fleets have grown too large, fines are too low to deter quota-busters, and fishermen are forced to put ever-increasing effort into locating and catching the dwindling European stocks.

(Reporting by Pete Harrison)