After Decades Of Overfishing UK Fisheries On Brink Of Collapse; 99% Of Adult Cod Gone From Southern Waters

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Despite sustained warnings by environmental nonprofits such as Greenpeace and Oceana, British fish stocks are collapsing at alarming rates, diminishing marine biodiversity and uprooting aquatic food chains as they drop. Assessments by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES)—whose data is used by the U.K. government to determine annual catch limits—are calling for a new zero-catch limit for well-loved species like Irish Sea plaice, while maintaining zero-catch warnings for already severely depleted stocks like Celtic Sea cod, whiting and haddock.

“If you replace the word cod with the word tiger, people would be outraged at the declines,” said Jonny Hughes, senior policy manager at Blue Marine Foundation, a British ocean conservation charity. While ICES has recommended a zero-catch limit for Celtic Sea cod since at least 2020, the government established a bycatch quota of over 640 tons this year despite scientists projecting a total population of less than 590 tons.

Along England’s southern shores, adult cod populations have plummeted 99 percent since 2012 with the Marine Conservation Society warning British consumers to “completely avoid” all home-caught cod this spring.
“The fundamental problem is a weird belief that [governments] can negotiate with maths,” said Hughes, highlighting decades of “gross mismanagement” by successive U.K. and EU administrators who have prioritized short-term economic gain over long-term ocean health.

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The U.K.’s current fisheries minister, Stephen Morgan MP, has been in the post just over two weeks. With a change in government expected by mid-July, the U.K. might soon endure its fourth fisheries minister in a single year. It’s the kind of short-termism that leaves Blue Marine Foundation’s Jonny Hughes pessimistic about the future. “There’s not a lot of good news in [the report],” said Hughes. “And what worries me the most is the fact it’s going to be worse next year, because the fundamental problems are not remotely close to being solved.”

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07072026/fishing-bans-british-fish-stocks-are-collapsing/