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Swedish trawlers could be facing an exclusion zone of 12 nautical miles if the Center Party have their way according to reports. Photo: SWFPO
Swedish trawlers could be facing an exclusion zone of 12 nautical miles if the Center Party have their way according to a news report in the Skargarden.
The Center Party who are currently supporting the minority government in Sweden under a supply and confidence arrangement have voted for a new policy that would see mobile gear such as trawling removed from inshore fishing areas.
The government in Denmark has begun similar moves to ban trawling from its waters.
After a meeting last week, the party decided that it wants to move the current trawl limits from 4 nautical miles to 12 nautical miles outside the archipelago’s outermost headlands.
“We made this decision in order for small-scale commercial fishing to have a stronger position and for lake fishing to be given a stronger status. This is important for the business community and because small-scale fishing does not adversely affect the fish stock, such as industrial fishing. The goal must also be that a larger part of the coastal fishing should be for human consumption,” says archipelago regional councillor Gustav Hemming (C).
The Center Party’s decision is to work for all trawling to be moved out to twelve nautical miles. Then it is easier to implement it for Swedish boats, but the Center Party wants it to apply to everyone, even if it then requires negotiations and amended agreements with, among others, Denmark and Finland that Sweden has concluded.
Another issue that went through at the party meeting was increased hunting of seals and cormorants throughout Sweden.
“When it comes to cormorants, it is a species that needs to be greatly reduced. Because it burdens the fishing and it is a bird species that can destroy the local environment for people with a bad smell and killed vegetation,” says Gustav Hemming.
