SFF Urges Pragmatism as ICES Cod Advice Risks Socio-Economic Damage
In response to yesterday’s publication by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) of advice on cod stocks for 2026 Elspeth Macdonald, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF), warned that governments in the UK and those in the EU and Norway would need carefully to assess its likely socio-economic impacts as they consider the management decisions they will need to make.
“At a time when the industry is facing multiple and growing pressures as our seas become ever more crowded, ministers will need to make pragmatic decisions about the reliability of ICES’ advice, which, in attempting to move forwards, is actually taking us backwards.
“ICES has tied itself in knots around the level of mixing between the sub-stocks and rather than trying to solve their own problems, they have overstepped again into management considerations, forgetting that their role is to improve knowledge and leave management to those who understand the consequences of taking certain decisions.
“The glacial pace at which ICES is moving towards improving the knowledge and understanding the sub-stocks’ dynamics, the performance of the model used and the advice they produce is unacceptably slow, and as usual is affected by cumbersome and obsolete set of processes.
“It is obviously in the country’s interest to have a thriving fishing fleet supporting coastal and island communities and this is a shared interest of Scotland, UK, Norway and EU. Managers are required to balance environmental, social and economic factors when setting TACs, so we call for pragmatism and commons sense to be applied here.”
Main Image © Fish Focus