The unintended impact of the European discard ban

Abstract

Abstract The European Union (EU) discard ban, called the landing obligation (LO), was initiated in 2015 to reduce unwanted catches by EU fisheries. To ease the transition to a system where total allowable catches (TACs) refer to catches rather than landings only, the majority of EU TACs was increased to account for the part of the catch that was previously discarded and would now be landed. The analysis shows an average annual upward adjustment of 36% in TACs since 2015, but these percentages were considerably higher in 2019 and 2020 (reaching 43 and 50%, respectively), when the LO was fully applicable to all fisheries, and particularly for TACs of demersal species (reaching 51 and 60%). These results demonstrate the significant impact that the discard ban has had on the quantities of EU fishing opportunities. Since discarding has not declined in EU fisheries at any significant level, the magnitude of these increases may likely have resulted in a substantial widespread increase in fishing mortality being exerted on European stocks, and thus likely lead to an implosion of the EU TAC system, the Common Fisheries Policy central instrument to manage fisheries in the EU.