Cod stocks have plummeted

When the ministers meet in December, the RSPB says, they may prohibit cod fishing in much of the North Sea.

Dr Euan Dunn of the RSPB told BBC News Online: "All the signs are that ICES is thinking the unthinkable.

"It looks quite probable that they will recommend closure of an area of the North Sea. To make any difference you'd have to close a massive area - up to half the entire North Sea.

"They may recommend constraints on fishing around the closed area as well, so that the boats do not just concentrate their efforts elsewhere."

Long ban

Fishing was banned in part of the Irish Sea cod spawning grounds earlier this year, and may be again in 2001.

But Dr Dunn believes any North Sea ban, while it might be a short-term seasonal measure, could last much longer.

He said: "The Grand Banks cod fishery shows no signs of recovery eight years on. The North Sea may go the same way."

In the 1980s, landings of North Sea cod were about 300,000 tonnes annually. This year's catch was set at 80,000 tonnes, but the fish are so scarce that landings amounted to only 50,000 tonnes.

Warming waters

The last good spawning year was 1996, and fish hatched then are now approaching sexual maturity themselves.

Nets catch a mix of species

But most of the older fish were caught long ago, and many of the 1996 fish will also be caught before they can breed.

There is also evidence that cod breeding patterns are being affected by warming temperatures in the North Sea.

Dr Dunn said: "What you have here is a combination of overfishing and environmental change. Ministers should have been putting the brakes on 10 years ago, but they didn't, so now it's simple crisis management."

Mixed fisheries

But imposing a ban on North Sea cod is unlikely to prove easy, for one reason: prohibiting cod catches would also prevent catches of other species.

Dr Dunn sympathises with those who depend on the North Sea. He said: "It is the fishermen's bread and butter because it is a mixed fishery. The English boats catch whiting and flatfish in the same nets as cod, the Scots also catch whiting and haddock.

"That's why closing the fishery is a uniquely difficult nettle for them to grasp. There is also the prospect that even the harshest imaginable measures may not allow the cod to recover, now the stocks are so low."

The RSPB says catches of western hake, which stretch from Norway to Spain and Portugal, may also be banned by EU ministers.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food said it would wait to see ICES' advice before commenting. But a spokesman added: "No-one's denying that the cod stocks, along with many others, are under pressure."