Fishing sustainably needs more than a ban on discarding

Banning the practice of throwing back unmarketable or over-quota fish is only one of the measures needed to improve sustainable fishing practices.

Research undertaken by the University of East Anglia found that a ban combined with catch quotas has the greatest potential to incentivise selective fishing of regulated species.

To consider whether banning the discarding practice will offer enough of an economic incentive to fish sustainably, researchers took into account catch and discard figures from fishing trawlers, fish prices and landing costs.

The research team combined information on landings by English trawlers in the North Sea with data on discards, collected by onboard observers.