How do you protect a species that most experts agree is on the brink of extinction? Catch more of them for food!

It was announced this morning that the EU has increased the quota for European cod fishing by 11%. The basis for this decision is a study published earlier this year suggesting that cod populations are recovering slightly.

As we noted then:

The International Council for the Exploration of the Seas is still saying quotas for cod need to be slashed. What is driving these ‘slight recovery’ stories is the number of young cod in the North Sea has shown a slight rise for a second year.

Nevertheless the EU in its wisdom (this is the same body that once considered carrots fruit*) has decided that cod can sustain an 11% increase in the Total Allowable Catch (press release).

Fishermen are reasonably happy. Bertie Armstrong, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation chief executive, told the BBC, “We wanted to start 2008 with the same opportunity that we had in 2007 in terms of fish to catch, and that is roughly the position we have ended up with.”

Conservation groups are already expressing displeasure. Saskia Richartz, marine policy expert for Greenpeace, says on the BBC this settlement “continues a three-decade long trend of ministerial incompetence that is dragging Europe’s seas towards a point of no return”.

You don’t have to support Greenpeace to think this EU decision is a bad one. And the next time a European minister condemns the Japanese for hunting endangered humpback whales they’ll have fewer legs to stand on than a cod does.

* “for the purposes of this Directive, tomatoes, the edible parts of rhubarb stalks, carrots, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, melons and water-melons are considered to be fruit”

Image: Punchstock