EU–Norway request to ICES on increasing the 2014 TAC for cod in the North Sea – Additional reply to part of the original request

ICES  advises  that  a  10%  increase  in  the  North  Sea  cod  TAC  in  2014  (with  respect  to  the  TAC  in  2013)  can  be  considered precautionary if followed by implementation of the existing long term management plan and if catches are constrained so that discard rates do not increase and landings do not exceed the TAC. The evaluation indicates that in this  scenario  the  fishing  mortality  would  be  slightly  above  FMSY  in  2015  and  achievement  of  FMSY  (with  50%  probability) would be expected for 2017.

The 10% TAC increase scenario corresponds to a substantial reduction in the cod fishing mortality in 2014. Achieving this  reduction in  fishing  mortality  will  require  that  effort  limitations  or  equivalent  cod  avoidance  measures  are  implemented in addition to the TAC constraint on landings. This reduction is essential in order to be able to consider the scenario as precautionary.