Limfjord mussel fishers offer to shut down industry

Mussel fishers in Denmark’s Limfjord have offered to end their operations and scrap their vessels, after years of declining fishing quotas, DR reports.

In a letter to Environment Minister Maria Reumert Gjerding, the fishers propose stopping mussel fishing during the coming season and ending it entirely in the longer term. In return, they are seeking full compensation for their quotas and vessels.

“We have reached a point where we cannot continue, and the stock assessments show the same thing,” said Svend Søe Bonde, deputy chairman of the Centralforeningen for Limfjorden fishing association.

He said the time was right to stop, both for the fishers and for nature.

“We will simply go bankrupt if we continue like this, and bottom-dragging fishing is no longer wanted. The decision might as well be made now, especially since nature likely needs it too,” Søe Bonde said.

Gjerding has already responded to the Danish Fishermen’s Association and the mussel fishers. She said her ministry was working on a solution, including a possible support scheme for scrapping mussel vessels this year.

“My ministry is working on a solution along several tracks, including securing EU support for scrapping, which is in line with the fishers’ proposal. I have also been in dialogue with the EU commissioner about the matter,” the minister wrote.

If the industry is closed, it would represent a major loss for the fishers and for the cultural history connected to mussel fishing, said Svend Andersen, chairman of the Danish Fishermen’s Association.

“Especially in the Limfjord region, mussel fishing is part of Danish cultural history. That is why it is so unfortunate that regulation of mussel fishing has become so strict that we may now lose it,” he said.