FOR the sixth year running, the fisheries ministers of the European Union have ignored warnings from scientists to stop fishing North Sea cod, raising serious questions about how scientific advice is regarded in Brussels.
To prevent North Sea cod from disappearing altogether as it did in the 1990s off Newfoundland in Canada, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, based in Copenhagen, advised eliminating cod fishing in the North Sea. “The warning from the scientists is as stark as it gets,” says David Read, vice-president of the Royal Society in London.
But when the ministers haggled over the…
