August 14, 2016 - 07:08 — Timothy Gillespie
Billion-dollar business threatened
Sweden is digging in on a proposal to ban imports of live lobsters American (Homarus americanus) into the European Union after a rebuke from American scientists, and the issue could go all the way to the World Trade Organization.The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) says that lobster exports account for close to $1 billion yearly and exports to Europe from Canada and the USA amount to $200 million annually.
Sweden is digging in on a proposal to ban imports of live lobsters American (Homarus americanus) into the European Union after a rebuke from American scientists, and the issue could go all the way to the World Trade Organization.The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) says that lobster exports account for close to $1 billion yearly and exports to Europe from Canada and the USA amount to $200 million annually.
Sweden asked the European Union to bar imports of live Americanus lobsters into the bloc this year after 32 lobsters were found in Swedish waters. The U.S. government then told the European Commission that the proposal isn’t supported by science, and American and Canadian scientists issued reports calling the Swedish claim into question.
Now, Sweden’s Agency for Marine and Water Management is issuing a response to the criticism, and says the country is right to be cautious about the appearance of a foreign species in its waters. The response came out at the end of July and defends the prevention of the spread of lobsters from the USA and Canada as “environmentally desirable and cost-effective.”
The congressional delegation of Maine, the country’s largest lobster-producing state, issued a statement that said it will appeal to the WTO if the European Union ultimately sides with the Swedes.
Lobstermen in America and Canada, which together export $200 million worth of lobster to European markets each year, hope that Sweden’s call for a ban eventually amounts to nothing.
The European Union’s Scientific Forum on Invasive Alien Species is expected to express an opinion about Sweden’s call for a ban on Aug. 31. The country has said Americanus lobsters, which are fished off the coasts of the U.S. and Canada, could spread disease and overtake the smaller European variety.
Robert S. Steneck, a University of Maine scientist, wrote a paper that said the lobsters that turned up in Europe were most likely released illegally, as opposed to migrating across the ocean. He also wrote that the lobsters don’t pose a threat to European lobsters, in part because winter ocean temperatures along the coasts of European countries are too warm for the cold-water lobsters to reproduce.
But Sweden’s marine agency said it is “vital” to take a precautionary approach to the issue, because cold-water lobsters’ failure to gain a foothold in Europe thus far is “no guarantee that the same species will not be successfully invasive in another place or time.” The agency also says more research is needed into the impact of cross-breeding of cold-water and European lobsters.
Maine’s congressional delegation said the European import market is critical to the lobster industry, and the state’s leaders remain committed to supporting it. Maine’s lobster industry was worth about a half billion dollars last year and catches have soared to record highs in recent years.
State leaders hope the EU “will strongly consider the evidence offered by North American experts and decide not to pursue a ban on imports of live American lobster to Europe,” the delegation said.
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