INACTIVE UK European plaice & lemon sole - seine/trawl

Reason for Inactivity: European plaice in the North Sea was successfully certified to the MSC Standard in 2018. The timeline for the North Sea lemon sole FIP came to an end in April 2023 and the final annual review indicated that no performance indicator would be expected to fail in an MSC assessment. However, there are still activities underway to ensure the lemon sole fishery demonstrates best practice against the MSC Standard. The main outstanding actions for the lemon sole FIP relate to the development of harvest strategy and harvest control rules. Lemon sole is managed through the North Sea Multi Annual Plan, as a bycatch species, and is currently fished using a joint Total Allowable Catch with witch. Defra are working with ICES to split the TAC and implement a single species TAC in 2024, which will progress the remaining Principle 1 actions.

Project UK is working towards an environmentally sustainable future for UK fisheries by running Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs) on 12 UK fisheries that have been selected by the UK seafood supply chain. They were selected due to their importance for the UK market.

Project UK has been developed in response to the demand from the supply chain, retailers, industry and NGOs. The project will commission an MSC pre-assessment to inform and develop an action plan for each fishery, which will identify improvements.

Plaice and Lemon sole are demersal flatfish species generally living on sandy substrates but may also be found on mud and gravel and stony bottoms. They are shallow water species found from the near coast as juveniles down to around 200m in northern waters. Plaice are widely distributed on the continental shelf from the Bay of Biscay in the south through the English Channel, North Sea and Irish Sea to the Baltic, Iceland, the Norwegian coast and Barents Sea in the north.

TACs are set for the North Sea Plaice fishery.  Around 93% of this TAC was allocated to the EU. The UK share (initial allocation) accounts for around 26% of the total TAC.

TACs are set for the North Sea Lemon Sole fishery. In 2015 the TAC was 6,391 tonnes. 100% of this TAC was allocated to the EU. The UK share (initial allocation) accounts for around 61% of the total TAC.

The 3 Units of Assessment (Demersal Trawl, Beam Trawl and Seine) operate in different locations of the North Sea