RIGA - The Food and Veterinary Service banned the sale of Baltic Sea and Gulf of Riga salmon last week after a British firm commissioned to examine the fish found high levels of dioxin.
"This is not an easy decision, yet right now we have to balance the fishing interests with consumer safety," Agriculture Minister Martins Roze said in a statement.
The Latvian Fishermen Association said that fishermen would be harmed by the ban. Boats would stand idle until the restrictions are lifted. Inarijs Voits, head of the organization told the Baltic News Service that fishing licenses were already expensive and could no longer be used. Licenses are unjustifiably expensive, Voits said, for catching a hundred pieces of salmon.
Latvian fishermen have not reached their quota on salmon the last couple of years.
Roze said that ministry specialists were preparing plans to compensate fishermen affected by the ban. Money could come from the European Commission or from the state government, a ministry representative said.
The report, compiled by Central Science Laboratories, a York-based outfit, reportedly found levels of dioxin exceeding the allowed limit in eight of 13 fish they tested, while in the remaining five dioxin was also present. Baltic herring and sprats were also contaminated though at lower levels.
Dioxins are unintended chemical biproducts that have long life-spans and can prove resilient to degradation. They can even accumulate in the fatty tissues of humans and animals. Recent studies have suggested that the dioxin levels have been decreasing over the last 10 years. In animal-testing, dioxins have been linked to learning disabilities and can damage reproduction.
Sweden and Finland sell dioxin-contaminated fish since both have transition periods that require them to issue warnings for pregnant mothers. So far Latvia has not been given a transition period, so when the laboratory released its findings the Baltic salmon fish had to be taken off Latvian store shelves, explained Maris Balodis, deputy director of the food surveillance department at the Agriculture Ministry.
Consumption wise, the ban is unlikely to have any significant economic effect. As Balodis explained, salmon sold in Latvia largely comes from outside the Baltic Sea. Last year fishermen brought in about 40 tons of Baltic salmon, while the bulk 's 1,500 tons 's came from sources such as Norway.
Besides, the allowable salmon catch in the Baltic Sea, excluding the Gulf of Finland, has declined since the 1990s, when fishermen were allowed to catch 650,000 salmon. Since then the threshold fell to 410,000 in 1997 and has now increased slightly to 470,000 for 2005 according to the European Commission.
Baltic salmon has a yellow rosy color, while salmon raised in Norway has a red tint. Most of the salmon affected by the ministry's decision was in the public markets or smaller stores, since larger chains require shipments of salmon that the fishermen cannot provide.
Authorities seized 250 kilograms of salmon at Riga Central Market on Feb. 1 following the ban.
The announcement by state authorities came just weeks after the World Wildlife Fund issued a report saying that Baltic fish are contaminated with a number of pollutants, dioxins among them.
The British laboratory also found dioxin in cod liver, but since the EU and Latvia have not set levels of dioxin permitted in cod, so the product will continue to be sold.
The Agriculture Ministry said it would inform its Estonian and Lithuanian counterparts, whose salmon might also be affected by the recent data.
