Sweden: A nation of innovators

A photo gallery

Sweden’s fishing industry may be small but it is a respected and vocal player on the European stage. A commitment to collaboration and an embrace of new technologies makes the country a leader in navigating the choppy waters of E.U. law. Photos by Celia Topping.

The tranquility of the North Sea and the pretty fishing villages lining Sweden’s ragged coastline, belie a stormy reality at the heart of many of Europe’s fisheries. Many stocks are overfished and fisherman and regulators sometimes struggle to see eye to eye.

Peter Ronelöv Olsson, fisherman of 35 years and head of Sweden’s largest fisherman’s organization, has a solution. With support from Environmental Defense Fund, Olsson convened three years of meetings between regulators and fisherman to help both parties devise a system for managing their quotas, helping keep ocean stocks healthy while complying with EU law. “There is no investment in the world with a longer plan than a fishing boat,” he says.

One of the outcomes of those meticulous meetings was a move from weekly use-it-or-lose-it quota allocations toward a single larger annual allocation. For cousins Henrik Olausson, 31 (above left) and Niklas Lundgren, 30, who operate their 15m trawler, Tristan, out of the port island of Öckerö, 10 minutes from Gothenburg, the new system was transformative. “We have much more freedom to plan, to choose when to fish,” says Olausson.

Summer 2018 saw the cousins trawling for crayfish in Skagerrak, a section of the North Sea between Denmark and Norway. They were at sea around the clock, returning to port just for long enough to offload their catch before heading out again. Lundgren (above right) uses data collected by his boat and shared with nearby vessels to navigate and decide where to fish. “We cooperate and we compete,” he says. The cousins’ work is typified by long, quiet hours on the water punctuated by bursts of setting and lifting trawls and sorting the catch. On the quiet isolation of the fishing life, Lundgren, says: “I don’t get lonely, I get calm.”

The new quota system paved the way for another innovation the cousins also use, known as FishRight. It’s an online system which allows fisherman who risk overrunning their allocations to trade quota with other vessels in real time. “It’s simple, easy to use and convenient,” says Lundgren. It’s also helping Sweden maintain the health of its oceans and its fishing industry all while operating within the strictures of EU quota law.

Innovation also happens on land. At Fiskareförenigen Norden, in Smögen, one hour north of Gothenburg, veteran netmaker Sixten Soderberg displays his latest invention (left) — a grid that allows undersize prawns to escape the trawl net back into the ocean. Today 50% of Sweden’s prawn fisheries use the grid, and neighboring countries are showing interest. On the right is another project on which Soderberg collaborates — floating trawl ‘doors’. Still under development, it is hoped the doors, which include vents to increase bouyancy, will minimise the ocean floor damage caused by trawling. “Everybody has to work for a better world,” Soderberg says.

Net repair still makes financial sense in Sweden where new nets can set a fishing business back many thousands of dollars. At Fiskareförenigen Norden artisan netmakers specialise in regenerating ‘ghost nets’ — nets recovered after being abandoned or lost in the sea. Sometimes old tech still prevails.

Thanks to their willingness to collaborate and innovate, the future for Swedish fisheries looks bright. “I am very glad that when I passed my fishing business on to my son, the stocks were in better shape than when I took it on,” Olsson says. The hope is now that other European countries will follow Sweden’s lead. “There are many valuable lessons for the rest of Europe in Sweden’s collaborative and market-based approach,” says EU fisheries policy officer Erik Lindebo.

You can read more about innovation in Sweden’s fishing industry here.

We are entering a new era of environmental innovation that is driving better alignment between technology and environmental goals — and results. #FourthWave