EU: Measures to reduce the number of dolphins being caught accidentally in fishing nets have been agreed by European Union fisheries ministers.
The minister for communications, marine and natural resources, Mr Dermot Ahern, said after chairing the negotiations in Brussels that the agreement would save the lives of thousands of dolphins and porpoises.
He said: "The decision reached today is a landmark one. What we have agreed today will effectively protect these creatures."
But the conservation group, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), condemned as a failure the compromise reached by the Irish presidency.
The discussions went on late into Monday night, as fisheries ministers complained about the likely costs of the protective measures proposed by the European Commission.
Mr Ahern said studies in the last two years had shown that the existing measures were not sufficient and needed to be considerably strengthened.
"We do not know how many dolphins are killed every year as a result of driftnets and gillnets," he said. "The best estimate is that several thousand are killed in the North Sea alone."
The ministers agreed that driftnets, which are already banned in all other EU waters, should be phased out from the Baltic Sea. The Baltic harbour porpoises are the most critically-endangered population of the dolphin family in European waters.
They are particularly vulnerable to driftnets, which are fixed nets set near the surface of the water.
In the Baltic, driftnets are used by about 200 boats. A complete ban will take effect from January 2008, one year later than originally proposed because of opposition, particularly from Finland and Denmark.
The Baltic countries also opposed proposals to restrict the length of the driftnets to less than 2.5km.
But they did agree that the number of boats using driftnets must be progressively reduced, by 40 per cent in January 2005 and a further 20 in each of the following years.
The ministers also agreed on measures for fishing with gillnets, which are also fixed nets set deeper in the water than driftnets. Gillnets would have to carry warning devices, known as "pingers", which emit an acoustic signal to deter harbour porpoises from entering the nets.
This rule will apply from June 2005 for the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, from January 2006 for boats in the Celtic Sea and the western Channel and from January 2007 for the eastern Channel.
Boats which are 12 metres or less in length will be exempt.