Europe’s 80,000 fishing boats should be fitted with surveillance cameras to stop fishermen throwing back less valuable fish, according to Denmark’s latest contribution to the European Union’s reform plans for its troubled fishing industry.

The cameras would be used to ensure that fishing fleets were not “discarding” – a practice in which smaller and less valuable fish are thrown overboard so that boats can fill their quotas with the most valuable catch. According to scientists advising the EU, the amount of cod lost to discarding in the North Sea each year equals that legally brought to shore – some 24,000 tonnes.