Cuba, Guyana, Nigeria, Madagascar and Tanzania are countries which have or had such legislation that require trawlers to land a proportion of bycatch along with shrimp. Although shrimp trawling ceased in 2007 in Tanzania, the amount of bycatch landed was linked to the granting or renewal of annual fishing licences. Countries such as Cameroon, the Gambia, Mozambique and Nigeria have also seen the evolution of at-sea collection of bycatch whereby small boats/canoes meet trawlers at sea and collect/buy bycatch and bring it ashore for sale and/or processing. The fish on landing was sold fresh or processed using traditional methods.

Due to the quota system, there were high levels of fish discards at sea in many EU fisheries as fishermen selected out the most profitable and legally allowed fish to be landed from catches. Partly due to a popular public campaign to change the system and avoid discards, the EU changed its policy and introduced a discard ban. From 1 January 2015 onwards, fishermen in certain parts of the EU must land all the fish they catch, and by 2019 all fishermen will have the same obligation. Under the landing obligation, all catches have to be kept on board, landed and counted against quotas. Any good, wholesome fish that could be sold for human consumption should be. However, undersized fish cannot be marketed for human consumption purposes, rather for:

• ‘non-direct human consumption’ - food additives and fish protein-based products
• ‘non-human consumption’ - industrial uses such as fish meal, flours and pellets, fish oil, pet food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, fertilizer and composting, energy production, bait and animal feed