14/06/10
MPA Fishing Coalition Chairman Sets Out His Views on Fisheries and MPAs

Stephen Lockwood, chairman of the MPA Fishing Coalition, was recently invited to speak on behalf of the Coalition at the EU Green Week Conference on the subject of fishing and MPA. The text of his talk appears below; the illustrations for the talk can be found at http://www.greenweek2010.eu/content/stephen-lockwood

I first went to sea on a commercial trawler as a schoolboy  in 1962. That trip aboard the IAGO vessel Captain Inman LO62 gave me my first insight to what has proved an enduring fascination with commercial fisheries and provided a career in marine fisheries and environmental management.

Over the past 40 plus years I have undertaken research on inshore fishery ecology and carried out commercial fish-stock assessments but for the past quarter century my attention has focussed on the fishery aspects of coastal zone management. Within this broad field has been time as a government adviser on the fishery implications of identifying and designating MPA under the Habitats Directive, the Birds Directive, Ramsar Convention, OsPar Convention and UK legislation – including marine sections to the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. More recently, I have provided both fishery advice and training to UK statutory and voluntary conservation bodies.

In the course of this work I have found that too many people engaged in MPA promotion and site selection have virtually no knowledge or understanding of fish, fishing, or the fishing industry. Indeed, this point is nicely illustrated by the Reducing the Footprint pamphlet published by the Seas-at-Risk pressure group. It classifies pelagic long lines as being an active or mobile fishing gear rather than static or passive, like the pelagic drift nets which they classify correctly.

More generally, this lack of knowledge is usually manifest in one or more of three areas:

Fishing Vessels
For too many people a fishing boat, is a fishing boat is a fishing boat; nothing could be further from the truth.

A single-handed, 5 m punt with oars and an outboard engine, operating just hand-gear is orders of magnitude different from a 65 m pelagic trawler – purser, which is different again from a purpose-built mussel dredger, offshore potter, under-10 multi-purpose boat or an offshore twin-rig trawler. The length and engine power of fishing vessels varies enormously. It is the length and power influences how far fishing vessels can work from shore, the distance they can operate from their home port, the gear they can operate and, most importantly for MPA, the effect that they can have on the environment. Between the extremes of the 5 m punt and the offshore super-trawlers there is the vast majority of the inshore fleet which varies to meet the local conditions and resources at its disposal.

It is essential that anyone engaged in MPA promotion, site selection or designation gets to know and understand the limitations and capabilities of the fishing fleet operational in their area.

Fishing Gear
The picture is much the same with respect to fishing gear. Too many people view all fishing gear as being the same, with the same capacity to affect the natural environment. They are all assumed to be ‘harmful’. Nothing could be further from reality.

Any hook-and-line system – commercial or recreational - is benign relative to a full chain-matrix beam trawl. The surface-skimming smooth dredge-bar of a mussel dredge is benign relative to the toothed bar of a scallop dredge, which is designed to dig in. And the potential environmental interaction of otter trawls can vary significantly, depending on the rig of the ground gear, particularly the foot rope.
A light ground rope is unsuitable for use on anything other than the smoothest, obstruction-free, ‘clean’ seabed. In contrast large-wheel rock-hopper gear has the ability to work on – and disturb – some of the hardest ground. But even the heaviest gear with the greatest potential for environmental interaction can be – and is – used in areas where its effects last no more than a few days, if not hours.
As with the vessels, it is essential that anyone engaged in marine nature conservation gets to know and understand the limitations and capabilities of the fishing gear that is used by the fleet operational in their area of interest.

Restricted Areas
The first nature conservation conference I addressed was organised by the UK Marine Conservation Society in the late 1980s; I was asked to talk about fisheries and MPA. At the time, I criticised the statutory and voluntary conservation bodies for starting their planning with a blank sheet of paper rather than building on what is already in place. Regrettably, it seems that little has changed in the past 20 years or so.

Contrary to what many people may think, the fishing industry has a long tradition of using restricted and closed areas as a method of fishery management.  When this is  pointed out to conservation groups, too often the response is ‘yes, but they’re not MPA’. I beg to differ.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN – the UN nature conservation agency) definition of an MPA is: “any area of intertidal or subtidal terrain, together with its overlying water and associated flora, fauna, historical and cultural features, which has been reserved by law or other effective means to protect part or all of the enclosed environment”.

Note the words “any area” and “effective means to protect part or all” of the environment. I contend that as fish stocks and their habitat are part of the environment, any area that is subject to effective means to protect the fish, or their habitat, constitutes an MPA.

Thus, not only is there an MPA in Filey Bay, on the east coast of England, where towed gear has been prohibited for the past century, similar restrictions on fishery activities are found throughout the coastal waters of the UK – and probably throughout Europe. Such areas can be complex with a variety of management of objectives – such as the gear separation zones found off south Devon, in the western English Channel. Not only do these fishery MPA deliver benefits to the fish stocks – as intended – they also deliver wider biodiversity benefits, as has been demonstrated by Prof Mike Kaiser and his team at Bangor University.

The extensive offshore fishery ‘boxes’, such as the SW Mackerel Box, may have simpler, more focussed restrictions than many inshore areas but nonetheless, they too are MPA.

Distribution of Activity
Not only is the fishing industry familiar and comfortable with the notion of restricted areas – when they are rational and fully explained –  the industry has a wealth of information and data that can contribute to improved site selection, designation and management.

There is an urban myth that the North Sea is trawled over more than three times every year. This is patent nonsense. It is possible, however, that annual trawling activity in the North Sea covers an area equivalent to three times the area of the North Sea. This is an important distinction as some favoured fishing positions may be fished two, three or even four hundred times each year. Not because anyone wishes to reduce them to an abiotic wasteland but because they are, and continue to be, biologically productive.
Information that illustrates the distribution of fishing activity in European waters is available in many formats. The most readily accessible information is that collected by the fisheries authorities and forwarded to the Commission in the form of daily catch log sheets and for vessels over 15 m in length, the vessel monitoring system – VMS. Even at the relatively crude scale at which these data are collected and can be analysed,  it is clear that there are areas in which the fishing industry has an intense interest because they are biologically productive. The data collected make it no less clear that there are other areas in which the industry’s interest is minimal.

An alternative approach which can define activity at a more localised level – and is an essential first step with respect to the under 15 m fleet –  is personal observation, backed up by personal interview. This can show not only where fishing activity is localised but where individual vessels prefer to operate, as shown by a major study of the local crab fishery undertaken by the Devon Sea Fisheries Committee in 2008.
Such interviews can only be undertaken if a relationship of mutual trust is established. Such relationships are possible. The fishing industry is willing to enter such relationships – providing they are treated as equal partners rather than villains who must be punished. If conservation bodies – both statutory and voluntary will endeavour to gain that trust, show mutual respect, they will find that the level of detail that the fishing industry can contribute to site selection and management is immense.
In almost any region, individual skippers’ trawl-track records demonstrate quite clearly that there are areas which are of profound importance to the catchers. But of equal importance in the context of MPA site selection, they will also demonstrate that there are areas in which skippers’ interest is one of absolute avoidance. On closer inspection of these track records, it is often found that the areas avoided are those that are of particular nature conservation interest –the reefs of Eddystone Bay, for example.

It was data such as these were used by the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation and the statutory  conservation body for Scotland – Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) – not only to refine and define site boundaries that minimised the restrictions on the industry around Stanton Banks, but also brought to light features of which SNH were previously unaware.

Conclusion
Before any individual or organisation embarks on any initiative with respect to a new MPA – wherever it may be –they must ensure their plans include four main stages with respect to fishing and the fishing industry.

The industry’s active participation will improve the MPA process immeasurably and make future site management less problematic. As with the conservation sector, the UK fishing industry wants a long-term sustainable future. It has no desire to be associated with short-term ‘rape and pillage’ of the marine environment as is too often suggested.