5 June 2014
The main challenge that I see at the moment is to keep the fishing industry onboard when the policy is looking for drastic changes but without very good explanations or means.
I am really concerned that the
new discard ban could do a lot of harm to the positive developments that we
have seen over the last decade with the decline in fishing mortality, with the
RACs as platforms of collaboration and with initiatives like the Scottish
conservation credit scheme. The discard ban is a very complex piece of
legislation that is very very difficult to explain. There have been many
meetings already trying to figure out what the different elements mean. Taking
the discard ban as a learning process, then it could develop in something
positive. But if it would be rolled out as a control and enforcement approach,
I am really concerned that it will do much more harm than good.
Overall the challenge that I
see is to go from a very hierarchical top-down micromanagement style of
fisheries management to a management style that is more comparable to other
industries: where society gives out a license to produce but the industry needs
to demonstrate that it complies with the license. Making the industry
responsible to society instead of society telling the industry what to do. That
is also why I have taken the strategic decision to be part of the industry and
trying to work in that direction
The full Gap 2 Article from
which this is an extract can be found here