The Lessons of Recovery: Taking stock after a Decade of Cod Recovery Measures

In December 2003, European fishermen united to hold an impressive but ultimately unsuccessful, fleet demonstration in Antwerp to voice opposition to the Commission’s proposal to introduce days-at-sea restrictions on vessels that caught any significant amount of cod within the Cod Recovery Zone.

Only a few years later, in 2008, the Council agreed that the original Plan wasn’t working and a new Plan was required.

After a period during which recovery appeared stalled, the biomass of cod has now increased in the North Sea for six successive years; although it is inarguable that the rate of rebuilding of the cod stocks, and the reduction of fishing mortality on which this largely depends, would have been much more rapid had ways of reducing regulatory driven discards been found and applied earlier.

The picture in the Irish Sea and West of Scotland is very different. ICES scientists are at a loss to explain what is happening in the Irish Sea other that there is a high level of unaccounted mortality. In the West of Scotland, in addition to predation by the high seal population, TAC driven discards are recognised as the main impediment to recovery. It is clear that in these two cases the central planks of the Cod Plan, reduced TACs, underpinned by effort control, have failed.

It should not be forgotten that for environmental reasons we appear to be in a period of low productivity for cod, with a series of low year classes and low recruitment, which doesn’t help in rebuilding the stocks. And even after fishing mortality has been reduced to target levels for recovery, it can take some time before the stocks respond.

Nevertheless, the Celtic Sea, the area which the NFFO and others had successfully fought to keep out of the Cod Recovery Zone and “recovery” measures such as effort control, has seen a dramatic improvement in its cod stocks. In 2011 the TAC for cod was increased by 151% to reflect that improvement.

What Works; What Doesn’t?

Given the plethora of intertwined measures introduced to address the problem of declining cod stocks, it is not easy to determine which measure has delivered in terms of reducing fishing mortality on cod. We are helped in drawing conclusions by the work of STECF which was charged with the task of evaluating the most recent plan and then describing options for improvement. Nevertheless, there great scope for subjectivity in deciding on the question of ascribing weight to each factor:

The measures

Measures to reduce fishing mortality on cod, introduced at various times from 1999, onwards on have included

• Mesh size increase and various gear geometry rules to improve selectivity
• Fishing vessel decommissioning, using public funds to reduce the size of the fleet targeting cod or catching cod as a by-catch
• Effort Control – days-at-sea restrictions
• Landing Controls such as designated ports, reporting requirements etc.
• Dramatically reduced TACs
• Since 2008, various types of cod avoidance, including real time closures and Catch Quota trials using CCTV and incentivised selectivity

Even harder to weigh but undoubtedly significant, have been attitudinal changes within the fishing industry linked, at least in the UK, to the allocation of quota from decommissioned vessels and the ability to acquire quota, allowing vessels to operate legally despite the huge TAC reductions. Similar changes to the quota management regime in Denmark, the second largest cod catching member state, have been significant.

A further complication in assessing which measures worked and which didn’t is seen the way that the effort control regime undermined improvements in gear selectivity as vessel owners fled the punitive regime for vessels using larger mesh sizes to smaller mesh fisheries such as nephrops. STECF concluded that for this reason, the average mesh size in use in the North Sea decreased over the period despite an increase in the minimum mesh size for vessels targeting the larger whitefish from 90mm to 120mm. This trend is likely to have been reversed more recently through incentivised changes to the gear deployed.

STECF’s conclusions were that TAC reductions and effort control have been inadequate in reducing fishing mortality on cod, although the measures introduced have contributed to the rebuilding of other demersal species. TAC reductions in mixed fisheries have generated large levels of discarding of cod and effort control has produced perverse effects that undermined the improvements in gear selectivity and often intensified fishing activity, during the time the vessels are permitted to go to sea.

On the other hand, the changes to the Cod Plan in 2008, and specifically the provisions for encouraging cod avoidance and discard reduction, were identified as producing positive and significant results, even if hampered by an overly bureaucratic mind-set by those who wrote the Regulation.

Where Now?

In the next few weeks we will see if the lessons learnt over the last 10 years will be applied to the current cod regime. There is much at stake:

• If the 20% reduction in the North Sea Cod TAC in the Cod Plan is followed , the industry, member states and scientists all agree this will lead to a huge increase in discards and a setback for those parts of the plan that do work, such as incentivised cod avoidance: EU and Norway have the power to take a different course during their negotiations for an annual reciprocal fisheries agreement
• The Council of Ministers has the legal authority to freeze the pre-programmed effort reductions that are required under the Cod Plan. The Council begins on 18th December.
• TAC decisions in the Irish Sea and West of Scotland made at the Council will be significant. The key question will be whether the Council follows the TAC decisions predetermined in the Cod Plan in the full knowledge that reductions will achieve nothing in terms of reducing mortality, or whether the first steps towards a new approach will be taken. Specifically, will there be a move towards adoption of the type of approach outlined in the North West Waters RAC advice Breaking the Cycle of Decline to rebuild the cod stocks in a more rational way by addressing the discard issue?

In the slightly longer term, the Commission has proposed an amended interim Cod Plan which addresses most of the most glaring problems in the current plan, pending the development of full mixed fishery ICES and the emergence of a full mixed- fishery plan. The interim regime should be adopted through co-decision during the first half of next year.

10 Years On: Lessons Learnt

After 10 years of cod recovery measures it is possible to say that those who took part in the Antwerp fleet demonstration have been vindicated: effort control has been a colossal distraction. It is difficult to demonstrate that restrictions on time-at-sea has directly saved a single cod; yet it has caused great social and economic dislocation and huge difficulties fisheries for administrators and the industry. Most tellingly, STECF has concluded that there is no linear relationship between effort reductions and a reduction in fishing mortality. It is inconceivable if this had been widely understood in 2003 that ministers would have adopted a plan based on it.

On the other hand publicly funded decommissioning is now vilified by the EU Court of Auditors and the Commission. But it is difficult to envisage the dramatic reduction in fishing mortality in the North Sea cod or plaice fisheries, or the Celtic Sea demersal fishery without this decisive intervention in a number of member states, including the UK.

Perhaps one of the most significant lessons and certainly the most costly to learn in that in mixed fisheries such as ours is that drastic TAC reductions generate huge discards of mature cod, unless accompanied by intelligent supplementary measures

Without compliance, regulation is pointless and over the past 10 years it is possible to see a dramatic change within the industry as blackfish has been pushed from centre stage to the margins. It should be remembered however that compliance requires profitability as a precondition; and it is all too easy to generate discards if the issues are not thought through.

Long Term Management Plans offer the prospect of setting long term objectives and moving progressively towards those goals bringing stability into TAC decisions; nevertheless it is important that such plans have an escape clause that allows fisheries managers to address various types of unforeseen eventualities.

Cod Avoidance in its various forms has proved that it has great potential if it is approached creatively; but it can only work if there is a correspondence between the TAC and the fish on the grounds and it makes sense at vessel level. At present, additional quota and effort exemptions are used to incentivise cod avoidance but the perverse side effects of effort restrictions suggest that it should be replaced as soon as is practical. Imaginative forms of fully documented fisheries are probably the key to moving forward here.

A Plan based on an undue focus on a single species within the context of a mixed and multi-species fishery is going to struggle to achieve its objectives. The future will be about designing long term management plans with the mixed fishery and multi-species dimension at its heart.

Turning Point

There is reason to believe that we have reached a turning point – but only if the Commission, member states and European Parliament learn the lessons of the last decade. Even where, as in the Irish Sea and West of Scotland, the scientific assessments do not yet point towards rapidly rebuilding stocks, the flaws in the current approach have been recognised and we can begin to do something about them. The speed at which this will take place is largely dependent on the untried co-decision process with decisions in the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament.

In the North Sea, the priority must be avoiding taking a backward step by blindly following the provisions of a plan that has been evaluated and found to be flawed.

Notes

1

Actually plans, because the North Sea TAC is set in relation to a long term management plan agreed between EU and Norway but over the last 10 years all other EU cod TACs and the effort regime have been decided unilaterally by the EU Council of Ministers. Following the Lisbon Treaty, there is a bitter dispute between the Council and the European Parliament over who has competence in the area of setting TACs when these are decisions are predetermined by a long term management plan. The dispute shows every sign of heading to the European Court of Justice for resolution.

2

Cod Recovery Zone: North Sea, West of Scotland, Irish Sea and Eastern Channel.

3

Cod Recovery Plan (EC. 423/2004) covering the North Sea, Irish Sea, West of Scotland, Kattegat and Eastern Channel.

4

Cod Management Plan (EC. No. 1342/2008 of 18th December 2008 establishing a long term plan for cod stocks and fisheries exploiting those stocks

NFFO Chairman Paul Trebilcock said:

“It is true that in recent years the hand-line allocation has not been fully utilised. This is normal in a fishery which fluctuates from year to year.

The point is that in the years when this quota is not fully utilised, it provides valuable swap currency which is then used to secure alternative quota for stocks that are accessible for the under-10 metre fleet and the hand-liners. Indeed it was a hard fought for allocation and ultimately a protection for the hand-liners that should not be given away by DEFRA”

“At a time when we are all working to ease the quota situation for the under-10s which includes a high number of hand-liners, this is a very unhelpful, not to say selfish, suggestion.”

Note

The SW hand line mackerel quota allocation is 0.83% of the UK allocation of the Western mackerel or 1750t which ever is greater. UK quota 2012 is 166,765 tonnes.

Sometimes it is necessary to state the obvious: Fishing produces fish. Fish feed people.

Since the Second World War, fishing in the UK has provided the basis for around 200 trillion meals. That is our back-of- an-envelope estimate.

Much of the current debate about fishing’s environmental impact takes place in a vacuum, with little or no reference to fishing’s central contribution to the nation’s food security. When assessing fishing’s environmental impact it is important that this reflection takes place within an appreciation of the value of high quality protein put on the table by the people who catch and land fish throughout the year, in sometimes difficult conditions.

The issue for discussion should not be whether fishing has an environmental impact but how can those impacts best be managed whilst we benefit from the food it provides. This is the missing component in the debate. In fact when compared to other different types of food production, fishing’s impacts are comparatively low.

There has been a notable lack of balance and sense of proportion in the public debate on fishing; and this has recently been stoked into a simple-minded media feeding frenzy, not least by the Sunday Times.

With a few honourable exceptions the mainstream media now deals exclusively in negative stereotypes. If there is a fish stock it’s collapsing; if there is a fishing vessel it is “hoovering”; if there is a net, it can hold several Boeing aircraft and if there is a trawler, it is an “industrial”(aka “bad”) trawler. Fishermen are portrayed as greedy, short-sighted rednecks, intent in destroying the marine environment.

Reality only rarely breaks through. And the whole debate seems disconnected from the food that is put on the table by fishermen in fishing vessels.

Stock Trends

After being fed so much apocalyptic doom by even the “serious” media outlets, the public is unlikely to believe a fishing organisation’s website about the direction in which our fish stocks are heading. The trends are there however, for those who wish to see, in the scientific advice and in the statements made by the European Commission. To be sure, some stocks are in more robust health than others; and only someone who had taken too many drugs could conclude that the Common Fisheries Policy has produced a first class system of resource management over the last 20 years. Nevertheless, it is perverse to suggest, against the clear impartial evidence from authoritative sources, that the stocks in our waters are in general decline. The opposite is true. As any primary school teacher could attest: “Could do better” is not the same as “getting worse”. And some stocks are doing exceptionally well.

Vessel Sizes: Industrial vs. Artisanal

Larger vessels come in for flack for no other reason than their size. But to catch a wide range of species under varying conditions and in locations as widely differing as West Greenland, the middle of the North Sea or in small inshore creeks, requires a diverse fleet of small, medium and big vessels. And that is what the UK has got. It is not sensible to equate “large” with “unsustainable” or “small” automatically with “sustainable”. It all depends what the vessels are doing, where and in what numbers.

Relying on picture postcard vessels to catch our fish as some suggest, would leave most of our quotas uncaught and a lot of people unfed. Equally, relying only on large vessels would leave much of our shellfish in the water and widespread unemployment in coastal towns and isolated communities and a hole in the supply of prime fish to the market. The safety of fishermen operating in widely differing conditions also demands different classes of vessel.

It is therefore fundamentally misconceived to create an artificial impression of David and Goliath sectors of the industry, or to suggest that one fleet sector’s gain can only be at another’s loss. In fact our fleets are to a high degree interdependent and reliant on each other to maintain port and marketing infrastructures.

Environmental Impact

In defending fishing against intemperate and ill-informed attacks, it is equally important not to swing the pendulum too far in the opposite direction and suggest that fishing has no environmental consequences. All food production, including fishing, has an environmental impact. The challenge is working out how to minimise those impacts whilst continuing to enjoy the benefits of sufficient high quality foodstuffs.

The much loved British landscape – all of it – even the wild highlands- has been shaped by human activity as people have striven to make a living, cutting down forests, ploughing fields, planting crops. But few suggest that we should return the countryside to primordial forests.

Different standards apparently apply when it comes to the sea.

MPAs

One way in which the impact of fishing can be limited is through marine protected areas. A network of marine protected areas, in which human activities, including fishing, are especially carefully managed, can be a sound approach to protecting vulnerable habitats and ecosystems, although their benefits have sometimes been exaggerated.

What is not sensible is to rush into designating marine protected areas in a fit of moral panic, with only half an idea about what it is you are trying to protect, inadequate evidence for designating areas, armed with the notion that good intentions are enough to bring about good results.

Steady progress

In fact steady progress has been made in reducing fishing’s impacts and will continue to be made. Finding intelligent ways of fishing that minimise discards and unwanted by-catch, reduce the impact of gear on seabed, and maintain balanced exploitation of target species, has advanced further in the last few years than the previous twenty.

Societal ideas about the conditions under which fish should be caught, landed and marketed are evolving and these provide challenges for the fishing industry. But contrary to the lazy media stereotypes, those challenges are being met.

Discards

The scale of discarding in the EU has, in large part, been an undesirable and widely publicised by-product of the way that our fisheries have been managed (or mismanaged). However, the impression given by the media, and certain celebrity chefs, that this is an issue that is not already being tackled is plain wrong. The English fleet has reduced the absolute amount of discards by its vessels by 50% over the last decade.

As there are different drivers for discards in different fisheries, so solutions vary fishery by fishery. A “ban on discards” will almost certainly be a central element in the CFP reform package currently under discussion in the European Parliament but real progress in minimising the amount of discards still further will be dependent on workable, practical solutions in each fishery. In this sense, the “ban” will just be an extension of the progress that has already been made through initiatives such as catch quota trials, the 50% Project, various kinds of fully documented fisheries, more selective gear, real time closures, cod avoidance etc. What could dramatically reduce discards further would be changes to the fisheries management rules which generate discards: quotas set in mixed fisheries without regard to the discards that will result and the catch composition rules that assume that fish swim in fixed percentages are two of the worst culprits.

Back toFood Security

With current projections for population growth, not to mention rising societal expectations, food security is one of the major issues facing the planet. Despite the growth of aquaculture, wild caught fish will remain a major plank in meeting the increased demand associated with that population growth.

Fishing recognises along with all other forms of food production that it will have to raise its game and address its faults. If this short article does anything, it should have made clear that the issues are understood by the fishing industry and fisheries managers; and that the industry and managers are already addressing those issues by fishing more intelligently. The reform of the Common Fisheries Policy, if it is handled well, should provide the basis for continued progress.

At its most recent meeting with those branches of government most concerned with implementing a network of marine protected areas in UK waters (Defra, Marine Management Organisation, IFCAs and the statutory nature conservancy advisors), the MPA Fishing Coalition called for a code of conduct to ensure that marine conservation zones and European marine sites are designed and managed in line with the principles of good governance.

MPAC Chairman, Dr Stephen Lockwood, said,

“The process of establishing a network of marine protected areas, and the management measures that will apply within them, will be one of the most significant developments affecting fishermen since the introduction of TACs and quotas. Access to their customary fishing grounds is a fundamental issue for fishermen, affecting livelihoods and lives, as well as the integrity of marine ecosystems.

All branches of government involved in this process therefore have a responsibility and duty to ensure that the highest standards of governance are applied. However, at present there is no commonly agreed Code of Conduct, based on best practice, which provides guidance on the establishment and management of MPAs. The process in the UK, despite the assurances given, feels and looks very much like a set of ad hoc arrangements, made up as we go along. This applies to the evidence used, the engagement with stakeholders and the measures that will apply within MPAs”.

“MPAC has therefore asked the Government to set in train a process, involving all of the main stakeholders that will lead to a commonly agreed set of standards for establishing and managing MPAs.

We hope that the MPA Code of Conduct would:

• Draw on best practice worldwide
• Without being slavish, and fully taking into account that conditions may differ in our waters, use the lessons drawn from the process of establishing MPAs elsewhere in the world.
• Ensure clarity in what exactly is being protected by marine protected areas and why – in other words establish clear objectives for both the programme as a whole and also for each site
• Establish clear standards and protocols for the evidence to be used
• Define adequate forms of risk assessment to allow for balance and proportion to be established between competing priorities
• Define the steps requires to fill the gaps where evidence baselines are inadequate
• Define clear standards for the involvement of all of those stakeholders potentially affected by MPAs, irrespective of nationality, or method of fishing
• Provide guidelines and standards for dealing with potential displacement effects where MPAs or parts of MPAs are closed to certain types of activity
• Take into account that the marine environment is inherently dynamic
• Ensure that the implementation of management measures within a network MPAs does not outstrip the resources available to manage them
• Set timescales and protocols for monitoring the progress of MPAs towards their goals
• Be able to adapt the boundaries and locations of site to take account of evolving information bases, including precision information on fishing patterns
• Take fully into account negative socio-economic consequences of MPA boundaries and management measures and mitigate these as far as possible
• Provide for urgent revisions of MPA boundaries and management measures where the socio-economic consequences are disproportionate

Dr Lockwood continued “We were pleased with the Government’s initial reception of our request for a Code of Practice. Once established it would serve as a checklist to ensure that MPAs are approached in a fair, proportionate and consistent way.

The principles of good governance have served as a useful signpost for the strengthening of fisheries management and there is no reason why the same standards should not apply to MPAs.

At present, MPAs are too much of a political football, seen as a panacea by some and anathema by others. An agreed Code of Conduct for MPAs would hopefully put the whole process on a more considered basis, less vulnerable to short time political pressures and media scares. It could also be used as a standard against which to judge whether the original legislation driving the establishment of MPAS – the EU Habitats Directive or the UK’s Marine and Coastal Access Act – got it right.

It will clearly be important for the Code of Conduct to have buy-in from all stakeholders, which is why we have suggested that a draft code should be prepared by a respected independent authority, without links to government, environmental NGOs or the fishing industry”.

Large sums of money are being spent by the EU and the member states on world class scientific expertise – which is then being ignored. That is the inescapable conclusion of the tragi-farcical situation that is evolving this autumn on important TAC decisions.

Although the EU/Norway negotiations for next year’s fisheries agreement have yet to begin, the signs are that the TAC for North Sea cod will be cut by 20% although ICES science predicts that this will only result in a giant surge in discards.

In a parallel strand of work, scientists in STECF have laboured for two years to evaluate the EU Cod Management Plan and have concluded that it is fundamentally flawed – only to stand by as those conclusions look like being set aside in the December TAC and Quotas decisions.

Likewise, ICES science, which advises that rebuilding plans for spurdog, porbeagle, skates and rays should be introduced, has been translated through the political process into zero TACs – which can only then transform landings into discards.

All this amounts to a failure of the political process to translate scientific advice into meaningful, coherent management measures which deliver sensible outcomes.

Who is Culpable?

Those of our past ministers who signed up to regulations which they didn’t understand and the Commission (when it was wedded to a “command and control” micro-management philosophy) must bear much of the weight of criticism. Then there is bad timing and bad luck. It is unfortunate that quota and effort decisions this year are still caught up in the transition to co-decision with the European Parliament – before the politics in the form of separating out decisions on broad principles from detailed regional measures has been sorted out. The Commission’s Proposal for an amended Cod Plan is not perfect but it goes a long way to addressing its worst features but it won’t be through the legislative process until well into next year.

What can be Done?

The NFFO and its allies will be pressing for an over-ride of good sense:

• The negotiators in the EU/Norway talks on next year’s joint-stock TACs such as cod should roll over the current TAC, avoid a surge in discards, and encourage the kinds if industry initiatives that have already led to a turn- round in the fortunes of North Sea cod. The UK fisheries department has put forward a paper on alternative TAC scenarios for North Sea cod and we are hopeful that this could be used to breakout of the self-induced fatalism that if allowed sway would lead to the discarding of many thousands of tonnes of cod next year.
• Replace zero TACs by a reasonable by-catch provision linked to a rebuilding plan based on close cooperation between fisheries scientists and the industry on effective avoidance initiatives. The current policy is going nowhere except over the side.

A move in this direction would signal that the political process is capable of delivering rational decisions acceptable to the fishing industry and the wider public. Both understandably have difficulties in appreciating the niceties of deliberate policy decisions that lead directly to large scale discards.

Cod Plan: The Executive agreed that the Commission’s proposals for an interim cod regime, pending replacement of the discredited EU Cod Management Plan, represented real progress in the direction advocated by the NFFO, RACs and others

Flaws: The Commission’s proposals still however contain a number of flaws which need to be ironed out, chiefly the proposed prohibition of quota transfers to and from Catch Quota vessels fitted with CCTV cameras; this mistaken policy, based on a misunderstanding of quota management arrangements in the member states, has the capacity to derail the catch quota trials if not removed

Fully Documented Fisheries: The Executive agreed that various types of fully documented fisheries offered a way to escape from blunt and excessively restrictive management measures and approved the Federation’s involvement in a number of initiatives to deepen and broaden the types of full documentation available: CCTV, observers, risk-based approached focused on catch sampling etc.

VMS/E-Logs: It was agreed to write again to the Minister, Richard Benyon, highlighting flaws in the Governments approach to the requirement to fit VMS and e-logbooks. In particular, the Federation is critical of the way that the industry has been again exposed to an exploitative single supplier arrangements , rushed implementation and a failure to take advantage of the derogation available for vessels between 12m and 15m.

South East: A meeting of the Federation’s South East Committee in Rye had been postponed because of a bereavement and would be rearranged for the New Year

Economic Link: The Executive agreed to respond to the forthcoming consultation on economic link requirements to ensure that they are fair and proportionate

TACs and Quotas: The Federation’s extensive work on TACs and quotas for next year was approved, along with plans for the December CouncilCFP Reform: An update on the Federation’s work on CFP reform was received, including:

1. Lobbying of the EU Parliament
2. A recent meeting with the relevant Defra officials
3. A presentation at a recent Westminster conference
4. Work within the regional advisory councils

Domestic Quota Reform: It was agreed that given the impasse that appeared to have been reached on progress towards an equitable resolution of the under-10m quota issue, it was timely to again press for the adoption of the Federation’s balanced multi-faceted approach discussed with the Minister earlier in the year.Industry Reputation: The Federation’ fight-back against distorted, lazy and dishonest media portrayals of the fishing industry was approved by the Executive but concern was expressed that a more concerted effort was required. A programme of media engagement based on sound evidence, balanced coverage and recognition of the industry’s role in providing food security was approved. A collaborative approach with other industry bodings including Seafish was envisaged. Regional Advisory Councils: The Executive:

• Considered that the RACs had been one of the most significant developments arising from the last CFP reform and had exceeded expectations in terms of the quality and maturity of advice provided and as a platform for cooperation between stakeholders and fisheries scientists
• Recognised that in a regionalised CFP, RACs would play an even more prominent and effective role
• Approved representations on the future of RACS made by the NFFO at a major consultative meeting held in Brussels chaired by the Director General
  1. Reviewed a number of areas of RAC work including:
  2. EU Cod Plan
  3. Irish Sea and West of Scotland cod audit and fuly documentation respectively
  4. Nephrops Functional Units
  5. Celtic Sea long term management plan
  6. Pelagic RAC: TAC and harvesting advice/international negotiations
  7. Long Distance RAC: international negotiations

Marine Protected Areas: The Federation’s work was reviewed and approved on:

• Changing policy on European marine sites to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Habitats Directive
• Dogger Bank Management Measures
• The MPA Fishing Coalition

Safety and Training: Progress towards the bulk-buying and distribution of low cost personal flotation devices to NFFO members was approved. It was anticipated that these would be available early in the New Year. It was agreed to work with Seafish on the PDF distribution project and in evaluation of the important role played by levy funding for training

Shellfish

The Executive discussed Defra’s extensive response to the Federation’s shellfish policy paper. It was agreed to convene a meeting of the NFFO Shellfish Committee early in the New Year to develop a response on issues such as latent capacity, stock assessments and minimum landing sizesSubsea Cables: A memorandum of understanding with the cable industry on co-existence of the two industries was approved and warmly welcomed by the Executive

Next Meeting

The Executive will next meet on the 24th January, in York.

Squabbling about the size of one’s share of the cake can distract attention from the size of the overall cake; and the size of the cake, in the form of TACs, may be of much greater significance than the domestic share out to the fishing opportunities available, and therefore the economic viability, of individual fishing vessels. There have been enormous changes in TACs over the last 20 years, both in downward and upward directions.

Although an increasing number of quotas are agreed within the framework of multi-annual management plans, the late-night decisions during the December Council of Ministers will still, this yea, determine the outlook for a number of important UK fisheries over the next 12 months.

What is different from the past’s sudden death decisions by ministers on the basis of a proposal from the Commission, is that the process and run-up for deciding TACs now extends over most of the preceding year, if not a number of years. The Federation is involved every stage:

• Throughout the year ICES Benchmark meetings provide the opportunity for scientists and stakeholders to analyse every aspect of a particular assessment to determine whether it is fit for purpose. Over a number of years all the major stocks will receive this treatment. Stakeholders including the NFFO are now central to the benchmark process.
• The Commission’s Policy Statement is usually published in late May, detailing its approach to TACs and quotas for the coming year. The RACs’ response to this paper provides a good weathervane about whether the Commission’s approach is sound or flawed. The NFFO plays an active role on four RACs.
• Mixed fishery considerations: Most of our demersal fisheries catch a mix of species but the scientific advice is largely provided on a single stock basis. Increasingly we will see a move to management decisions based on mixed fishery and multi-species considerations. This approach is still in its infancy but it is inevitable that as our understanding of fleet and species interactions becomes more sophisticated they will be increasingly taken account in management decisions. The Federation recently attended an ICES meeting in Copenhagen to discuss some of the practical implications of a multi-species approach.
• ICES advice for demersal stocks on which TACs in the subsequent year will be based is now published towards the end of June, with pelagic advice published in September. The main themes in the advice are presented to stakeholders, including the NFFO, by CEFAS scientists at a Defra chaired meeting in London in early July.
• The regional advisory councils engage with ICES to discuss the advice and prepare comments on the Commission’s approach to TACs and quotas
• Annual State of EU Stocks meeting in Brussels: This has become a major landmark in the quota year when the Director General chairs a meeting with the RACs and others to discuss the main issues confronting managers and the industry
• Meeting with UK Ministers: UK ministers are acquainted with UK stakeholders’ priorities and concerns. This year’s meeting is in Cardiff on 26th October.
• NFFO meeting with Defra officials: This is one of the most important meetings in the annual cycle, in which the main themes and details in the Commission’s proposals are analysed and discussed in relation to specific stocks of importance to the UK industry
• EU Norway: Two or sometimes three rounds of negotiations are required to arrive at agreement between the EU and Norway on a number of stocks of importance to the UK. For jointly managed stocks like North Sea cod, haddock, saithe, whiting and plaice and herring, these negotiations are really where the TACs are decided, with the December Council only providing a rubber stamp. An NFFO delegation attend all of the EU/Norway rounds, which begin in Brussels on 19th November and hopefully will conclude in Bergen in the week commencing 3rd December.
• November Council: On occasion, the October and November Council have been used to agree TAC decisions on stocks relevant to our fisheries. In any event they can provide a barometer for the Commission and Presidency’s approach to this year’s negotiations.
• December Council: The December Council has acquired the not wholly unjustified reputation of a cross between a circus, an ordeal through sleep deprivation, and an arena in which horse-trading can undermine the coherence of decisions. Whist there is an element of truth to all of these descriptions the December Council also provides a backstop where timely decisions can be made, across hundreds of individual stocks, in time for the new fishing year. As de facto fisheries managers, ministers must balance single-species advice, in a multi-species and mixed fisheries context, bearing in mind the need to reduce discards, and the economic viability of the fleets. It is an imperfect arrangement but until the main strain is taken by long term management plans, it is difficult to see how to avoid this or a similar mechanism.

Because there can be numerous technical aspects to TAC decisions, it is important that individuals with direct knowledge of individual fisheries are at hand to feed advice into the decision-making process when requested.

The NFFO fields a balanced team in Brussels to ensure that all of its members’ interests are covered:

• Irish Sea
• Celtic Sea
• Channel
• North Sea
• West of Scotland
• Pelagic
• External Waters

A pre-council meeting is held with the UK Fisheries Minister to underline and clarify the NFFO’s priorities and concerns and the Minister consults the Federation, as necessary, through the Council. Contact is maintained with officials on a regular basis through the two, or sometimes three, days and nights of the Council negotiations.

Eventually the Council will diminish in significance as more stocks come under agreed long term management plans. For now the December Council remains critically important. This year key decisions will be made on:

• Whether automatic, pre-programmed reductions in days-at-sea will be continued. The EU Cod Management plan has been evaluated and found to be fundamentally flawed and the Commission’s Co-decision Proposal for change lies with the Co-legislators.
• How to move in the direction of reducing discards in mixed fisheries
• How data poor stocks shall be treated for TAC purposes
• Where the appropriate balance between rebuilding stocks and the economic viability of the fleets should be struck
• Whether or not new TACs covering additional stocks should be added and if so on what terms

These decisions will have significant implications for many of our members and that is the reason why the NFFO puts so much effort into the December Council outcomes throughout the year.

• Media During and post December Council there is usually a heightened media interest in fishing. Frequently NGOs use this wave of media interest to launch various initiatives of greater or lesser relevance. Frequently these require comment.
• Post December The Federation begins the year in a series of sometimes intense discussions with fisheries managers on how the TAC and effort decisions made in the December Council should be implemented.

For those of us who are getting on a bit and can remember the torrid annual meetings between fishermen and fisheries scientists in the 1990s, when ICES recommendations for the following year’s quotas were announced, it is surprising to witness the dramatic transformation in the fishing industry’s relationship to science and fisheries scientists in more recent years. Sometimes, only just short of spilling blood, those once yearly meetings were almost the only contact that the industry had with fisheries scientists at the time. It was clear that there was a huge amount of mutual distrust.

There are many strands to the story of why and how the relationship between fishermen and fish stock assessment scientists has matured over the last decade. The Fisheries Science Partnership projects; changes in thinking and personnel in ICES; the end of the era of widespread misreporting of catches; the establishment of regional advisory councils; a different mindset in the industry; improving stocks and higher TAC recommendations ; and involvement of the industry in key ICES and STECF meetings have all played their part.

Evidence vs. Assertion

What is also remarkable is the degree to which the fishing industry now relies on science. It is the fishing industry, facing unsupported assertions from the more extreme wing of the environmental NGOs, and their allies in the media, which now demands evidence, rigour, impartiality and a systematic analytical approach: In other words, the scientific method.

It is now more likely to be the fishing industry which points to ICES stock assessments and urges ministers to “follow the science”, as an antidote to the Commission’s proposals, influenced as they not infrequently are by a fundamentalist political agenda. It is now environmentalists and their allies in the sensationalist wing of the media, who stand accused of reliance on assertion and selecting and presenting only those facts which support their arguments.

The fishing industry needs the work of scientists to inject balance and sense of proportion into debates on fisheries policy.

Some Examples

Rebuilding Stocks

The clear, unambiguous, evidence that most stocks in the NE Atlantic (which for these purposes includes the North Sea and Baltic), are rebuilding and that fishing pressure has been dramatically reduced over the last decade, relies on science to measure and evaluate the trends. The media’s resistance to reflecting these positive trends in its reporting says more about its addiction to sensationalism and catastrophe stories than the realities of fishing mortality and biomass trends.

We owe fisheries scientists a debt in providing a sober and objective antidote to wild claims and unsubstantiated assertion.

Marine Protected Areas

A clear scientific rationale for the designation of marine protected areas is a good example of where a good scientific underpinning can pull decision- makers back from policy decisions based on an assumption that an MPA will inevitably deliver benefits for habitats, biodiversity and fish stocks. Science tells us that the 2001 closure of 400 square miles of the North Sea, ostensibly to protect cod spawning areas, delivered the displacement of the Scottish demersal fleet into immature haddock grounds, the beam trawl fleet into pristine areas that had never been fished before, with little or no perceptible benefit for cod stocks. This is enough of a warning to be cautious of hasty, weakly grounded policy decisions which have the potential to displace fishing activity.

MPAs have an important role to play in protecting vulnerable habitat and biodiversity but it serves no one to base their location, size, shape and management measures on woolly thinking and a fingers crossed approach, which the evidence shows can do more harm than good.

Science

All of this is not to say that science is infallible or that it should be worshiped as such. There are too many examples where science has got it wrong, made mistakes, barked up the wrong tree or been crippled by data deficiencies, or weak models based on flawed assumptions, for the fishing industry to be naive in this area. The marine environment is not a closed laboratory and presents unique challenges for scientist, not least during a period of rapid environmental change.

But the rigour, impartiality, analytic power and focus on evidence that science brings is recognised and (now) respected by most in the fishing industry. Most fishing organisations, irrespective of size, are now likely to be working with fisheries scientists on collecting data, discussing problems and generally cooperating.

The regional advisory councils have taken the lead in addressing the problems of those fish stock assessments which have been undermined by weak data. The North West Waters RAC, for example, has appointed data coordinators to liaise with ICES scientists on specific data-poor stocks and particular data deficiencies. Stronger data means stronger assessments and less reliance on precautionary quotas. The fishing industry, fisheries scientists and fisheries managers all have a mutual interest in fixing broken assessments.

There is a broad recognition that the future for the fishing industry lies in working closely with fisheries scientists, from the top of the ICES tree down to port and vessel level. Strengthening the science base and addressing weaknesses in both fisheries science and fishing practice demands close cooperation.

It is of course a mistake to assume that all those who work under the name fisheries scientists have the same commitment to rigour and impartiality. There are examples of dogma, selective use of evidence and extrapolation beyond the reasonable or rational even in fisheries science. The Boris Worm assertion that on current trends all fish stocks globally will collapse by 2048 is the most notorious example; but it only lasted a matter of months before it was retracted in the face of criticism from fellow scientists.

Future

We predict that cooperation between fisheries scientists and fishermen will deepen and expand over the next few years. Long term management plans are already providing a framework for TAC decisions for an increasing number of stocks. There is broad acceptance that plans built on the involvement of stakeholders in their design are more likely to deliver their objectives.

In our estimation, discussions and cooperation between fishermen, fisheries scientists and fisheries managers will be at the heart of progress towards effective, balanced long-term management plans.

This is a strange turn of events for those of us who witnessed those early conflicts between fishermen and scientist. The truth is that both have learned how to overcome the old, outdated ways of thinking. It has been said that every fishing vessel represents a potential research platform. The challenge for both the industry and scientists of this generation is how to harness that potential to ensure that science is provided with a constant flow of high quality, relevant data about our fisheries in order to better manage them.

A draft plan has been prepared in dialogue with ICES scientists and discussed with fishermen in port meetings in the main North Sea landings ports for prawns: North Shields/Whitley Bay, Fraserburgh, Pittenweem and Eyemouth; and the draft advice has been refined to take account of the comments made by those involved in the fishery.

The aim of the long term management plan is to move away from knee-jerk annual decisions and to take account of and balance biological, economic and environmental factors in maintaining a sustainable and profitable fishery.

Two of the most taxing issues still being addressed by the working group charged with developing the Plan are how to address mixed fisheries issues; and how to take into account scientific advice that management of the nephrops fishery should be based on functional units rather than the whole North Sea.

The RAC is working closely with ICES scientists on the important question of how mixed fishery aspects of demersal fisheries should be handled. The best way to provide additional protection for vulnerable function units, without putting the industry into a ridged straitjacket, has been the subject of intense discussions and study for the RAC undertaken by Newcastle University.

An “of which” quota for the Farne Deeps (the functional unit that has been exhibiting signs of over-exploitation) seems to provide the most broadly acceptable approach but further details of how such an approach could be effective in practice are still under consideration.

The NSRAC work on a LTMP for nephrops is important in its own right but it may also be equally important as a template for the development of other bottom-up multi-annual management plans and a future regional approach to fisheries management under the CFP.

The Federation is actively involved as a member of four regional advisory councils: North Sea, North Western Waters, Pelagic and Long Distance RACs. The NFFO was present at the meeting representing the North Sea RAC.

RACs are generally recognised as the most successful element of the last (2002) CFP reform. They have proven to be much more cohesive, relevant, focused and dynamic than many expected and have produced a great deal of well thought-through advice on the management fisheries in each sea basin.

The meeting was held to discuss what form the RACs should take during the next phase of the Common Fisheries Policy, especially within the context of a more regionalised CFP.

Regional Management

The exact form which a regionalised CFP will take will depend on

• The reform legislation currently under consideration by the European Parliament and Council of Ministers
• The degree and form which member state cooperation takes in each sea basin under the new arrangements.

Regional cooperation is likely to take different shapes in different regions but there is broad agreement that the RACs, by virtue of their composition and regional focus, are likely to play an enhanced role everywhere. As well as shaping the broad management framework, through their advice to the Commission and European Parliament, the RACs are expected, in future, to provide cooperating member states with advice on appropriate management for the fisheries within their area of responsibility. A much closer working relationship and dialogue between the RACs (or soon to be ACs) and the member states is therefore expected to build under a regionalised CFP.

The arrangements for the Pelagic RAC and the Long Distance RAC will be adapted to the very specific characteristics of their fisheries: in the former highly migratory stocks which cross multiple political boundaries and in the latter, stocks which are wholly managed by Third Countries. Indeed, there is likely to be no one-size-fits-all approach to how RACs adapt to regionalisation.

The meeting discussed the many challenges involved in providing high quality stakeholder advice under the new structure, including the practicalities of establishing a dialogue with regionally cooperating member states; how to further strengthen the RACs cooperation with fisheries scientists; and how the RACs’ work will be funded in future.

Composition

There was broad agreement that the current composition of the RACs ( 2/3rd fishing industry, 1/3 other stakeholders) represented a valuable balance which should be retained, not least because some RACs had faced problems in filling all the seats provided for the non-fishing sector stakeholders.

In some RACs ensuring a strong voice for small-scale fishers represents a challenge, given the geography and fragmentation of this part of the industry. The meeting discussed how this might best be overcome. Greater involvement in RAC working and focus groups, outreach programmes, and the use of modern communications technologies are already being used to strengthen the voice of small-scale fishers but could be taken further. Many are already represented through existing representative structures such as the NFFO, but it is acknowledged that many others (partly because to date they have been largely unaffected by the CFP) are not well organised.

The pitfalls of small, noisy, self-appointed but unrepresentative groups which have visibility but low levels of actual support within the small-scale sector were discussed in this context.

Roles and Tasks

The challenge of moving from cosmetic consultation, to meaningful consultation, and from there to effective forms of co-management was discussed. With much still to be decided, both at EU and regional cooperation levels, it would unwise at this stage to be too prescriptive about the future role of RACs but the general direction of greater stakeholder involvement in the development and implementation of multi-annual management plans is well understood.

The NSRAC made clear that the biggest threat to a move in this direction would be if the co-legislators remained addicted to prescriptive micro-management. The Commission affirmed that it wished to see a decisive transfer of detailed decision-making to the regions. It regretted that some member states, and possibly some groups in the European Parliament, who failed yet to see the advantages of a decentralised system, and these represented the main obstacle to effective regionalisation.

The Commission agreed to convene a seminar involving the RACs and the member states to progress the implementation of a regionalised approach.

Funding

The meeting quickly abandoned the notion that the RACs should do “more with less” in favour of a discussion of how funding for an expansion of the RACs’ work could be supplemented from other sources. In this context the following was discussed:

• Ensuring that the new European Maritime and Fisheries Fund is structured in a way that would ease applications from the RACs
• Ensuring that member state contributions continue
• The importance of avoiding undue influence on RAC policy decisions by making them vulnerable to accepting funding from private sources for their survival was stressed
• RAC membership contributions were already finely balanced between ability to pay and a sign of commitment – there was no enthusiasm for a two level financial contribution, which would suggest a two tier RAC
• Improving access to European research funds; these are substantial but access for non-experts is impenetrable
• A more flexible accounting system for the use of EU funds within the RACs was an urgent necessity, although general EU funding rules would still have to be observed

The meeting was reminded that the quality of RAC advice was closely linked to the quality of the work done in its preparation and this, in turn, required funding.

It was agreed that RACs would in future have to focus on core areas of work to maximise their relevance and the value of their advice. It would be vital to plan work according to the calendar of forthcoming events.

Science

The meeting addressed how to ensure that the RACs could build on the good but essentially ad hoc involvement in the preparation of RAC advice. It was recognised that ICES scientists were overstretched and that a streamlined process for providing advice to which RACs would have access was already under consideration.

It was accepted that the dialogue between stakeholders and fisheries scientists had already come a long way through participation in ICES benchmark meetings and the Commission’s Scientific, Technical Economic Committee for Fisheries.

Consensus

The Commission suggested that within a regionalised CFP, RAC advice would be required in relation to (upstream) co-decision proposals as well as in the (downstream) implementation and tailoring of multiannual management plans. There was agreement that the Commission would be looking for consensus on the latter but majority decisions with minority positions recorded would be useful in relation to the former. There was however no question of requiring consensus decisions as this would involve some form of voting, which was something no one wanted.

Other Issues

Other issues discussed were:

• How to deal with the international aspects of RACs work where stocks are shared by Third Countries
• In future there will be fewer Commission officials to attend RAC meetings because of general reductions in public expenditure
• The arrangements for replacing those parts of ACFA not covered by RAC work are still under discussion
• There will be a new AC for aquaculture

Conclusion

This was an important meeting that probably marks the RACs’ transition into a second generation. It is likely that over the period to the next reform, in 2022, RACs, or ACs, will become direct and central players in determining the shape of the management regime in their respective sea basins. RACs have already gained respect within the fishing industry, and amongst other stakeholders, as well as the Commission and the European Parliament. Some member states already play a direct and active role in RAC meetings; this will be developed into regional management. An important and constructive dialogue has already been built between RACs and ICES scientist at varying levels; this will be an integral part of a move to a regional focus in management.

All this provides an important foundation on which the future development of the(R) ACs will be based. There is much to do in establishing an effective form of regional management within the framework established by the European institutions but the alternative – centralised command and control micro-management – has been tried and found lacking. Given the realities of shared stocks, and geography, the need for bottom up approaches and cooperation, there is, in fact, little choice but to get on with the job. This meeting was important in highlighting what needs to be done and some of the ways in which it can be done.

The event is useful as a means of assessing the Commission’s priorities, reviewing the main features of this year’s scientific advice and assessing the Commission’s own “Communication” on how it intends to approach its proposal for the TACs and Quotas Regulation. It also provides an opportunity for the regional advisory councils to raise issues and concerns for the Commission. The NFFO was present as part of the RAC delegations.

Stocks Outlook

A presentation to the meeting by a senior ICES scientist drew attention to:

• The general improvement in the stocks in the North East Atlantic
• The fact that fishing mortality on most stocks outside the Mediterranean had been substantially reduced
• The progress that has been made in dealing with providing advice for data limited stocks. Where ICES is unable to provide a full quantitative assessment a new approach, using the varying degrees of information available stock by stock, had been developed after much hard work. This work was not yet complete but even now offered the prospect of a much improved approach to data limited stocks.

Economic Overview

Although still based on limited data, and accepting that there are wide differences between fleet segments, the meeting was advised economic performance of the EU fleets in 2011 had moved from loss to a small profit.

Management Plans

One of the more contentious areas of discussion focused on to whether a management plan should be followed irrespective of the consequences.

The RACs reaffirmed their support for management plans; drew attention to the benefits of establishing long term objectives and working steadily towards their achievement; described the ongoing work in the RACs on the development of advice on multi-annual management plans; and agreed with the need for discipline in following a plan once its terms have been agreed. However, they made the important point that when a plan had been evaluated and found to be fundamentally flawed, and when the date for its review and revision had been passed, the plan should not be followed blindly, with disregard for the consequences. The EU Cod Plan and EU/Norway harvest control rules, if followed in 2013, will lead to TAC and effort reductions of 20% to 25%. The Plan has effect in the North Sea, West of Scotland, Irish Sea and Eastern Channel. A surge in discards will be the inevitable consequence.

The Commission provocatively suggested that the RACs were being “inconsistent” in arguing that management plans required discipline but then advocating a departure from them.

The RACs made the case for an intelligent approach that takes into account the to the consequences of following a flawed plan – namely increased discards at a time when the CFP is supposed to be moving towards the elimination of discards.

Greenpeace

Greenpeace, speaking for “a number” of unspecified environmental NGOs, suggested that where ICES had recommended a zero TAC, all fishing should stop; that fishing should only permitted when stocks biomass is above maximum sustainable yield, and that ministers should simply follow scientific recommendations.

The RACs responded by drawing attention to the human, social and economic costs of such a brutal approach; drew attention to the progress in rebuilding stocks in the North East Atlantic without such fundamentalist measures; pointed out that as ICES advice was still presented on a single stock basis, fisheries managers, including the Commission and ministers had a responsibility to set TACs with regard to mixed fishery dynamics including discards.

The story was picked up and repeated uncritically by the BBC, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Sun, amongst others.

It has taken a threat from the Federation, to report the Sunday Times to the Press Complaints Commission for failing to provide a right of reply, to secure a correction and publication of a corrective letter to the editor. Even then our letter was edited to remove any direct criticism of the paper.

What is disturbing is not that a journalist, even one as highly placed as the Environment Editor of Sunday Times, can make a mistake. It is that this misreporting is part of a more general campaign against the fishing industry in which any pretence of balance or fair reporting has been abandoned.

The general rule seems to have been if the story is about fishing, it is axiomatically about overfishing, depleted stocks, and collapse. Misquoting fisheries scientists and the Federation, and taking quotes out of context has all been part of the mix. There has been absolutely no reporting on the fact that most stocks in the North East Atlantic are rebuilding, or of cooperation between scientists and fishermen in fisheries science partnerships, or of the innovative approaches to conservation that have been developed in recent years.

Will the hostile campaign now be replaced by more balanced reporting? Will the media provide fair and balanced coverage of the fishing industry in the future? Perhaps.

But there are strong reasons to believe that this phase is not yet over. Catastrophe sells newspapers and it will take more than red faces at the Sunday Times to shift from a mindset that equates fishing with short term greed, rather than the realities of fishing industry cooperation with scientists on the best ways of husbanding our resources to provide billions of people with high quality food to eat.

The NFFO will continue to do its part in redressing the balance.

TACs and Quotas

The Executive reviewed ICES advice, and agreed a range of Federation positions in light of the Commission’s Policy Statement on Fishing Opportunities for 2013, an upcoming meeting in Brussels on stocks, work within the regional advisory councils and discussions with Defra officials on the UK’s negotiating positions.

Cod Plan

The Commission’s Proposal for interim changes to the EU Cod Management Plan was discussed in detail.

Lifejackets

A plan to bulk purchase 1000 personal flotation devices (PDFs) and make them available to NFFO members for a notional charge of £10 was approved.

Under-10s

The Committee was updated on recent developments within the Industry Working Group on resolving the quota shortage problems in the under-10m fleet. The Federation’s approach to upcoming issues including possible work on an inshore producer organisation was agreed.

CFP Reform

A report was received on a recent meeting with senior Defra officials to discuss developments towards the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy.

Shellfish

Progress made towards the adoption of the Federation’s shellfish policy was reviewed.

Media

A strategy to counter the unrelentingly hostile and profoundly ignorant media coverage of the fishing industry was adopted.

European Parliament

The Federation’s work through the RACs and Europeche with the European Parliament was reviewed and approved.

VMS/E-Logbooks

Recent correspondence with the Minister on the UK’s failure to take up a European derogation for day boats operating entirely within territorial limits and the industry’s exposure to monopoly single supplier arrangements was discussed and policy agreed.

Wind-farms

A report was received on a successful presentation of the NFFO/Crown Estate collaboration mapping of fishing activity to fisheries minister Richard Benyon. This work aims to improve planning decisions on where offshore wind-farms are located in relation to our most important fishing grounds. The work also has profound implications for the designation and management of marine protected areas.

Safety and Training

The Executive agreed a strategy for maintaining Seafish funding for training and received reports from the Federation’s safety and training officer.

Marine Protected Areas

The Federation’s work in the MPA Fishing Coalition and on a new Defra working group on EU Special Areas of Conservation, was reviewed and approved.

Marine Management Organisation

The outcome of a recent meeting with the MMO was discussed, including a proposed net tagging scheme and the increasingly unmanageable split between policy (Defra) and delivery (MMO).

Deep Water

A policy position in relation to the Commission’s Proposal for a regulation on deep water species and habitats was agreed.

Economic Link

The proceedings of a meeting with Defra/MMO officials, to discuss a forthcoming review of the UK’s economic link requirements were discussed, in preparation for a forthcoming consultation.

POCA

A paper produced by a learned legal figure, concluding that the Proceeds of Crime Act was “draconian and disproportionate”, was discussed and policy agreed.

Concordat

The implications of the new concordat agreed between fisheries administrations were discussed and policy agreed.

Trust Fund

The Committee received detailed of disbursements through the NFFO Training Trust. This year it has been possible (thanks to a donation from NFFO Services Limited) to make available grants amounting to £100,000 to fund training and the purchase of safety equipment.

Next Meeting

The Executive will next meet in Newlyn in early November.

The Federation met with advisers from JNCC and Natural England on 11th September to discuss work in motion to identify areas in English waters to go forward as special protection areas (SPAs) under the European Birds Directive.

The plans include the following (see figure):

• Seaward extensions of existing terrestrial sites: Flamborough Head and Bempton Cliffs, Coquet Island and the Farne Islands.
• Inshore winter aggregations including areas current under search off the South Cornwall coast between the Lizard and St Austell, the Greater Wash and Solway Firth (together with Scotland)
• Additional areas for balearic shearwater with a current focus around the Lyme Bay area, terns and breeding shag.
• Potential additional species for existing SPAs – Liverpool Bay – (little gull and tern) and Outer Thames Estuary (tern).
• Offshore areas that have yet to be identified.

Whilst there was still much work to do to identify sites it is estimated that the network in English waters may eventually include around 10-20 sites. The first site to go forward was expected to be Flamborough Head and Bempton Cliffs extension with a formal consultation expected early in 2013 and designation in 2014 with other sites formally identified by 2015, where possible.

Like Habitats Directive SAC sites, the selection of such areas must be based upon scientific grounds only following case law rulings.

The Federation reflected that:

• Despite the selection process being limited to scientific considerations, fishermen often had the in depth knowledge of the nature of the populations particularly in coastal sites on grounds that fishermen fished day after day. It was important therefore that for consultation to be meaningful that the science was effectively communicated so that fishermen could contribute their knowledge to inform understanding.
• Many species of seabird had benefited from the activities of the fishing industry and certainly there was substantial evidence that the industry had coexisted with seabird populations throughout history. It was also acknowledged that all but one of the species listed as rare or declining, the populations were improving and the present stresses upon some colonies were likely to be due to climate change rather than anything that the fishing industry was doing. As generally speaking data on bird populations was more extensive and robust than for many marine species, this allowed for tailored management with a high certainty over the levels of pressures that could be associated with maintaining flourishing bird populations.
• Early dialogue on the interactions between fisheries and protected bird species was essential in order to determine whether any intervention was necessary or appropriate, and if it was, what where the possible approaches that ensured coexistence with existing fisheries. This needed to recognise that in some cases a period for research and development might be the best approach and this needed sufficient lead time in order to complete. Such an approach was more conducive to a lighter touch regulation and the avoidance of knee jerk management responses.
• There should be no “as well as” situations where the selection of potential sites for bird habitat reasons came on the back of existing proposed Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs); instead MCZ sites needed to be re-evaluated towards creating an optimal MPA network.

Following extensive discussion it was agreed to:

• Maintain dialogue through the MPA fishing Coalition at the national level supplemented through technical meetings as required.
• Develop a local dialogue on the first sites moving forward for designation including Flamborough and Bempton Cliffs and Southern Cornwall. This would be appropriate once potential scenarios for the impact assessments had been advanced. Dialogue at this level would help to inform the wider approach for other sites.

In a letter to Fisheries Minister, Richard Benyon, the Federation underlined the importance of the port’s harbour facilities for Brid’s rise as a shellfish centre.

Richard Benyon MP

Minister for Fisheries

Defra

Nobel House

17 Smith Square

London

SW1P 3JR

20 February 2012

Dear Minister

Bridlington Harbour Development

We are deeply concerned about the East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s plans for the development of Bridlington harbour and request your intervention with the Parliamentary Undersecretary for Transport, Michael Penning M.P. to underscore the damage to the fishing industry which would result should these plans come to fruition.

The fishing industry in Bridlington and specifically the emergence of a dynamic, productive, shellfish fishery, has bucked the trend towards decline on the East Coast of England. This is now the largest shellfish landing port in England, grossing in excess of £5million annually. Harbour activities including fisheries, supports 85 individual businesses with approximately 400 people employed on or around the harbour estate. This is the largest lobster landing port in Europe, with major landings of brown crab also supporting a range of marketing and processing activity.

All this would be jeopardised by the Council’s grandiose and poorly thought through plans, which have been vigorously opposed by the Bridlington Harbour Commissioners. The loss of harbour berths and operational harbour land entailed under the plans would cripple the shore side operations of many fishing enterprises and compress berthing to an untenable degree.

We look to you as UK Fisheries Minister to strenuously defend the fishing interest in this important port. Fishing has been central to the economic activity in Bridlington for many years and this short sighted development threatens to truncate that activity at a time when the port shows the way in terms of dynamic, small-scale enterprise.

We would be very grateful for any support that you can lend.

For these reasons, the NFFO was prominent this week (as part of Europeche and regional advisory council delegations) at two important hearings of the European Parliament Fisheries Committee.

At the first, the European fishing industry presented its views at a meeting organised by Dianne Dodds MEP, on how CFP reform might best secure a decisive reduction in discards through a coherent strategy, based on a fishery-by-fishery, risk-based, approach. At the second, to the whole Fisheries Committee in session, the RACs, welcomed the Commission’s proposal for improvements to the much criticised EU Cod Management Plan.

Cod Plan

The members of the Fisheries Committee appeared to appreciate the views of the RACs on how to strengthen the EU cod plan, and asked pertinent questions to bolster their understanding of what are undoubtedly complex issues.

After many years in which the RACs have criticised the Commission’s top-down approach, it is possible for the RACs to acknowledge that the new Proposal has to a significant extent taken on board the points made in RAC and STECF advice. Some points in the Commission’s Proposal for an interim regime, to stand until a full mixed fishery plan can be developed and agreed, still require clarification and fine tuning but this Proposal does have the hallmarks of a breakthrough.

Both the North Sea and NW Waters RACs emphasised the importance of the Parliament’s support in securing fast track changes to the current cod plan; in particular to the automatic reductions in effort and TACs. Our fear is that the current impasse over which European institutions have legal competence over management plans, will prove to be an impediment to the quick adoption of these urgent interim measures. With goodwill on all sides, however, it should be possible to adopt the revised plan rapidly bringing advantages to both the fishing industry and the cod stocks.

A full mixed-fishery multi-annual plan is still in gestation and will be ready in 2014 at the earliest.

Discards

The hearing provided a useful opportunity to explain to the co-legislators some of the practical realities which must be addressed if the application of an obligation to land all catches of defined quota species is not to be another high level political aspiration that fails to deliver.

Issues such as increased TACs to cover by-catch in mixed fisheries, year-on-year quota flexibility, different survival rates, catch composition rules, addressing choke species and minimum landing sizes are amongst the preconditions for a “discard ban”; yet so far there is little sign that this is fully understood by the people making the rules. The hearing provided an opportunity to bring these issues to the fore.

CFP Reform

The reform process will mean that many more of these hearings will be required to ground the Parliament’s thinking in the realities of managing fisheries. One of the great challenges will be to ensure that the Parliament understands the dangers of micro-management and the importance after 20 years of failed over-centralised policies, of delegating responsibility, initially to the regions.

Could you find a better example of the media’s current obsession with focusing on only the negative aspects of fishing? The Sunday Times announced on its front page that there are only 100 adult cod left in the North Sea. The story was picked up and repeated by the BBC, the Sun and a whole array of newspapers national and regional. Except the correct figure is not 100. It’s 21million. Confirmed by the science laboratory in Lowestoft.

And the media interest in correcting the impression it has created? Watch with interest but we anticipate that it will be close to zero.

The latest nonsense, presented as a front page story, claimed “Only 100 Adult Cod Left in the North Sea”. It is not ignorance that lies behind these distortions. The paper’s Environment Editor was provided with the whole cod story, including the stock’s positive developments over the last six years by the Federation and senior Cefas scientists in advance of publication.

The paper chose to go ahead with a deliberately misleading catastrophe story. The Federation’s response is reproduced below:

Jonathan Leak

Environment Editor

Sunday Times

3 Thomas More Square

London

E98 1XY

Dear Jonathan

When Chris Darby from CEFAS and I spoke to you for hours on Friday afternoon, it was in the perhaps naive hope that this week’s edition of the Sunday Times would turn away from its relentlessly one-sided and negative campaign on fishing. We were of course disappointed. The whole of the front page article failed to mention the most salient points about the North Sea cod stock: that it is rebuilding steadily; that here has been a dramatic reduction in the fishing rate for cod; and even with lower than average recruitment, the spawning stock biomass has increased annually for six years.

It is a journalist’s prerogative to report and present the facts as he or she sees them. But there comes a point when the selection of only bad news and presentation of only one side of the story amounts to dishonesty. In our opinion the Sunday Times passed that point some time ago.

I spoke to you about the high levels of cooperation between the fishing industry and fisheries scientists through fisheries science partnerships and the ICES Benchmark Process; I spoke to you about the many different initiatives underway to rebuild the cod stocks, including real time closures and the catch quota trials; I told you about the failure of blunt measures such as restricting time at sea and quota reductions and the subsequent moves towards more intelligent ways of fishing; I told you of the stupidity of scaring consumers from eating cod in the UK when some 80% of cod comes from the buoyant stocks at Iceland and North Norway – and always has done; I also told you about the media’s negative role in pushing the European Commission and Council into two ill-considered and consequently inadequate cod recovery plans.

None of this appeared in your article, which was misleading from its headline onwards. Cod are “adult” when they are sexually mature at around 3 years. But your headline would of course have had less force if it had said – Only 100 Cod Pensioners Left in the North Sea.

We suppose that, somewhere in the distorted thinking behind the Sunday Times Campaign, beyond the commercial motive that catastrophe stories sell news (and if there is no catastrophe one has to be concocted), lies a notion that it is doing good for the marine environment. But a fellow journalist recently made the very good point that Martin Luther King told the world the he had a dream. He did not say that he had a nightmare.

By ignoring the positive aspects of the North Sea cod story in terms of stock trends and fishing industry initiatives you are failing both as a journalist and as an environmentalist.

Yours sincerely

Barrie Deas

Chief Executive

Exactly a year has passed since the Federation submitted its shellfish policy paper to Defra and apart some perfunctory correspondence which had been tangential to the central problems facing the shellfish sector, or the NFFO’s proposals for dealing with them, progress has amounted to zero.

The purpose of the meeting in London was to discuss the reasons for the lack of progress and if possible to agree a way forward.

Officials were quite candid in their explanations for the lack of forward momentum. The principal reasons given were:

• The present Government’s moratorium on any new regulation that could be understood as adding to the burden of legislation on business and in particular the micro-businesses (which account for 98% of the businesses in the fishing industry). The Government’s moratorium on new regulations will remain in force at least until 2014.
• The restructuring of the sustainable fisheries division in response to civil service cuts, which had meant more immediate issues such as scallop effort had taken precedence over longer-term strategy on crab and lobster policy
• Defra’s focus on introducing a system of rights-based management for both whitefish and shellfish sectors which had preoccupied officials and been the subject of a major consultation last summer.

NFFO Approach

The Federation delegation explained that whilst the NFFO had been at the forefront of those challenging the over-centralised micro-management which had afflicted the Common Fisheries Policy and much domestic fisheries policy over the last 20 years, effective resource management did require a degree of public intervention. Present Government policy was in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The Federation policy paper:

• Was based on the idea of a careful and incremental approach to shellfish policy, recognising that there had been mistakes made in managing whitefish resources that should be avoided at all costs
• Had been carefully calibrated to balance the diverse interests in the shellfish sector
• Suggested a way of breaking the policy logjam which had blocked forward momentum in shellfish for over a decade: a move away from big bang policies that rarely reached take off speed was advocated
• Suggested ways of addressing the immediate issue of latent capacity and the threat this poses to the high-volume sector of the brown crab sector
• Recognised the need for the smaller end of the shellfish sector to retain flexibility to redirect target species
• Stressed the need for a strong regional dimension to shellfish policy within the inshore zone
• Supported a framework that would encourage industry voluntary initiatives where these were feasible

Defra Comments

Officials explained that during the past year its focus had been on strengthening the information and evidence on which robust policy could be based. Cefas would shortly produce formal stock assessments for shellfish of a comparable quality to those produced under the ICES system. It had also tentatively discussed a form of rights-based management with some industry groups, so far without much in terms of concrete outcomes.

Overcapacity and Light Touch Regulation

It is a general truth in fisheries management that if there is a reasonable balance between the size of the fishing fleet and the available resources, then much less in the way of prescriptive micromanagement is required. A decisive government intervention can thus pave the way for a greater degree of self-regulation and light touch regulation. Furthermore, carefully applied measures taken in good time would avoid the need for more draconian steps later on after things have gone wrong. These were important lessons for the shellfish sector learned from the experience of the whitefish sector. This had been the thinking behind the Federation’s paper and was therefore consistent with the general thrust of Government policy.

The Federation noted that the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive would carry implications for the management of shellfisheries, even if the sector managed to steer clear of the EU TACs and quotas system. For these reasons it was both prudent and sensible to take early steps to safeguard the sector rather than waiting for problems to arise when the remedial medicine would be much harder to swallow.

Agreement

After extensive discussion of the issues it was agreed that:

• Defra would prepare a point-by-point response to the Federation’s policy paper as the basis for discussion on the way forward
• The Federation would reflect on the emergence of a class of high catching vessels in the 10-15 metre category which suggested that the inshore/offshore (or high volume/small scale) divisions were not as clear cut as previously understood
• Despite voicing some scepticism the Federation agreed to reflect on whether the introduction of a Minimum Landing Size for crab and lobster could be introduced by the industry on a voluntary basis. Defra indicated that it would assist the Federation to explore such an approach
• A dedicated Defra working group on shellfish would be established in parallel to the Industry Working Group on domestic quota reform to steer a way forward; the composition would balance workable numbers with the need to reflect the shellfish sectors diversity
• The NFFO would take the first opportunity to discuss with the Minister the appropriate balance between public policy intervention and a light touch regulatory regime.

The visit provided the opportunity to impress upon the Committee the scale and importance of the local industry to the County Down communities and economy. Part of the visit included a tour of Rooney Fish, processors and suppliers of the multiple species of shellfish that come through the port (photograph*).

ANIFPO Chief Executive, Alan McCulla said: “The visit underlined the importance of getting the planning of Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) right if they were not to undermine the vitality of an industry that has turned adversity coming from restrictions on demersal species into great opportunities we see today in the prawn (nephrops) fisheries. These fisheries in the Irish Sea are already under potential threat from the encroachment of wind farms and existing MCZs proposed under the English selection process”.

NFFO Assistant Chief Executive said: “We understand the impetus for establishing a network of marine protected areas and Northern Ireland has its part to play in creating a UK network. However, they cannot come at the expense of undermining what are highly sustainable fisheries. There is no doubt that the rushed English process has not produced sensible proposals for sites which are located on the critical prawn fishing grounds of the Irish Sea. The potential for displacement and the adverse socio-economic effects resulting from that are only too apparent.”

“What has been missing is a specific and intentional requirement to account for fisheries displacement in the MCZ designation process. Dealing with this issue effectively is not only good for maintaining fishing livelihoods, but it is good for conservation as well. There is no point in displacing fishing from prime fishing grounds as the pressures that increase elsewhere will more than offset any conservation benefits gained within an MCZ.”

“The Department of Environment in Northern Ireland must not repeat the same mistakes that have occurred in the English process, and given the mistakes there, it is essential that the proposals on prawn grounds are re-evaluated through a process that is aligned with the Northern Irish timetable.”

* Pictured from left: John Rooney (Rooney Fish), Tom Elliott MLA, Simon Hamilton MLA, Gregory Campbell MP, MLA, Anna Loo MLA, Lord Maurice Morrow MLA, Dolores Kelly MLA and Andrew Rooney (Rooney Fish).

This Youtube video captures Bill’s indomitable spirit.

By electing to end ‘grandfather’ rights for two North Devon vessels and five or six Welsh boats which have historically fished within the Welsh 6 mile limit, the Welsh Assembly has chosen to ignore scientific evidence and gone with a crowed pleasing approach that will jeopardise the economic survival of the boats concerned.

This is not an auspicious start for fisheries policy within devolved government and the new concordat between fisheries administrations. Our fears that devolution would be used to usher in discriminatory measures under the guise of conservation are now being realised.

In fact, it would be difficult to find a group of fishermen more committed to conservation than the North Devon Fishermen’s Association. Under its direction a voluntary seasonal closed area to protect skates and rays in the Bristol Channel has been in place since 2005 and after talks with the Belgian fishing industry, the closure is also observed by the Belgian beam trawl fleet. The Association has also supported a higher minimum landing size for rays and a range of protective measures for bass including closed nursery areas.

The fact that the Welsh Assembly has been unable to muster a credible scientific case to exclude the Devon vessels says much about the health of the bass stocks and the sustainable forms of fishing undertaken by the fleet.

In the past such discriminatory measures would have been unlikely because the Secretary of State was required to endorse any by-laws and to ensure that their purpose was not discrimination wrapped-up in conservation rhetoric.

The NFFO is pressing for an urgent meeting with the First Minister to discuss the issue.

Our reasoning is as follows:

• A TAC is an inappropriate instrument for the management of the bass fishery, not least because of the high proportion of catches of bass made by recreational anglers. The evidence suggests that the infrastructure is simply not in place in member states to incorporate catch returns from anglers and significant cost and logistical problems would have to be overcome before this could be achieved; there are therefore significant obstacles to recording accurate catch data and therefore enforcing a TAC and quotas. Given that a TAC is a quantitative restriction, it is a prerequisite that each member state should be able to quantify its total catches with a reasonable degree of certainty. This precondition is not likely to be met for some time and until this infrastructure is in place, in all relevant member states, a TAC for bass should not be attempted

• Alternative management measures are available to ensure that bass stocks continue to be harvested sustainably. These include Minimum Landing Sizes, protection for bass nursery areas, and a ban on pair trawling on spawning aggregations. Given that there are significant uncertainties about whether TACs would bring an appropriate response in terms of reduced fishing mortality, it seems safer to use the instruments that are assessed by ICES as having delivered a positive stock response to date as an alternative to a TAC.

• As constituted, the allocation keys proposed for the distribution of quotas to member states would penalise those member states which have introduced the most far reaching conservation measures for bass (the UK and Ireland), and reward those who have done least. There is no logic and no equity in this approach and it should therefore be resisted.

• It is a matter of public record that catches from the under-10m fleet prior to 2007, were based on more or less haphazard official estimates of catches. The extension of Buyers and Sellers legislation to the under-10m fleet in that year provides for the first time allowed a reasonably accurate picture of bass catches by the whole commercial fleet to emerge. As the reference period suggested for the TAC is 2000-2010, it is abundantly clear that the UK’s catches have been underrepresented. It would be wholly unfair, and completely unacceptable, for UK bass fishermen to be disadvantaged in perpetuity because of deficiencies in historic catch reporting arrangements.

• Many components in the inshore fleet catch bass with varying degrees of dependency. A TAC set on disadvantageous terms for the UK (i.e. on the terms set out in the Commission’s non-paper) would undermine the viability of many inshore fisheries in a range of both predictable and unpredictable ways. Seasonal catches of a high value species like bass can make the difference between viability and business failure across the course of the year.

• Whilst the precautionary approach provides a valuable framework for introducing protective measures before irreversible damage is done; it can, however, be misused and we are of the view that the available evidence suggests that this is a stable stock for which a precautionary measures of the type envisaged would be an over-reaction. It may be that additional measures are required to protect the offshore (spawning) component but this is something that should be undertaken as part of a coherent management plan rather than as a blunt TAC, unpredictable in its outcomes. There is some logic for a higher minimum landing size for recreational anglers.

• Scientific capacity: We have been advised that one of the principal reasons that ICES assessments face significant data deficiencies is that although the raw data is collected, there are insufficient scientific human resources to undertake the analysis necessary to use the data in the assessments. Against this background, it seems perverse to add new TACs when the scientific system is incapable of servicing the current TACs.

• Given the current movement towards CFP reform, it is important that issue of a TAC for bass should be seen against the background of the Commission’s CFP initiatives to reduce and eliminate discards. An impact assessment would be an important part of evaluating the consequences of a TAC in terms of generating a higher level of regulatory discards but our preliminary view is that the evidence suggests that if the Commission’s Proposal is followed, a significant increase in discards would be inevitable.

Conclusion

A TAC for bass would be an inappropriate management response to signs that some components of the bass stock are not as stable as it was a few years ago. Given the shared nature of the stocks, measures at EU level are desirable. The UK has already taken significant steps to protect bass stocks in its waters through a range of conservation measures. This will have significantly reduced the potential catch of bass by the commercial fleet and therefore the UK’s record of catches. At present there is no means of accurately accounting for the significant component of the bass catch taken by recreational anglers. There is therefore no basis for establishing relative stability allocation keys and therefore a TAC on anything like a fair or equitable basis.

On the other hand, alternative conservation measures, more adapted to the bass fishery are available and should be pursued as part of a coherent and comprehensive management plan for bass.