ICES agrees to Discuss RACs’ Initiative on Weak Assessments

Whether this is an honourable commitment to use the best available knowledge, or a less admirable shield against criticism, is something that will vary from case to case. It does mean however that an enormous weight of responsibility falls on the shoulders of fisheries scientists, who in their more candid moments, will admit that in many cases the quality and strength of their assessments do not justify this level of confidence. In fact ICES admits that some 60% of their assessments do not meet their own internal criteria to gain the status of an “analytical assessment.”

This is dismal news for fisheries scientists, worse news for fishermen and also bad news for ministers who are only really comfortable when taking difficult decisions if they are backed by science. There is therefore a clear consensus that something needs to be done to address the data deficiencies that are often the root cause of weak assessments. At present the situation is getting worse not better.

It is for this reason that the North Sea RAC and the North West Waters RAC have proposed the idea of a regional task force, involving fishermen, fisheries scientists and fisheries managers from the member states, who will take the initiative to improve the quality of weak assessments. A meeting will be held in at the ICES headquarters in Copenhagen on the 27th and 28th January 2011, to set the wheels in motion. Identifying the data deficiencies in specific fisheries – and moving from there to put in place remedial measures – will be the main focus of the meeting. The fishing industry has a clear vested interest in improving the quality of assessments because the precautionary approach enshrined in the Commission’s policy approach to setting TACs means that quota proposals on stocks where the conservation status of the stock is unknown are invariably lower than if an analytical assessment was in place.

The process of improvement may not be rapid in its early stages but if we don’t make a start we will remain in a downward spiral. It is also important to stress that some fisheries may only just fall short of a full analytical assessment whilst others may have more deep rooted problems. This is why a fishery by fishery approach is necessary.

Whilst fisheries science partnerships of one kind or another have shown that collaborative initiatives can bring rapid improvements in the quality of assessments and lead directly to significant increases in the TACs ( as has certainly been the case with Area VII monkfish) this outcome cannot of course be guaranteed.

But this is not all a one way street with the industry providing better quality input data for scientists. ICES itself is currently questioning whether its data hungry assessment models are appropriate, or whether science and the fishing industry would be better served by simpler, less sophisticated models that would be more receptive to the types of data that the industry can provide. This may be a turning point for fisheries science and therefore for the industry that is so reliant on the scientist’s recommendations – and of course for ministers who like to have the shelter that science provides.

Crucial Year Ahead

2011 will be a crucial year for the fishing industry. The Commission’s proposals for the reform of the CFP are expected mid-year, around about the same time that the process of designating a network of marine conservation zones in UK waters reaches a critical stage. Over the same period the review of the failed cod recovery plan will be undertaken, requiring a serious amount of input from industry representatives and the RACs in particular. But dealing with these potentially momentous decisions will be only part of the NFFO’s heavy workload for the coming year.

Long Term Management Plans

Moving fisheries management decisions from the flawed and dysfunctional December process by extending the number of fisheries under long term management plans is a central Federation objective. But if we are to deliver well thought through LTMPs, with a high degree of involvement of the fishers they affect, and with the right balance of flexibility and structure, time and effort must be spent on getting them right. The regional advisory councils have already made progress in developing advice on LTMPs for North Sea nephrops and for a number of pelagic stocks; and over the coming 12 months work is planned on LTMPs for the Celtic Sea demersal fisheries, North Sea whiting and Area VII nephrops. Progress will to a large degree depend on the amount of time that has to be devoted to fire-fighting – fending off ill-considered top-down measures from the Commission – a serious distraction from moving forward on LTMPs.

Under-10m Quotas

Another priority area for the NFFO during the coming year will be building on the important discussions already underway, aimed at developing solutions for the deep rooted problems facing the under 10 metre fleet. Substantial progress has been made through discussions between the NFFO and NUTFA and UKAFPO under a Defra chair. The reintegration of the under-10s into the mainstream quota management system, with proper safeguards for all parties, has been the most promising option explored. By encouraging the larger catching under-10s to join existing producer organisations, and/or by forming a separate and independent under-10m producer organisation, it should be possible to move towards a situation where the under 10s can again operate viably and play an influential role on the national and international stage.

Shellfish

2011 will be an important year also for the shellfish sector as it is expected that Defra will come forward with a package of conservation proposals, particularly aimed at constraining the expansion of effort in the pot fisheries. In the brown crab and lobster fisheries, the primary objective is to agree sensible conservation measures that ensure that the shellfish fisheries avoid the kind of problems faced by the whitefish sector over the last decade. Respecting the marked regional variations in shellfish fisheries and different inshore/offshore distinctions, and dealing with the issue of latent capacity, are likely to be an important parts of an emerging policy. The Federation’s aim is to ensure that that diversity is understood and incorporated into the design of national measures. In the offshore crab sector important steps towards an approach based on a high degree of international cooperation have already been taken both in regard to conservation and stabilisation of volatile seasonal prices.

Loss of Access: Marine Conservation Zones and Offshore Wind-farms

Loss of access to fishing grounds through measures associated with the establishment of a network of marine conservation zones and marine protected areas is a potent threat to the wellbeing of fishing in many areas, particularly when seen in conjunction with the huge expansion off offshore wind-farms already under way. The Federation will continue to play a central role in the MPA Fishing Coalition, the body set up to ensure that fishing has a voice at the highest levels as MCZs are established. The threat of displacement will become real as it becomes clear where the designated MCZ sites will be, what the management measures within them will be and who will be affected. The Coalition has already played a prominent role in highlighting deficiencies in the process of designation and its role can only become more valuable as the time for key decisions approaches.

The ability of the fishing industry to defend its most important fishing grounds will be one of the most important challenges of the next decade as marine spatial planning takes hold and pressures from non-fishing activities increases. A crucial part of that defence will be the industry’s ability to define with clarity and precision where it operates and when and under what conditions. The NFFO is at the forefront in arming the industry with the necessary information through planned initiatives with the RACs, and in conjunction with the Crown Estate.

Mackerel

Securing a satisfactory settlement with Iceland and the Faeroes and reinstating international stability in the Western mackerel fisheries will be a priority for the Federation in the pelagic fisheries. Iceland and Faeroes have behaved in an irresponsible and opportunistic way and it is important that the EU uses all the means at its disposal to ensure that what amounts to a smash and grab raid is not rewarded.

Control

The detailed implementing rules arising from the hastily considered and rushed Control Regulation (adopted in November 2008 to beat the Lisbon Treaty) are late but likely to be in place in the first half of this year. Along with the extension of the requirement for vessels over 15 metres to fit electronic logbooks, the industry faces major challenges in dealing with what may turn out to be the last throw of the dice of the discredited top-down approach. It is inevitable that the failed broad-brush approach will cause difficulties for many parts of the fleet and the Federation’s role will be to highlight these and to work to find pragmatic solutions.

Discards

Discards waste the resource and damage the industry’s reputation. In some cases they impede and undermine recovery plans. The Federation, working through the RACs has been at the forefront of initiatives to progressively reduce discards, taking fully into account the many varied reasons for discards in different fisheries. The industry has shown through the 50% project and Catch Quotas that it can drastically reduce discarding where the right preconditions are in place. But the Commission must close the gap between its public hand-wringing over discards whilst blithely promoting policy approaches – in its technical conservation rules, effort regime and TACs and Quotas Regulation – that either require, or have the effect of generating increased discards.

Fisheries Science

The NFFO will remain closely engaged with fisheries scientists in the coming year across a number of initiatives.

It is vital that funding for the world-class fisheries science partnership is maintained against the background of public spending cuts. The NFFO was instrumental in establishing the FSP in 2003 and it has provided a ground breaking model for participative fisheries science.

The experience of North Sea whiting, where a proposed 15% reduction was transformed into a 15% increase in the context of the EU Norway agreement for 2011 demonstrates the advantages when RACs work closely with fisheries scientists.

The Federation is one of the main proponents in the RACs for an initiative to address the problem of weak assessments that fail to achieve analytical status because of data deficiencies. A meeting between the RACS and ICES early in the New Year will chart a way forward on this critical issue.

Day to Day Business

In dealing with the major new challenges of the coming 12 months the Federation will take care not to lose sight of its bread and butter issues. These will include:

• Blunt and poorly thought through Government decisions that affect the ability of the industry to earn a living.
• Effort control, which has demonstrably failed to deliver cod recovery, economic rationality or a reduction in discards
• Preparations for next year’s TACs and quota round and EU Norway negotiations
• Ongoing dialogue with the marine management organisation
• Maintaining a voice of practicality and reason in the industry’s safety and training forums
• Broad-scale quota management and licensing issues

Co-decision making

All this takes place against the background that all major fisheries decisions, with the exception of setting annual TACs and effort levels, must now be done on the basis of co-decision making with the European Parliament. The Federation has had constructive meetings with British MEPs over that last 12 months but it is fully recognised that this important dialogue must be strengthened in the coming year.

Cod Recovery

Cod recovery measures have dominated the fisheries agenda for so long now that there is a certain war-weariness in facing another review into why management measures have fallen so far short of expectations, or in the case of the Irish Sea and West of Scotland to arrest the decline of the spawning stock biomass. The Federation will press to ensure that there are no holy cows and that the Commission’s favoured instruments of TAC reductions underpinned by effort limitations receive full scrutiny. It is not difficult to understand the appeal of these measures for the Commission. They can be applied remotely and the practical problems of implementation are transferred to the member states and the fishing industry. But the scale of resulting discards in the North Sea, and the lack of progress in rebuilding the stock in the western fisheries, makes it imperative that this review goes beyond the dubious assumptions that have underpinned the Commission’s approach to cod recovery since 2002. It goes without saying that it would be foolish to extend any variant of this tried and failed approach to the Celtic Sea demersal fisheries in the interim.

The fishing industry has been in a period of intense change for well over two decades. Familiar landmarks have disappeared and comfortable assumptions dispelled. We have seen many of our vessels decommissioned and the framework of rules that we operate within changed almost daily. Above all, we have seen the status of fishermen as a courageous band of brothers bringing vital food to the table, displaced in the public mind by a concept of fishermen as irresponsible destroyers, not only of the marine environment but of their own future.

No one in the fishing industry could be happy about this state of affairs. A failed and dysfunctional Common Fisheries Policy has much to answer for. But the CFP is only part of the problem. Society’s changing expectations over how it expects its food to be produced have often outstripped the industry’s capacity to absorb those changes; and the situation has not been helped by self-appointed doom-mongers that find a ready ear in the media and amongst politicians eager to please.

What are we to do about it?

We could, and often have, railed against the unfairness and appalling relegation of an honourable profession on the basis of misconceptions, distortions, and half-truths. We can moan about the lack of political will that has, for too long, gone along with the lazy assumptions that decisions made in Brussels would lead again to sustainable and profitable fisheries.

But the truth is that, only by taking the initiative as an industry ourselves, will we be able to reclaim fishing from the bureaucrats and doom-mongers. Only by embracing change and being masters of it will we break the grip of the negative on our industry. In many respects this process is well under way.

• Fishermen are working with scientists in fisheries science partnerships to deliver a better understanding of fish stocks and the marine environment as a basis for better management

• The regional advisory councils are demonstrating that fishermen from different member states and other stakeholders can cooperate to deliver well thought-through, evidence-based advice that should be the basis of policy

• Initiatives such as the 50% project and Catch Quotas, if properly designed and applied with the industry’s involvement, can make a substantial and real impact on some of the industry’s more intractable problems, such discard reduction, in a way that dictats from above never do

• There are already strong examples of delegated responsibilities, such as in the field of producer organisation quota management, that point the way to a different, bottom- up, type of management that can deliver a prosperous and sustainable future.

• Fishermen in the RACs are already working on long term management plans that, all other things being equal, will take us to where we want to go

After the nightmares, failures and wrong turnings of the last two decades we can see a way forward. Realising that vision is dependent, in the first instance, on securing a framework that will allow and even encourage it to develop. The coming year will be pivotal. CFP reform has the capacity to put the fishing industry on the road to a different and better future, a future in which the industry itself is an active rather than passive player. The review of the EU Cod Recovery Plan opens possibilities of breaking free from the imbecilic cuts in TACs and days-at-sea that have delivered exactly nothing in terms of cod recovery.

All of this demands much of the industry. It requires us to be much more involved than the past, not always easy for skippers at sea. It requires us to work together. It requires us to be open to new ways of doing things. Above all it requires us to take responsibility for our own future.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all NFFO members and our allies, friends and supporters my very best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. We have a big year ahead of us. Enjoy the break.

David Hill

President

National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations

Their fortunes for the next 12 months appear mixed, although there are clear signs in many fisheries a corner that has been turned.

The fishery for North Sea plaice has seen serious reductions in quota in recent years, as well as suffering from blunt cod recovery measures. However, the plaice stocks are now rebuilding quickly, and the sole fisheries are stable. Although some specific skate and ray fisheries show signs of depletion others are buoyant. These divergence trends underline the need for management measures that are customised, targeted and designed for specific fisheries and specific stocks. Blunt measures can often do as much harm as good.

What lies behind the figures?

North Sea Flatfish

By far the largest flatfish fishery in EU waters is the North Sea plaice fishery, prosecuted by beam trawlers as a targeted fishery and as a valuable by-catch in the directed sole fishery. Plaice is also taken in a directed fishery in seine nets and static nets and as a by-catch in many trawl fisheries. In a dramatic reversal of fortunes, the NS plaice stock is now rebuilding rapidly under the EU Flatfish Management Plan, which is currently review. Although it is never possible to completely separate environmental conditions from fishing mortality, the large decommissioning schemes in the Netherlands and Belgium are likely to account for a significant part of this improvement. Taken together, the indicators suggest that the plaice stocks are responding to management measures.

At the same time steps are being taken in these fisheries to minimise by-catch and sea bed impacts. The main outstanding problems facing the flatfish sector in the North Sea are:

• The rigidity of the EU cod management plan
• Norway’s tactical use of North Sea plaice (a jointly managed stock) to increase negotiating leverage elsewhere in the EU/Norway agreement
• The Commission’s treatment of “associated species” stocks, such as turbot, lemon sole and dabs.
• Accommodating itself to society’s high expectations on lower discards and seabed impacts
• Stock depletion of particular species that are managed within a broad basket of similar stocks many of which have a very different conservation status; the approach to skates and rays is a case in point
• The threat of lost access to customary fishing grounds

Associated Stocks

When the main plaice TACs were facing significant reductions in recent years, the Commission, making the assumption that quota uptake of the “associated species” were invariably linked to the plaice and sole fisheries, proposed that TACs for all “associated species” should be reduced pro-rata. With the recovery of the plaice stocks this logic has been abandoned and across-the-board 15% reductions still proposed. At the recent December Council member states had to spend valuable negotiating currency in rescuing these TACs individually, with the result that the TAC changes follow a patchwork pattern ( -10%,-2%,-15%).

One of the weaknesses of the current system is the absence of understanding how quota management works at ground level when TACs and TAC conditions are set. This translates into a type of policy decisions that is hard to explain in any rational way. The Commission’s approach on associated species is one of these.

Celtic Sea

The critically important monkfish and megrim fisheries in the western approaches are vital for ports such as Newlyn in Cornwall. The close work done between fishermen and scientists within fisheries science partnerships in recent years, has strengthened the quality of the fish stock assessments and this is reflected in the essential stability in the TACs, although some important fine tuning was required by the Council of Ministers. The contrasting TAC changes for sole (+25%) and plaice (16%) in the Bristol Channel are difficult to explain; time may tell if the assessments on these stocks have been robust or whether there are other factors in the environment are at work.

One of the most inexplicable components in the Commission’s TAC proposals is the “use it or lose it” approach to stocks, such as sole and plaice in the western approaches (VII hjk), where the uptake of quota is sporadic. There are many reasons why an individual member state might not take up its fishing opportunities – more profitable alternatives, for example. It is quite ludicrous that the Commission assumes that the quota is not taken because the fish are not there as a reason to apply further reductions which then create difficulties in subsequent years. The VII hjk sole fishery was again cut by 15% on the basis of this twisted and inadequate logic.

Channel

The Channel flatfish fisheries narrowly escaped a beating this December. Although both the eastern and western components of the Channel sole fishery saw 15% increases in the TAC, a 15% cut in effort in the VIIe sole fishery was proposed and a proposal to split the combined eastern and western components of the Channel plaice fishery was also included. If adopted this would have has serious adverse consequences for the UK fleet. Thankfully these proposals were fought off with support from the French on the basis of a more realistic interpretation of the science.

Irish Sea

The divergent trends for sole and plaice stocks in the Irish Sea continues to be a mystery although the changes to the TACs have been modest, suggesting some kind of stability. Plaice in the Irish Sea is currently at historically high levels of abundance.

Skates and Rays

In fact, one of the worst examples of the rigidity of the current CFP is that the “Skates and Rays” TAC which for administrative convenience embraces a range of different species with very different conservation statuses. Many skate and ray stocks remain stable and robust, whilst others show signs of serious depletion. If ever there was an argument for regional management, and tailored measures based on local knowledge and a fisheries science partnership, it can be found here. The 15% reduction in the skates and rays TAC and in particular the prohibition on retaining skate amounts to a bankrupt policy as the only result can be high levels of discards with unknown survival rates.

An idea of what would be possible under a more decentralised CFP can be seen in the Bristol Channel where the local fleets are dependent on a range of ray stocks and have initiated a seasonal closed box to protect juveniles. There is no question of the box being in the wrong place at the wrong time, as is often the result when this type of approach is applied from above. And through bilateral contacts arranged by the NFFO, the closure initially only supported by the local fleets is now observed by visiting Belgian vessels.

The undulate ray fishery around the Channel Islands is another example where tailored measure proposed by the local industry, supported by visiting fleets, could provide adequate protection whist allowing a reasonable level of exploitation of this valuable resource. At present getting this type of approach adopted faces apparently insurmountable hurdles and bureaucratic inertia.

Access Issues

Undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges facing the flatfish sector is the potential displacement from customary fishing grounds by poorly designed and implemented marine protected areas along with the massive expansion of offshore wind-farms. Only belatedly is there any sign of recognition within government of the level of economic, social and ecological destruction that poorly implemented policies could have. The Dogger Bank Special Area of Conservation, part of which has been designated as a vast offshore wind-farm, provides a good example. At certain times of the year the beamer fleet currently catches substantial quantities of high value plaice from the Dogger but if displaced would be obliged to fish at those times of years where high levels of discards would be inevitable. A similar picture is seen in the Bristol Channel. There is great concern within the flatfish sector over access to its most important fishing grounds over the next few years. It is a great pity that these enormous developments are taking place before and outside any comprehensive system of marine spatial planning is put in place.

Quotas, Prices and Profits

Positive stock trends and increasing TACs are the bedrock of viability and profitability in the flatfish sector. But first hand fish prices reflect market conditions within a world market and profitability also reflects production costs. The flatfish sector is more sensitive than most to the price of fuel and price spikes in the international market for oil can only be kept at bay by judicious purchasing policies for so long. There is therefore a determination to move over time to methods of fishing that are efficient and lower fuel costs.

The future for the flatfish fisheries lies in progressing down the road that it is based on:

• A more rational management approach based on long-term management plans in which the principal stakeholders have had a central say
• Regional management that allows measures to be tailored to the specifics of particular fisheries and encourages rather than discourages local initiatives
• Close collaboration between fishermen and scientists through fisheries science projects
• A progressive reduction in discards through initiatives such as the 50% project
• A transition to less fuel intensive modes of fishing
• An approach to introducing marine protected areas and offshore wind-farms that takes adequate account of the spatial distribution of fishing and the needs of the fishing industry

Ministers’ rejection of such a large part of the Commission’s agenda was more than member states shielding their fishing communities from the Commission’s rigid and dogmatic approach to fisheries science and its rushed drive to high yield / MSY fisheries. Given the imminent approach of CFP reform, with the possibility of a decentralised management regime in the future, and also the arrival of co-decision-making with the European Parliament, it marked, if not the final rejection of a technocratic approach to managing fisheries, then the at least preparation of its obituary.

It has long been recognised amongst the more progressive thinkers within the Commission that successfully managing the many diverse and geographically dispersed fisheries in the EU, through a relatively small bureaucracy in Brussels, is an undoable task. In fact, although the EU fisheries directorate, DG Mare, employs around 300 staff, any serious policy decisions lie with around 20 people. It takes a degree of megalomania, not to say delusion, to envisage that a CFP in which everything from the twine thickness of part of a net used by a trawler in the North Sea, to the measurement of lobsters off Portugal could, or should, be determined these few Commission officials.

Even though they are often very capable people and their decisions are subsequently endorsed or modified by ministers, (whose direct exposure to fisheries may only have been a few short months on a part-time basis) this is not an arrangement that could be described as having been effective or remotely democratic. The real question is not why such an arrangement has failed, but why anyone thought that this degree of technocratic micro-management could ever work. We can be incredulous now but this has been the essence of fisheries management in the EU for the last 20 years. Policy failure has followed policy failure, some stocks declined to worrying levels from the 1980s, discards and disrespect for the system grew and the clamour for change grew louder.

However, the Commission’s initial reaction was not to reform the CFP itself but to shift to more rigid instruments – the crudest being to limit fishing vessels’ time at sea, with all the economic irrationality that that approach brings. Although some stocks have now responded to a range of measures the most significant being fleet reduction programmes, there is yet to emerge any evidence that effort control can deliver improvements in fishing mortality before a general collapse in the viability of the fleets.

We have come to the point where there is a general realisation that things have to change. There are no technocratic solutions in fisheries. Modern commercial fishing is a complex system involving biology, economics, politics, sociology and ecology. Progress has been made only:

• Where fishermen have brought into the heart of decision-making through strong organisations, whether this is at the port/regional, national level or within RACs
• Where there is flexibility that provides vessel operators with economic options, even if sometimes the options include one to leave the industry on fair and agreed terms

Building on these insights it should be possible to move forward beyond technocratic decision-making and micro-management towards regionalised management in some form or other, with arrangements that allow for a high degree of industry self-determination within a framework of safeguards and guarantees.

A representative group from across the UK and further afield took the opportunity to reinforce the Coalition’s views that despite the money and political capital that has been thrown at the issue, the implementation of a network of MPAs is being mishandled.

The Coalition’s broad support base, across all sizes of vessel and methods of fishing and all parts of the UK, as well as fishing organisations from other member states, gives its views an authority and weight that have obliged Government to take them seriously. In its first year the Coalition has established itself as a powerful voice that has raised serious concerns and challenged many aspects of the MPA process. From the outset the Coalition has made clear that it would not oppose a network of MPAs but would fight to ensure that they are applied fairly, in a proportionate manner that ensures no unjustified restriction to fishing.

The Minister was told that the Coalition’s concerns lay in five main areas:

• The unrealistic timetable for implementation that undermines the Minister’s express wish that the network of MPAs be established on the basis of an open, transparent and evidence-based approach.
• The departure of the process, overseen by the statutory conservation bodies (who will make recommendations on the designation of MPAs) from internationally accepted standards of science and evidence.
• Failures in the representativeness of the four regional stakeholder projects that will undermine the legitimacy of their recommendations. This is seen most acutely in the failure to address the reality of international fleets that have access rights beyond the six mile limit and will potentially be affected by UK MPAs.
• Confusions over who will have jurisdiction over the development of management measures – from light monitoring to complete closure – that will apply within MPAs once designated.
• The failure to address the question of displacement of fishing effort from those MPAs where some kinds of fishing activity are deemed incompatible with the protected features.

Coalition Chairman, Stephen Lockwood said:

“The Minister repeated his view that he is determined that the network of marine protected areas should be introduced through consensus and through a transparent, open and rigorous evidence-based process. He is unwilling to depart significantly from the timetable that has been laid down. However, the Coalition delegation who met the Minister, detected some recognition that flexibility on timetable will be required. The Minister’s commitment to an approach that “gets it right” rather than to an arbitrary and unrealistic timetable was reassuring, even if he was making no specific concessions at this stage.

“On science, the Minister sought to assure us that the processes in place meets high standards but was unable to convince us on the reasons why a home-grown approach to standards of evidence and peer review was being used, when ICES would be the normal route to provide impartial scientific assessment and advice, especially where international fleets are concerned.

“Our concerns about the weakness and lack of clarity about who will develop management measures and what criteria they will use remain as strong as ever. And despite all the activity, the Government has hardly begun to scratch the surface of the displacement issue, yet it carries huge implications for the economic consequences of MPAs, as well as ecological degradation outside the protected zones.

“This was a useful and important meeting. The Minister sought to allay our fears and was clearly interested in the Coalition’s view on how MPAs could be introduced with minimal disruption. The Coalition did not shirk from spelling out unpalatable truths about the deficiencies in the current approach. The Coalition is now engaged at many levels within the MPA process but sees its primary role as ensuring that the fishing industry is represented at the highest levels where the critical decisions will be made.”

The European Parliament is flexing its muscles to assert its new co-decision powers over fisheries legislation granted under the Lisbon Treaty. On the other hand, the Commission and some member states in the Council of Ministers are doing everything in their power to cling on to areas of exclusive competence – where the Parliament would continue to have practically no say.

Until the Lisbon Treaty was signed the European Parliament had virtually no real powers. However, in an attempt to fill a democratic void, the Lisbon Treaty gives co-decision-making powers to the Parliament in all areas of fisheries legislation- except the year-end TACs and Quotas Regulation.

The clash between European institutions focuses mainly on two specific areas of policy: long term management plans and international fisheries agreements.

The Commission, until the Lisbon Treaty entered force on 1st December 2009, frequently used the TACs and Quotas Regulation, quite illegitimately in our view, to push through all kinds of measures through Council as part of a giant legislative package, without proper scrutiny. This kind of blatant manoeuvre is no longer possible since Lisbon but the Commission, and parts of the Council, have argued (contrary to the Council’s own legal advice) that long term management plans are essentially about setting catch limits and therefore do not require Parliamentary decision. The immediate showdown has come to a head with proposals for long term management plans for horse mackerel and anchovies. It is fully recognised that whatever is done for these two LTMPs will set a precedent for all other LTMPs. The Parliament, realising that the future of the CFP will largely lie in LTMPs, has drawn a line in the sand. A referral to the European Court is being discussed.

Losing patience with what it sees as the Commission/Councils’ intransigence and “ blunt violation of the Treaties”, the Parliament has also signalled that it expects in future to be closely involved as co-decision-makers in all international agreements; including the EU/Norway agreement. The Commission is desperate to keep the Parliament at arm’s length from any international negotiations.

This bitter dispute has led to deadlock and will end in the European Court unless a process of mediation is successful. At present the two sides in this naked power struggle are talking tough.

From an NFFO point of view, whilst the Commission has often been guilty of misgoverning fisheries and a bullying, dogmatic, bulldozer approach, the option of allowing non-specialist MEPs loose on detailed prescriptive fisheries legislation is not an attractive prospect either. The solution must lie with a radical decentralisation of the CFP, so that only high level strategic decisions are made at the European level and all other decisions are delegated to regional management bodies, of one form or another and to industry organisations through sustainable fishing plans. A decisive break with micromanagement is required. Whoever wins the current power struggle a move away from centralised command and control is twenty years overdue.

A strong NFFO team attend both rounds of the negotiations in Brussels and Bergen.

The negotiations set the total allowable catches (TACs) for jointly managed stocks in the North Sea, and also the terms for an exchange of quotas between Norway, within the longstanding EEA Agreement. They also seek to coordinate management measures, as far as is practicable.

North Sea Joint Stocks

Subject to final confirmation when the agreed record is circulated, the following are the (provisional) percentage changes to the North Sea jointly managed stocks from 2010 to 2011:

Cod -20%

Haddock -5%

Saithe -13%

Whiting + 15%

Plaice + 15%

Herring + 21.9%

North Sea Cod /Catch Quotas

The 20% reduction in TAC for North Sea cod TAC results from the application of the EU/Norway management plan to ICES advice for 2011. After several years in which fishing mortality on cod has fallen, and the spawning stock has rebuilt, ICES assessments suggest that recovery has stalled. Time will tell whether this is an accurate picture but the issue of “unaccounted removals” – discards, natural mortality, unrecorded catches – remains a central question. What is beyond question is the high level of discards that will result from setting the TAC at this level. It is clearer than ever that cutting the TAC (and in the case of the EU fleets) reducing the number of permissible fishing days is a wholly inadequate and in many respects counterproductive management response to the situation that we now find ourselves in.

One attempt to break with this cycle of failure has been the trials that have taken place this year on fully documented fisheries, otherwise known as catch quotas. But despite promising results in terms of reducing discards, it was only possible to secure an additional 12% of the TAC as incentive for vessels in the catch quota project in 2011. This is up from 5% in 2010 but cannot be described as representing a dynamic and vigorous response to the scale of the problem.

Despite its own theoretical discard ban and rhetoric about discards over the years, Norway has not been as supportive as it might have been on this important new initiative and used the EU request, in its customary way, to increase its negotiating leverage to secure additional quotas for its pelagic fleets.

Catch quotas are not a panacea but they do represent a promising and practical approach to discard reduction, tailored to the conditions in the North Sea cod fishery. Norway made the EU negotiators sweat to obtain the additional quota for the project – this at a time when it is projected that discards of North Sea cod will reach 39,000 tonnes in 2011.

Whiting: a turning point?

After 5 years of successive reductions in the TAC for whiting, generating huge discards on the west side of the North Sea, an important turning point was reached during the negotiations with Norway. A proposed 15% reduction in the TAC was turned into a 15% increase, and work has begun on the development of a long term management plan for this fishery. This will not signal an end to discards in the whiting fishery – with all the wasted value and resource that that implies – but it does suggest that we could see a more positive approach in the future.

In an almost text-book example of how the RACs and fisheries scientists can work together to deliver better management outcomes:

• The issue was raised and discussed in depth with ICES and CEFAs scientist, Chris Darby, at the meeting of the North Sea RAC Demersal Working Group held in Brussels on 15th November
• When EU and Norway met in Brussels during the same week there was outline agreement that a 15% reduction in the whiting TAC was required to reflect successive years of poor recruitment, despite the evidence that this would only increase discards in this fishery
• In an important initiative, CEFAS/ICES revisited the ICES science on whiting in light of the discussions in the NSRAC and an earlier EU/ Norway request that ICES develop an interim management plan for North Sea whiting
• A highly persuasive scientific presentation was made by Chris Darby to a plenary session of the second round of EU/Norway negotiations in Bergen. This indicated that an interim long term management plan with a target mortality similar to that employed for the haddock and saithe fisheries, would imply a substantially increased TAC for whiting – in the region of + 26%.
• The Norwegian scientist advising the Norwegian delegation confirmed that in his view this was a reasonable and well founded approach
• The negotiations had to decide on a TAC for 2011 in light of this new approach
• The Commission argued for a 15% increase, in line with its own self-denying ordinance that TAC changes should usually be limited to 15%
• Norway as part of its negotiating tactics to secure leverage for pelagic stocks initially resisted the new approach but then conceded when its demands were at least partially met, in the final stages of the negotiations.

No one is under any illusion that the problem of the management measures to deal with the spatial distribution of the whiting stock has been resolved at a stroke and that whiting discards will disappear as a result of the EU Norway agreement. However in these circumstances a 15% increase for 2011 has to be better than a 15% decrease. And the ICES interim management plan, and the development of North Sea RAC advice on a LTMP for whiting over the next few months, offers the prospect for a better future for those vessels which have been forced to discard whiting regularly and on a massive scale. In the meantime the Federation will be pressing Defra to secure any additional whiting quota available from international swaps and the industrial fishery.

Balance

Securing the balance in cod equivalents between the quotas given and received between EU and Norway has become increasingly difficult in recent years as the availability of underutilised quota on the EU side has become tight for a number of reasons. The divergent trends in the blue whiting (down)and North East Arctic cod stocks (up) has brought the issue to a head, although the strains have been mounting in the last few years.

The implications for this impasse could not be more serious. The EEA agreement obliges Norway to offer a fixed percentage of the NE Arctic cod TAC to the EU, in recognition that Norway benefits to a huge degree to access to the EU market. But that cod must be balanced in terms of quota going from the EU to Norway. Without the currency to pay Norway, the whole basis of the agreement that has stood since the early 1990s begins to unravel.

• The EU does not receive its full allocation of North East Arctic cod, guaranteed under the EEA agreement
• Internal tensions within the EU increase between those member states (and parts of member states) who benefit from the transfers of NE Arctic cod and those member states (and parts of member states) who resist use of those (mainly pelagic) allocations to pay Norway
• Norway, whose overwhelming negotiating objective is to secure pelagic quotas from the EU and access to EU waters to catch them, becomes more difficult to negotiate with at a time when solidarity on the Western mackerel issue is paramount

The UK’s distant water fleet will face a reduction of quota in the region of 40% in 2011 as a result of the failure of the EU to find currency to balance the agreement at its full level. This will have serious consequences for the companies, vessels and crews involved.

These immediate consequences are serious enough but also carry profound implications for the type of agreement between Norway and the EU will exist in the future. A reciprocal agreement at a very low level of reciprocity raises questions over whether it is worth it for worth parties. The EU Norway agreement could become a very different arrangement in the future.

Management Plans

Long term management plans (LTMSPs) are a good thing. They provide for stability, clarity and a move away from short-term decision-making with all the problems that they bring. Well designed LTMPs can even out recruitment fluctuations and establish safe levels of harvesting the resource that bring economic benefits in the long term.

It has to be recognised however that LTMPs in the EU are in their infancy. LTMPs agreed between EU and Norway to date have been a fairly crude set of harvest control rules that do not adequately take into account other aspects of the fisheries concerned, not least the economic dimension.

This year’s EU/Norway negotiations threw up two problem areas with regard to LTMPs:

• North Sea Herring, where the Commission argued that once agreed a LTMP should not be altered until formally reviewed according to a timetable; and Norway and most EU pelagic interests, who argued that updated ICES advice that detected an underestimation of recruitment should be adjusted for in setting the TAC for 2011. If accepted, this would mean a + 30% increase in TAC rather than a +15% increase.
• North Sea Saithe, a stock assessed to be at MSY levels yet on the basis of weak recruitment assessments faces a 26% reduction in TAC over two years on the basis of the EU/Norway management plan for saithe. This carries severe economic consequences that seem out of balance with the healthy state of the stock.

More sophisticated LTMPs are required that integrate economic and social dimensions into management decisions and give stakeholders a greater say in shaping them. The degree of inter-annual flexibility within LTMPs and how to deal with corrections in scientific advice are clearly issues that need to be addressed as more sophisticated LTMPs evolve with the participation of the RACs.

In time-honoured fashion, the herring issue was settled by a fudge (the TAC was set at a 21.9% increase), and the saithe issue by ignoring it (the TAC was reduced by 13% for the second year).

Real Time Closures

Norwegian attempts to secure a redesign of the EU RTC legislation were successfully resisted as being premature and inappropriate. There will be further discussions on the subject during the course of the coming year.

The fishing methods employed by our members embrace inkwell and parlour crab and lobster pots, whelk pots, static gill nets, trammel nets, stern trawls, whitefish otter trawls, whitefish freezer trawlers, pelagic freezer trawlers, beam trawls, long-lines, rod and line, pelagic trawl, nephrops trawls, seine-nets, salmon and sea trout drift nets and T and J nets, scallop dredges, ring-nets, jigger/lures and tuna pole and line.

With these methods our members target over sixty separate species.

The main fisheries which NFFO members prosecute are the:

North Sea and west of Scotland mixed demersal fishery

North Sea and West of Scotland targeted saithe fishery

North Sea plaice and sole beam trawl

North Sea seine net (fly shooter) fishery

Celtic Sea and Channel mixed demersal fishery

Celtic Sea and Channel beam trawl fishery (monk and megrim)

Celtic Sea targeted hake fishery

Inshore gill net fishery

Inshore trawl fishery

Deep Sea long-line fishery

Inshore shellfish crab and lobster fishery

Whelk fishery

Offshore vivier brown crab fishery

Area VII Hake net fishery

Area VIII Tuna pole and line fishery

Sardine ring net fishery

North Sea nephrops fishery

Deep water monkfish fishery

Bristol Channel ray fishery

Irish Sea whitefish fishery

Irish Sea nephrops fishery

Pelagic fisheries for Western and North Sea mackerel and North Sea and Channel herring

Irish Sea herring fishery

Irish Sea plaice fishery

Bass static net, rod and line and trawl fisheries

North East Drift net fishery for salmon and trout

Channel flatfish fishery

North Norway (Barents Sea) cod fishery

Greenland cod, halibut and redfish fisheries

Iceland redfish fishery

NAFO (Canadian shelf) cod fishery

Mussel Production

Inshore shrimp

Cockle gathering

Mutual Support: in unity lies strength

Representing these diverse fisheries undoubtedly presents a logistical and communications challenge. But in unity lies strength. The Federation has always operated on the principle of mutuality: I help you when you are in trouble and you help me when I need support. So, when a member’s fishery is under pressure, for whatever reason, the Federation’s resources are directed at that fishery, to support the members, argue their case and find solutions.

There are many advantages to a diverse fishing industry. Adapting fishing patterns to a variety of economic and ecological niches guards against over-reliance on a few species or markets that can make the fleets vulnerable. But it is also true that a small fishery, or group of fishermen, can lack political clout, unless they build alliances with other fishermen. From that realization it is only a logical step to regional (or fishing method) groupings, and then to national and even international groupings, such as the NFFO and regional advisory councils.

Supporting each other, making common cause, resisting splits, overcoming frictions, covering each others’ backs, is the NFFO way. This was the core idea when the Federation was established and it remains our guiding principle.

And the New Year promises no let up. The English regional projects will deliver their recommendations on where marine conservation zones should be sited in the middle of next year.

Natural England

Next week the Coalition will again meet with the Government’s statutory advisors on nature conservancy, Natural England, to raise the fishing industry’s issues and concerns about the process of designating candidate marine conservation zones through the four regional “stakeholder” projects. The fishing industry participants in the four projects have so far expressed little enthusiasm for the process, their doubts coalescing around the following issues:

• The authenticity of the consultative process associated with the four projects, all of which are slightly different from each other
• The rushed and unrealistic timeframe specified by the Government which undermines the stated objective of a stakeholder-led process.
• The weak information-base available on which to make reasoned decisions about designation.
• The confused and apparently mobile jurisdictions over who has responsibility for what between Natural England, JNCC, Defra, the Marine Management Organisation, Inshore Fisheries Conservation Authorities (IFCAs), devolved administrations and the EU.
• The failure to take international fleets into account, except in a wholly superficial way.
• The issue of displacement, which will be one of the most serious, both for socio-economic and ecological reasons but which has yet to be addressed in any systematic way.

The frank discussions between the Coalition and Natural England (often with senior Defra officials in attendance) have helped to clarifiy the issues, even if they have yet to allay the fears.

Minister

A Coalition delegation will meet Fisheries Minister, Richard Benyon, during the week before Christmas. This will be the first meeting with the Minister, who with the Secretary of State, will have the final say on both the designation of marine conservation zones and the management measures that will apply within them.

The Coalition will be eager to impress on the Minister that it was established not to oppose marine protected areas but to ensure that they are applied in a fair and balanced way that fully takes into account their potential impact on the livelihoods derived from fishing.

But the Coalition will not shrink from spelling out in plain language where it thinks the process of establishing MCZs, and the European MPAs, stray from the principles of good governance, fair treatment, and good evidence.

The Minister will be told that MPAs have a role in protecting biodiversity but that they were initially over-sold in the early days as as a panacea for the failings of the CFP.

This will be an important meeting both in itself and in establishing a process of engagement at the highest levels with the decision-makers who will make the final call on where to site MPAs and what management measures will apply within them.

The proposal to close the cod fishery in 2012 (presumably meaning a zero TAC) and in the meantime, for 2011, to cut the already miniscule quota and days-at-sea allocation by 50% speaks of a desperation born from that failure.

There are a number of key dimensions to the Irish Sea fisheries:

• The Irish Sea is different. The fact that the Irish Sea was the only place that successfully developed a semi-pelagic cod fishery suggests that cod inhabit a different place in the water column than elsewhere. This alone should suggest that measures developed for the North Sea might not work in the Irish Sea because cod exhibit different behaviours there.
• Cod recovery measures have been applied in the Irish Sea for longer than anywhere else in EU waters, apparently to least effect
• The Irish Sea is a relatively small enclosed sea yet the level of understanding about the biological and human systems that comprise its fisheries are poorly understood. It is one of the classic “data-poor” fisheries that ICES is concerned about
• The apparent failure of cod stocks to rebuild comes despite a drastic reduction in the fishing capacity of the demersal fleets in the Irish Sea. As an example the Northern Irish demersal fleet which targeted cod, haddock and hake has been reduced by decommissioning or attrition from 40 to 2 vessels.
• The most comprehensive discard monitoring programme in the UK suggests that discards of cod in the Northern Irish fleet are very low – a handful of tonnes each year
• Fishing effort in the Irish Sea has largely been corralled into the nephrops fishery. This dependence on a single species is not healthy, although to date the science confirms that the Irish Sea nephrops stocks are robust and stable

It is because the fisheries in the Irish Sea are different; because they are not responding to the current cod management plan; because the fisheries data sets are so poor; and because the Irish Sea measures have largely been applied as an adjunct, or afterthought, to the much larger North Sea and West of Scotland fisheries, that there has been a consistent demand for a policy and science review focused specifically on the Irish Sea fisheries.

This was the key demand from the Irish Sea section of the Cod Symposium, organised by the North Sea and North West Waters regional advisory councils in Edinburgh in March 2007. Had this approach been pursued we might by now have a better understanding of cod in the Irish Sea fisheries and have been in a position to develop a customised cod recovery plan relevant to the conditions in the Irish Sea. No one can say whether such an approach would have been successful, not least because the Cod Symposium made clear that there is a strong ecosystem dimension to the decline of cod in European waters, but it can hardly have fared worse in biological or fishery terms than the current plan. The demand for a review of the Irish Sea fisheries was also a key conclusion that emerged from a meeting of Irish Sea interests in Belfast in 2009, convened by the North West Waters RAC.

The highly significant announcement by ICES that it is reviewing its assessment models with the intention of moving away from increasingly complex data-hungry models towards a simpler approach capable of incorporating information generated by fisheries science partnership projects, is nowhere more pertinent than the Irish Sea.

It is now clear that continuing the Commission’s approach, applied over the last decade, of recurrent quota reductions, reinforced by days-at-sea restrictions is not likely to be the recipe for rebuilding cod stocks in the Irish Sea. A zero TAC for Irish Sea cod in 2012 and a 50% reduction in 2011 will achieve nothing but to increase frustration and discards. A more fruitful outcome from the forthcoming December Council would be a Council Declaration directing the Commission to work with fisheries scientists and key stakeholders on a fundamental science and policy review of the demersal fisheries in the Irish Sea. The aim of the review should be to:

• Obtain a sound understanding of the biological and human dimensions of the demersal fisheries in the Irish Sea
• Identify the principle sources of mortality of cod in the Irish Sea and adopt appropriate management responses
• Design customised management measures that would optimise the prospects for a recovery of the cod stocks in the Irish Sea over time, whilst maintaining and developing the economically important non-cod demersal fisheries such as nephrops
• Involve the Irish Sea fishing organisations and individual vessel operators in the design and implementation of recovery measures
• Explore the scope for using available technologies and incentive based approaches to improve cod avoidance fishing strategies in the Irish Sea
• Put the fisheries science partnership approach at the heart of future science programmes in the Irish Sea

The International Council for Exploration of the Sea (ICES) has for a number of years now recommended that the nephrops fisheries should be managed on functional unit (sub-area) basis, rather than on the basis of large sea areas such as the North Sea, or Area VII (West of Scotland, West of Ireland, Irish Sea, Celtic Sea and English Channel combined). There is much sense in this; whilst overall, the nephrops stocks show strong signs of being robust and stable, individual functional units can, from time to time, display signs of over-exploitation. Out of the 7 functional units in Area VII, the Porcupine Bank has exhibited signs of stress in the ICES assessments; likewise, the signals from the Farne Deeps contrast with the general picture in the North Sea.

This is common ground. A divergence in views comes however, as this scientific recommendation is translated into management measures. In typical fashion, in its proposals for 2011 the Commission has elected to propose a blunt, blanket, approach which would require the establishment of individual TACs for all of the functional units in Area VII.

It is sensible to make provision for dealing with any individual functional unit that shows signs of stress. Individual functional unit TACs however, would impose a bureaucratic rigidity that, over time, would erode the flexibility that:

• Is to a large degree the basis for the overall stability of the stocks in the nephrops fishery
• Provides a safety valve that is an important component of the economic viability of the nephrops fleets

A pattern of fleet deployment has been evident in the nephrops fisheries over a number of years. When a particular functional unit is underperforming, fishing effort tends to migrate to other functional units where the catches (and returns) are better. This largely self-regulating system is not perfect but it is an important reason why the nephrops has been able to absorb large amounts of additional fishing effort in recent years, as vessels transferred from the whitefish sector. The Irish Sea functional units for example have been broadly stable over 35 years. In place of this broadly successful and effective arrangement the Commission would impose an unworkable system of sub-area TACs that would remove that flexibility, add a further layer of bureaucratic complexity. It would also erode the principle of relative stability that underpins the share of the TACs received by member states.

A Safety-Net Approach

An alternative way to apply functional unit management would be to monitor the nephrops stocks by functional units and to put in place remedial measures when any functional unit shows signs of stress. This approach has already been successfully applied in 2009/10 on the Porcupine Bank, when recommendations made by the North West Waters RAC were adopted and turned into legislative provisions based on a seasonal closure on part of the Bank. The ICES assessment for this year confirms that this tailored measure appears to have been effective in reducing pressure on the Porcupine Bank stocks which have responded positively. The key point is that the measure was appropriate for and customised to the fisheries on the Porcupine Bank. Different functional units will require different measures. In due course functional unit management will be incorporated into the long term management plan currently being developed.

Is the science sufficiently accurate to underpin sensitive functional unit TACs?

It is one thing to ask assessment scientists to provide a broad brush perspective on the nephrops stocks and additionally, to highlight problems with particular functional units. It is entirely something else to ask for precision advice on individual functional units on which TACs will be set. There must be a question over whether ICES science could consistently service this management approach.

December Council

It is important that at the December Council member states reject the functional unit TAC approach as too blunt, too bureaucratic and would take us in CFP direction that would be contrary to regional, responsive, adaptive management that the a reformed CFP could deliver.

It is not unknown for the Commission to offer short term advantage, in terms of additional quota, to achieve acceptance of its longer term objectives. Only the gullible will be lured by this tactic which as we have seen often brings short term benefits and long term regrets.

Importance of Operational Flexibility

In an important contribution to the recent fisheries science conference in Ostend, the respected academic Doug Wilson from the University of Alborg, surveyed a wide range of international fisheries and asked the question: what makes for a successful recovery plan and sustainable fisheries? His research suggested that all of the successful fisheries had two common ingredients: flexibility and strong fisheries organisations. We surrender our flexibility at a high price for both stocks and fleets.

. Although the rhetoric is still there – condemning the waste involved in the many hundreds of thousands of tonnes that are discarded each year – there is no sign in the Commission’s current policies of any sense of urgency, or indeed sense of direction.

Discards were a priority for the previous Commissioner, Joe Borg, although he, latterly, too slipped from promoting practical, realistic, discard reduction programmes to empty rhetoric and gesture politics: the unworkable and unenforceable ban on high-grading being a case in point. The Commission will never be able to take the moral high-ground on discards for as long as its policy approach ignores the issue and its legislation in technical measures, and TACs and quotas require vessels to discard.

No one is pretending that the solving discard issue is easy. There is no silver bullet. There are many different reasons in many different fisheries for discarding and each one must be addressed individually. Sometimes the issue is lack of selectivity in fishing gear, as fishing vessels struggle financially to keep their heads above water; sometimes the issue is low value species for which markets are not available. Often however, discards result directly from the rigidity of the regulatory regime.

Fishing Industry Initiatives

In many ways the baton on discard reduction has passed from the Commission to the fishing industry working with scientists. The UK’s 50% project, where South West beam trawlers successfully achieved a 50% reduction in discards through changes in gear design conceived by the participating skippers is a fantastic example of what can be achieved if the right conditions are put in place. In addition to the 50% Project, Real Time Closures (which encourage cod avoidance) the Catch Quota Project (where all catches of cod are fully documented ) and many other initiatives, are all showing the way forward. All of these successful initiatives have one common feature: they all involve fishermen in the design and implementation of the project, whether this is at a vessel, regional or national level.

Regulatory Discards

Releasing fishermen’s practical understanding of their fisheries to develop successful discard programmes is not helped if at the same time the Commission is driving policy approaches that increase discards. The current Technical Conservation Regulation, generates discards across the demersal fleet on a daily basis, through its catch composition rules. Likewise, setting of TACs on the basis of the Commission’s proposals has been a major source of increased discarding in the mixed fisheries. The following fisheries are anticipated to witness an increase in discards if the Commission’s proposals are adopted unchanged at the December Council:

North Sea cod

North Sea whiting

Skates and rays

Porbeagle

Spurdog

Pollack

Saithe

Channel Cod

Area VII Haddock

Area fg Plaice

Area VII Sole hjk

Area VII Plaice hjk

North Sea Turbot and Dabs

Channel Plaice

North Sea Cod Discards

In the case of North Sea cod –a fishery that has been under the most severe recovery measures for over a decade, STECF – the Commission’s scientific quality control committee – estimates that:

“ ….if fully implemented, the provisions of the [cod] management plan are likely to result in a decrease in fishing effort for the main fleets that catch cod, but will have the perverse result of leading to increased discarding of cod unless additional measures to avoid catching cod can be introduced”.

STECF October 2010

STECF advises that only a 75% reduction in fishing effort (which it concedes would extinguish the viability of fishing fleets of many North Sea member states), or a radically different approach to setting the TAC will secure a reduction in discards in 2011. This, in restrained scientific language, amounts to a condemnation of the current cod plan as a bankrupt policy. A failure to take a different approach will result in discards of 39,000 tonnes, a truly shocking amount. It is almost inevitable as night follows day, that the Commission will take the tried, tested and failed approach and seek to persuade ministers to adopt an approach that will cut effort leading to the elimination of their fleets.

STECF however points to the alternative – a TAC of 71,000 tonnes rather than 32,000 tonnes and a new focus on cod avoidance, with all cod caught counting against the TAC.

It may not be possible to make this leap in one year but there is a stark choice – remain wedded to an approach that delivers failure and massive discards, or change of direction to economic viability, involvement of skippers and the support of the industry in successful cod avoidance, dramatic reduction in discards and consequent reduction in fishing mortality towards target levels. This will be of the utmost importance for the review of the cod Management Plan next year.

Ongoing Discards Reduction: Irish Sea, South West, North Sea

It is important to appreciate that the discard picture is uneven; some fisheries for a variety of reasons have been progressively been reducing discard rates in recent years. This has sometimes been a response to restrictions brought in to rebuild the cod stocks but sometimes to improve quality of the catch, or for other reasons. The Northern Irish Sea fleet fleets has achieved remarkably low levels of cod discards, confirmed by an extensive programme of catch sampling; the South West fleets, working with scientists in a fisheries science partnership successfully reduced discards in the anglerfish fishery; and overall the English North Sea fleet, in part responding to the need for cod avoidance to avoid a range of restrictions, has equally achieved low discards of cod. All these positive examples have three common characteristics:

• The measures put in place are tailored to the specifics of the fishery concerned
• The skippers and their organisations were centrally involved in the design of the initiatives
• Fishermen have worked collaboratively to achieve results

Discards and the CFP

Discards are a waste of the resource, impede recovery plans often represent a direct loss of earnings for fishing vessels, have a range of causes and damage the fishing industry’s reputation. The Commission’s initiative to reduce discards has stalled, giving rise to initiatives such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fight for Fish campaign, which give voice to public concerns on the issue of discards.

In a sense the Commission’s failure is not a surprise. The European Commission and the Common Fisheries Policy are simply not constructed in a way that allows them to successfully generate initiatives at individual fishery level. This is why the discards issue is also a question of CFP reform. Blanket and blunt legislative measures such as the ban on high-grading introduced in 2008 have achieved nothing and will achieve nothing. Until there is a radical decentralisation of the CFP little will be achieved. But this does not relieve the Commission from responsibility. In the short term it could work consistently to at least not increase discarding when setting TACs and in its other objectives. Discards are a massive problem; the least the Commission can do, pending reform of the CFP, is not make matters worse.

The recurrent problems in ICES’ stock assessments largely caused by the heavy data dependence of the stock assessment models and the inability of the system to deliver the necessary data, has led the scientists to undertake a root and branch review of its assessment models.

At a major conference in Ostend organised by the Belgian Presidency, Dr Carl O’Brien, Vice-Chair of ACOM, the group of international scientists which has the final say on ICES advice, confirmed that ICES is reviewing its assessment models.

“Our models are data hungry”, said Dr O’Brien. “But the provision of data is not improving; in fact it’s getting worse. The future does not lie in obtaining more and more complicated data, to feed more and more complicated models. That implies a level of precision that we do not have and it suggests that our traditional age-structured models are becoming less useful for management.”

“Instead we are investigating whether ICES could move to simpler models which require less complicated data and are capable of using data generated by the industry – for example through fisheries science partnerships.”

“We are already successfully using simplified models for deep sea stocks where the data is scarce. This approach could also have relevance to the fisheries in the North Sea, Celtic Sea and Irish Sea. If we can’t supply the data for sophisticated stock assessment models, perhaps we need to refocus on more simple models. This process is underway within ICES now.”

The use of simpler assessment models that allow for the use of industry knowledge and data could mark a huge breakthrough in breaking down barriers between scientists and fishermen. At present industry data is frequently patronised as “interesting but anecdotal,” meaning that it is frequently sidelined as incapable of being incorporated into the ICES models.

Someone once said that “all models are wrong but some models are useful”. The willingness of ICES to review its models suggests that a corner may be about to be turned.

Partnership in Science

The two day conference shed light on the incredible range of fisheries science partnership projects now undertaken across the EU.

The NFFO was not shy in underlining its central role in developing, with Defra and Cefas, in 2003, the groundbreaking Fisheries Science Partnership (FSP), although we had the good grace to acknowledge that we did borrow ideas from both North America and Norway.

Defra and ICES pointed out that more than 80 fisheries science partnership projects have been completed in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, earning recognition of the FSP as world class participative fisheries science.

It was apparent that most of the fisheries organisations, scientists, member state government representatives and NGOs present, believed that the various fisheries science partnerships laid the foundations for a future decentralised CFP.

In the last week French, Belgian and two Irish fishermen’s organisations have announced their intention to join the MPA Fishing Coalition. The Dutch Fishermen’s Federation, VisNed, joined earlier in the year.

Coalition Chairman Dr Stephen Lockwood, said: “There is a mounting recognition that the rushed introduction of marine conservation zones and special areas of conservation in UK waters carry potentially huge implications for all classes of fishing vessel that operate in UK waters – including those operated by fishermen from other member states. Quite naturally, the fishermen involved want to ensure that their interests are not ignored.

“So far only lip service has been paid to the question of international fleets. There has been only the most notional of attempts to engage them in the four marine conservation zone regional projects and it is quite clear that the hope is that once MCZs are established, Brussels will legislate to apply them to all EU vessels”.

“The concerns of the Irish, French, Belgians and Dutch are exactly the same as UK fishermen. They fear that MPAs will be applied in a rushed, incoherent way, and that management measures eventually applied within them will lead to their displacement from their customary fishing grounds”.

The organisations that have announced their intention to join the Coalition are:

Rederscentrale – the Belgian Producers’ Organisation and vessel owners association

Pecheurs de Manche et Atlantique

The Irish Fish Producers’ Organisation

Irish South and West Fish Producers’ Organisation

The Coalition has engaged with the Government’s statutory advisors on nature conservation on the quality of their advice and the process that they are overseeing, as well as Defra and the devolved administrations on high level strategic issues such as the evidence base, impartiality of the Science Review Panel and the question of displacement. A meeting with UK Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon has been arranged for next month where the whole range of the Coalition’s concerns will be brought to his attention.

“The groups that have just joined the Coalition have taken the view that they can’t afford just to hope that all will be alright, and that someone else will take the strain. They have taken the decision to work with UK fishermen to defend their fishing grounds and the livelihoods that are derived from them”.

There is no disguising that the December Council is an inherently flawed process – often referred to as a circus- and has been the source of many decisions that have inflicted real harm on the industry and on the stocks, mainly through unintended consequences. The Council itself has recognised the need to move away from a continual cycle of crisis management towards long term management plans, introduced after proper impact assessments; this should, over time, provide more stability for the industry.

In the meantime, we have little choice but to work with ministers, officials and through the regional advisory councils, to limit potential damage and where possible, to introduce positive measures.

To that end an NFFO delegation met recently with UK Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon to discuss UK priorities in this autumn’s negotiations. This meeting followed:

• A meeting in July with Cefas scientists and Defra officials to discuss ICES scientific advice, on which TAC and effort decisions will be based
• RAC advice prepared and submitted to the Commission on the Commission’s general approach to TACs as set out in its annual Policy Statement
• An NFFO meeting with Defra officials in early October to discuss NFFO priorities for the autumn negotiations
• A meeting of European fishing interests in mid-October with the Commission to discuss the Commission’s approach to setting TACs, against the background of advice produced by STECF (the Commission’s quality control committee)

The next step will be a meeting of UK Ministers with various stakeholders, in Belfast. The Commission’s proposals are expected towards the end of October, and the EU/Norway negotiations (that in reality set the TACs for most North Sea TACs) will begin in Brussels in mid-November. The Council will begin on 13th December after further discussions between the Minister and the NFFO and other stakeholders.

NFFO Positions

The Federation has prepared and submitted a position paper to Defra on its priorities for the Council. It covers the following items:

• Cod recovery, including catch quotas and the effort regime
• Irish Sea Issues and concerns including nephrops
• Celtic Sea cod
• The application of maximum sustainable yield to TACs in 2011 and beyond
• Nephrops TACs and “functional units”
• “Use it or lose it” stocks – stocks the Commission deem to be underutilised, although individual member states will be severely disadvantaged by a TAC reduction
• Treatment of data poor stocks – where TACs are reduced because ICES cannot provide a reliable assessment
• “Cosmetic” TACs – those that are applied to give the impression that the problem is being dealt with but which in reality result in little more than an increase in regulatory discards
• North Sea plaice
• North Sea whiting
• North East Arctic Cod
• Mackerel
• Herring
• Blue whiting

In addition to a major reduction in funding, the Government statement, reproduced below, makes clear that, like us, it believes that Natural England crossed a boundary from impartial advisor to gung-ho lobbyist, by quite some way. In addition, during its expansionist phase, in the run-up to the Marine and Coastal Access Act, Natural England barged into policy-making and fisheries management, fields where it had no expertise and no legal jurisdiction. It is now paying the price for its hubris.

The statement reads:

“Defra has been working closely with its largest environmental arm’s length bodies – the Environment Agency and Natural England – to ensure a radical and comprehensive package of measures which will transform them into leaner, more efficient front line delivery bodies focused strongly on the Government’s ambitions for the environment and the green economy.

• There will be significant change across the organisations, to create a new delivery model that is the most effective and cost-efficient way to deliver, and exert leverage, in support of the Government’s objectives. Both Environment Agency and Natural England will: dramatically reduce their back office costs while keeping to the minimum possible reductions in delivery;
• work more closely with other arm’s length bodies to eliminate any duplication in the work they carry out;
• implement demonstrable culture change and lead on innovative new ways of working which embrace Localism, Big Society and an improved customer focus;
• stop activity that Government does not need to do
• stop policy making and lobbying activities.

Natural England

Retain and substantially reform – Reform through structural, process and cultural change to become a more efficient and customer focused organisation; and clarify accountabilities. Further announcements after the spending review”

This fear is not lessened by the rushed and confused process, overseen by Natural England, through which regional groups of stake-holders have been asked to contribute to the process of designating candidate marine conservation zones, and to suggest appropriate management measures to protect those seabed features regarded as requiring protection.

It has not helped that European special areas of conservation are being applied by the UK authorities at the same time, using a different set of criteria to that used for the domestic MCZs; or that there have been serious misunderstandings over which body has jurisdiction over what part of the process: Natural England, Defra, MMO, SFCs/IFCAs are all involved. Additional jurisdictional complexities arise from devolved administration.

These, along with other important issues, have been raised by the MPA Fishing Coalition, a broad based industry body formed to ensure a fair deal for fishermen in the establishment of MPAs in UK waters, of which the NFFO is a leading member.

Against this background, a recent meeting between Defra officials and the NFFO began serious consideration of the displacement issue.

Displacement

During the course of the meeting the Federation drew attention to two key aspects of the displacement issue. Displacement can have:

• Economic consequences for vessels of limited range whose crews will lose their livelihoods if excluded from their fishing grounds. Aggregated to a fleet level, this could mean that whole communities could be severely affected. But also vessels with a longer operational range could be forced to fish in adjacent areas, impacting on those fisheries; or much further afield where their impact would nevertheless have an effect
• Ecological consequences. It is by no means certain that a policy of ring-fencing parts of the marine environment into MPAs is an effective strategy for achieving Good Environmental Status across the marine environment. Senior figures within environmental science, as well as fishermen, have asked whether this is the best way to strike a balance between food security and protection of the marine environment. Fishing effort diverted from customary grounds will have an impact and scarcely any thought has been given to this in the current process.

The experience of the 2001 area closure of the North Sea cod spawning grounds were highlighted as salutary example where good intentions led to adverse results through a series of unintended consequences. The pressure on the Commission to “be seen to be doing something”, against the background of a decline in the cod stocks led to the closure. However, the scientific post-mortem undertaken by ICES, concluded that the closure had done nothing for cod but that the demersal fleet had been given no alternative but to fish in the juvenile haddock areas and the beam trawlers had been forced to fish in pristine areas in which they had never fished before. The overall result of the closure was massive discarding of immature haddock and serious damage to benthic features, with minimal, if any protection for cod.

The Lyme Bay closure was also raised as a flawed approach to habitat protection that had cast a long shadow in terms of displaced effort and unintended consequences.

Displacement and Mitigation

Defra’s central point was that the whole thrust of the current process establishing marine conservation zones in UK waters, is to involve stakeholders, and to as far as possible, identify areas in which management measures will achieve conservation objectives without disturbing economic activities like fishing.

It was emphasised that there is an important difference between the approach required for the European MPAs where designation of MPAs must be exclusively based on scientific (biological and ecological) criteria and that adopted in the UK for its domestic MCZs, where minimising the socio-economic impact whilst providing adequate protection for valuable or scarce features is at the heart of the process.

It was also made clear that ministers and the UK Government as a whole, would want to avoid an adverse impact on the fishing industry as far as possible, and also, again so far as possible, to avoid adverse unintended consequences. It was for these reasons that the impact assessments currently being prepared will be critically important.

Confusions between the respective roles of Defra, Natural England and MMO and the SFCs/ICFAS had recently been resolved. The stakeholder process overseen by Natural England, as well as making recommendations on MCZ designations, will be asked to suggest management measures to protect scarce or valuable features.

Fly in the Ointment

The NFFO emphasised that notwithstanding the Government’s good intentions in seeking to establish a network of MPAs, with stakeholder involvement and a good evidence base, the fly in the ointment is the unrealistic timeframe that precludes the possibility of realising those ambitions.

The NFFO is committed to balanced and proportionate steps to prevent loss of biodiversity. However, a classic and largely artificial moral panic about the supposed imminent demise of hundreds of thousands of marine species, and the widespread collapse of commercial fish stocks, floated the Marine and Coastal Access Act through Parliament. It also led the Government into a rushed and deeply flawed process of establishing a network of MPAs through a big bang process. Instead of an incremental, steady, approach where one MPA would be trialled and necessary lessons learned before going on to the next MPA, armed with that experience, we are in the middle of a headlong rush on all fronts at once. The Federation and others in the MPA Fishing Coalition are genuinely and heavily involved in the four regional projects, but not without serious misgivings about where the industry is being led.

Both Defra and the NFFO are agreed that the process of establishing MPAs can be done well or done badly. Approached badly, extensive economic, social and ecological damage is likely to result. Approached through a process of close engagement with the industry, particularly on the question of management measures within MPAs where these are required, the disruption can be kept to a minimum. Fishermen’s information is critical to this process, as is the framework established to allow for the industry to be genuinely engaged in the process. The regional projects, so far as we can judge, have only been partially successful in persuading fishermen to hand over data on where they fish, when and with what. The fixed timetable means that flawed system or not, inadequate data or not, Natural England will be making recommendations to ministers next summer on a network of marine protected areas. Some of these may overlap with the European special areas of conservation. Decisions will then be made on initial management measures required to halt any perceived degradation of the features for which the sites have been designated.

This was an important and useful meeting at a critical juncture. The Coalition’s repeated emphasis that the issue of displacement of fishing vessels was being ignored has borne fruit. There is now recognition that this is a critical issue that cannot, and should not be, tagged on as an afterthought.

The Federation and the MPA Fishing Coalition will remain closely engaged as the process unfolds.

Discussions addressed concerns over the Balanced Seas project which is widely regarded as downplaying the importance and significance of fishing interests in the MCZ designation process. Under tens, the future of quota management and the increasing importance of representation, given the unprecedented levels of marine policy now or soon to be affecting the sector, were also important subject matters on the agenda.

Further visits to the South East are planned for the next few weeks.

Photograph: NFFO member Tony Delahunte and NFFO President Davy Hill in front of the 30 strong fleet at Selsey.

Background

The new Control Regulation was forced through the Council of Ministers in October 2009 to beat the arrival of co-decision making. Subsequently there has been a long delay as the Commission has prepared detailed implementing rules that will go forward as a Commission Regulation (i.e. it will be agreed in Management Committee, not in the Council).

Current Position

The first reading of the Commission’s draft proposal for detailed implementing rules has now been completed and member states have given their positions. The Commission will now revise the text and a new draft proposal will be ready towards the end of October. The Commission is determined that the new Regulation will be adopted at management committee on 3rd December. This will leave very little time for implementation as the new provisions will come into force on 1st January 2011.

Detail: key points

From a legal standpoint, the detailed rules must be consistent with the Control Regulation but the current draft is very far from that in places. The main areas of outstanding disagreement are:

Penalty Points System

The proposals as they stand are far too complicated and go well beyond the powers in the Council Regulation, and beyond what is required for a workable system.

Reporting

For most under-10m vessels, in particular, the requirements are excessive and would place a huge burden on the industry as well as the administration. As the proposed requirements go beyond anything in the Council Regulation, the priority must be to scale back the Commission’s ambitions to something practical and workable.

Weighing of Fish on Landing

Many member states have expressed concerns over the practicalities of the provisions requiring fish to be weighed on landing. Measures designed with a continental fish-market in mind, create huge logistical, cost and quality problems when translated to other types of fishing/landing operations. This is an area in which a considerable amount of work is still required to make the provisions practical and workable.

Recreational Fishing

The provisions that could have meant recreational catches being deducted from the commercial fleet’s quotas have been removed but there remains a serious issue of how to monitor the recreational catch without a disproportionate degree of bureaucracy.

Rushed and Inadequate

Although many of the requirements simply reflect the status quo in a consolidated text, the scale of the new requirements and the stop-go pattern of the discussions as they pass through the process of adoption give rise for serious concern. With over 100 articles and a rushed and inadequate system of scrutiny there is considerable scope for error and unintended consequences.

These concerns are compounded by the short time for implementation.

It is fair to say that the new Control Regulation was conceived in haste in response to criticisms by the EU Court of Auditors; was rushed through Council to beat democratic scrutiny by the European Parliament; enshrines the last gasp of a discredited and ineffectual command and control system that will increase the complexity of an already complex system. In that regard it may come to be regarded as the nadir of the unreformed CFP

The need for a more intelligent approach to cod recovery was at the head of the agenda, with the mackerel crisis, the Commission’s approach to maximum sustainable yield and cosmetic TAC reductions also high on the list of issues discussed.

Catch Quotas

It was agreed that the preliminary results of the catch quota trials under way in Scotland, England and Denmark show great promise. However, the meeting also expressed great concern that it is unlikely that the necessary preconditions for the scheme to work next year will be met.

The scheme requires participating vessels to fit CCTV to record all catches and discards. Vessels are rewarded for the additional costs and inconvenience involved with additional cod quota and permitted days at sea. An additional 5% has been added to the North Sea TAC this year, in agreement with Norway, to trial the new system. Preliminary results have shown that under these arrangements discards can be reduced to only 1% – a remarkable achievement.

The fear is that, despite constant Norwegian rhetoric about the level of discards, Norway will not be prepared to sanction the extra cod quota to make the scheme work and the scientific provision that provided the 5% additional quota this year, will be reduced to 2.5% next year. Instead of expanding a successful discard initiative it will have to be scaled back.

This would be a backward step for discard reduction and for cod recovery and the two federations have agreed to press hard for the removal of these obstacles to the widening of the scheme.

At the same time it is recognised that catch quotas are not appropriate for all vessels and all segments of the fleet. An over rapid expansion could jeopardise the viability of parts of the fleet.

The NFFO and SFF have therefore agreed that the catch quota scheme, if it is to be applied more widely, should follow a number of principles:

• Participation in the scheme should be entirely voluntary
• Additional quota, over and above the agreed TAC, should be made available to participating vessels at a realistic level to encourage widespread involvement
• Exemption, or relief, from the days at sea regime for participating vessels should also be used as an incentive
• Full documentation of all catches
• Scientific validation of CCTV records, with safeguards about access to those records
• Movement of cod catches from the discards to the landings column in the ICES stock assessment so that explicit progress can be tracked

Whilst the federations see the relevance and potential of the catch quota approach to other species and fisheries they are adamant that, for now, the focus must be on cod recovery. The political capital needed to persuade the Commission, Norway and the Council of Ministers, to back this novel approach to discard reduction and cod recovery should not be diluted by over extending the scheme at this stage.

Mackerel

The two federations agreed that the UK and EU should stand up to bullying tactics and irresponsible levels of fishing by Iceland and Faeroes in the mackerel fishery. There can be no justification for the kind of smash and grab raid undertaken by Iceland and Norway when an international forum for reasoned negotiations is available.

TACs and Quotas for 2011

The SFF and NFFO also agreed common ground on the approach to setting TACs for next year. Of special focus is the Commission’s unnecessary rigid approach to moving stocks to maximum sustainable yield by 2015; and the problem of cosmetic TACs – quotas that are reduced in the full knowledge and certainty that the cut will not reduce fishing mortality but will increase discards.

Future Meetings

It was agreed to maintain close engagement between the two federations through the autumn.

It was clear that she saw the arrival of marine spatial planning as vital but difficult, and beset by jurisdictional issues between the Commission and member states. The venue was a meeting in Aberdeen, organised by the North Sea Commission, a body of local government bodies around the North Sea, and builds on the successful conference held in Newcastle earlier in the year on the issue of how best to manage increasingly crowded marine space.

The Commissioner indicated that her ambition was for a European Directive that would provide a framework for marine planning that left the responsibility for implementation with the member states.

The Federation took the opportunity to underlines that whilst it recognised the importance of marine spatial planning as a necessary antidote to the increasingly chaotic morass of marine protected areas, offshore wind farms, aggregate dredging, and other offshore developments that increasingly jeopardise fishing vessels’ access to their customary grounds, it was also important to avoid a further layer of top-down, prescriptive, bureaucracy.

The NFFO also stressed that the fishing industry in defending its key fishing areas, recognised the rights of other marine users and there were already examples of good and bad practice which should be taken into account in establishing marine spatial planning.

An example of good practice quoted is the strong cooperative relationship between the offshore oil and gas industry and the fishing industry. In England, and a little later in Scotland, a very successful model of liaison and cooperation had been developed between the two sectors that had stood the test of time over 20 years and had managed the inevitable frictions between two marine industries with different operational patterns and requirements.

Attention was also drawn to counter-examples of bad practice, currently evident in the headlong rush to establish marine protected areas on the basis of inadequate evidence and cosmetic consultation. Likewise, putting a Round 2 wind-farm (Westernmost Rough) on top of the most lucrative lobster grounds in the country speaks volumes about the absence of a coherent marine spatial planning process.

The lessons to be drawn from this are:

• There is a need for marine spatial planning to coordinate increasingly crowded marine space
• What is not required, and wouldn’t work anyway given the different jurisdictional issues, is a top-down bureaucratic structure.
• There are examples of existing good practice that should be incorporated into spatial marine planning
• Likewise, there are examples of bad practice where offshore developments have been sanctioned on the basis of inadequate information and cosmetic consultation
• Much can be achieved by a framework that obliges the various offshore interests to talk to each other; communication is the key to resolving many of the issues of marine spatial planning

The first step to establish a forum in which the various stakeholders can engage with each other has been taken in the earlier Newcastle conference and it was clear from the Aberdeen meeting that Commissioner Damanaki considered this to be an advanced model that could be emulated elsewhere. Even in these financially straitened times it was clear that the Commissioner would support applications for funding that would make a North Sea Stakeholders’ forum become a reality.

Fishing

Various interests, from port authorities to local government, underlined the importance of fishing to local economies and employment and the nation’s food security.

Commissioner Damanaki made reference to the Commission’s current thinking on a reformed CFP.

Regional advisory councils had been one of the successes of the 2002 reform of the CFP and according to the Commissioner it was now time for a “new synthesis”. Some change to the composition of RACs seemed to be implied, although there has been no previous indication of this and certainly no discussion with the RACs on what this might mean. What would bring the RAC’s effectiveness into rapid decline would be to make them so unwieldy as to make the formulation of coherent advice all but impossible.

The Commissioner described a two tier form of fisheries governance in which

• broad principles and targets( including target levels of fishing mortality would be laid down at European level
• “member states and RACs would be able to choose from a toolbox which instruments to use to achieve those targets: TACs, effort control, technical measures etc”

All commercial fish stocks should come under long term management plans.

In the Commissioner’s view this approach should be subject to the important condition that there should be a progressive reduction in discards.

The NFFO, as it has done from the outset of the CFP reform process, will remain at the heart of the debate on the future of the CFP, within the RACs and directly with UK ministers and officials, and with the European Parliament.

Discussions centred on the catch quota system under trial this year in England, Scotland and Denmark, after which the Minister pronounced the exchange, “the most useful 45 minutes I’ve had since coming into office.”

NFFO Chief Executive Barrie Deas said, “Breaking out of the cycle of low TACs, poor catch information, high levels of discards and perverse incentives, that currently characterise the cod fisheries, is the prize on offer – if we can find a way to make the catch quota system work for a wide range of vessels. The interim results for this year appear to be very encouraging and the immediate challenge is to create the conditions through which it can be developed next year and beyond.”

“The Minister was eager to hear our ideas on how the scheme could be expanded and the informal setting allowed us to spell out what needs to be in place to extend the scheme,” he added.

Fish and chips at the Dolphin were followed by more formal meetings at Arbuthnot House, focusing on a range of issues currently confronting the fishing industry, and the international crisis in the mackerel fishery.

A variety of industry representatives raised specific issues including:

• Cod recovery and effort control
• MSY and TACs and quotas for 2011
• The rush to introduce a network of marine protected areas
• Under 10 metre quotas
• Nephrops functional unit management
• CFP reform

It was stressed that numerous vessels faced an immediate financial crisis because important whitefish quotas were exhausted at the end of September. POs emphasised the difficulty of managing sectoral quotas so out of equilibrium with the availability of stocks in the sea.

It was agreed that the CFP had been characterised by crisis management since it was established and there was a desperate need to move to long term management plans that would bring a degree of stability to our fisheries. The Minister also emphasised that the NFFO’s ideas for a reformed CFP based on sustainable fishing plans applied through delegated responsibilities was the destination that his Government aspired to.

This autumn leading up to the December Council, promises to bring together many difficult issues and the Minister ruefully noted that they had all appeared on his watch and would all have to be dealt with.

Mackerel

A separate meeting, focused on the crisis caused by the Icelandic and Faeroes’ smash and grab tactics in the western mackerel fishery, followed.

The need to increase diplomatic and trade pressure on Faeroes and Iceland to return to abandon irresponsible tactics and the terms of an acceptable deal to bring the damaging issue to a close were discussed.

Conclusion

These meetings, informal and more formal provided an opportunity to discuss in depth, some of the main issues confronting the fishing industry. It provided a sound basis for the dialogue that will have to continue through the autumn to the December Council.