The National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations
Preparation for this year’s quota negotiations began in April, with preliminary discussions with Defra officials but have increased in intensity since ICES advice was published towards the end of May.
9 December 2009
A short lived third round of EU Norway talks in Bergen this week failed to rescue the annual reciprocal agreement from breakdown.
30 November 2009
The NFFO South West Committee questioned Natural England over its proposed inshore Special Area of Conservation (SAC) marine protected areas at its meeting in Exeter on 23rd November.
27 November 2009
Launch of MPA Fishing Coalition Early Next Year
The NFFO and Scottish Fishermen’s Federation recently briefed Westminster MPs in preparation for the annual fisheries debate on 1st December.
25 November 2009
The NFFO West Coast Committee brought together Bella Murfin, Defra's head of the Access to Fisheries policy team and Chief Fisheries Officers from the two North West SFCs to discuss the issues facing the sector at its latest meeting in Whitehaven on 18th November.
23 November 2009
A Commission proposal to hand itself additional powers to apply technical rules has been decisively rejected by member states at a recent Council of Ministers in Brussels.
16 November 2009
Commission Proposals “Reckless and Irresponsible”The European Commission’s proposal for new technical conservation rules is a travesty, which breaks all the principles of good governance.
NFFO Chief Executive, Barrie Deas, one of the speakers at the recent RAC conference on decision making within a reformed CFP, said:
20 October 2009
The Council of Ministers, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, adopted a 10% margin of tolerance between logbook estimate and landing declaration, as part of a new EU Control Regulation, after the NFFO and its allies put up an epic effort to block the new rule.
19 October 2009
The North Sea RAC has issued a stiffly worded press release criticising the Commission's drive to force through new legislation to beat the introduction of co-decision-making with the European Parliament.
The NFFO is calling on MPs not to allow simplistic and ill considered green lobby calls to limit the extent to which the Marine Bill will allow the livelihoods of coastal communities to be accounted for in the designation of Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs).
Members of the NFFO Executive met with the Marine and Fisheries Agency in York recently, to discuss the main areas of concern on the MFA’s operational side.
The kind of CFP reforms pressed for by the NFFO, have received a tremendous boost by this year’s Nobel prize for economics.
14 October 2009
Briefing Note on the Proposed Technical Conservation Regulation
7 October 2009
The failure of cod recovery measures in the Irish Sea and what might be done to replace the current regime, was the subject of a major meeting, held recently in Belfast and organised by the North West Waters Regional Advisory Council.
28 September 2009
The NFFO is spearheading a campaign to extract the margin of tolerance issue from the new Control Regulation.
21 September 2009
A meeting was held on Friday 18 September at the Northern Irish Parliament in Stormont
18 September 2009
As the Marine Bill concludes its final stages in parliament before passing into law, the NFFO is now entering into detailed discussions to define the secondary legislation following on from the Bill.
4 September 2009
Fishermen are more vulnerable than any other marine group, and marine protected areas had the capacity to disrupt, and even destroy fishing livelihoods.
14 August 2009
A project to assess the relative merits of alternative management approaches for the brown crab fishery is now underway and will be speaking to fishermen across the UK and Republic of Ireland over the coming weeks.
The EU exemption from using the new electronic mesh gauge expires on 1st September.
The NFFO West Coast Committee at its recent meeting held in Barrow-in Furness was given presentations on the recently launched Irish Sea Marine Conservation Zone Project and Seafish’s Responsible Fishing Scheme.
10 August 2009
The new EU Control Regulation is moving rapidly towards adoption by the Council of Ministers in October, raising fears that this hectic timetable will result in a botched job.
