4 January 2011
2011 will be a crucial year for the fishing industry.
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.