GES-Work

These are the titles of European legislative initiatives that have the potential to affect where you fish, when you fish, what you are allowed to fish for and the gear that you can use.

For some time fishing’s relatively isolated position as a freestanding policy, only loosely linked to other areas of EU policy, has been on notice. This is what is meant when policy makers talk about the integration of the CFP into EU’s broad environmental and marine policies.

It is for these reasons that the NFFO makes space within its work to deal with these less immediate but still critically important issues.

The Federation met recently in London with Cefas scientists and Defra policy officials to discuss how European obligations on member states to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) would be implemented and to ensure that as fishing and environmental policies are integrated it is done in ways that take into account the realities of commercial fishing.

The policy aim is to develop a programme that set targets for achieving Good Environmental Status by mid 2012, identifies measures for achieving those targets by 2015, with implementation from the end of 2016. We are at the start of that process and the discussion is focused on the criteria – the units of measurement – that will be used to judge whether Good Environmental Status has been achieved.

This is likely to involve monitoring certain sentinel stocks or species that are deemed to indicate the health of the wider ecosystem. Once the indicators are identified there is a responsibility on the member states to implement remedial measures if there is a problem.

An important point is that the programme of measures for achieving GES must be developed with regard to cost effectiveness and to socio-economic impact. That gives some confidence that the programme will not be hijacked by environmental zealots in the Commission or elsewhere in the chain of command.

Also, unlike the Water Framework Directive, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive is based on the concept of sustainable development, which accepts that human activities have an environmental impact but works to ensure that that impact is within acceptable limits. The evidence base for determining what is “acceptable” in this context is uneven and seriously weak in some places, and the question in any case goes beyond science to value-judgements which must take into account the views broader society – of which the commercial fishing industry is a part.

All this also puts a heavy responsibility on national fishing organisations in the member states – like the NFFO- to make sure that the potential consequences of various options are fully understood by both scientists and policy makers on the one hand and the fishing industry on the other.

Good Environmental Status will be applied in the following areas:

1. Biodiversity
2. Non indigenous species
3. Fisheries
4. Food webs
5. Seafloor integrity
6. Eutrophication
7. Hydrographical Conditions
8. Pollution Contaminants
9. Contaminants in Seafood
10. Litter
11. Noise

Some of these have a greater potential to impact on fishing than others and it is clearly hoped that current policy initiatives like achieving maximum sustainable yield and the establishment of a network of marine conservation zones will deliver most if not all of what is required.

That trite but profoundly true phrase, “the devil will be in the detail” is very apt here and will be the reason why this will continue to be an important, if unspectacular, part of the NFFO’s work.