29 June 2012
Signs of a less dogmatic approach to the application of MSY in mixed fisheries may be emerging from the European Commission.
To date the Commission’s public statements have focused on achieving MSY by 2015 in absolute terms, with no real acknowledgement of the real obstacles and practical difficulties of applying such an approach in mixed fisheries. Fisheries scientists however, have repeatedly pointed to the fact that MSY was developed as a management idea in relation to single stock fisheries and faces serious limitations when applied to mixed fisheries.
At a recent consultative meeting in Brussels, attended by the NFFO, the Commission indicated that it recognised the mixed fishery issues and would be pursuing a ‘proportionate and intelligent’ solution. At its most blunt an MSY approach could trip up over choke stocks, (relatively minor species caught as by-catch which, in a rigid set of arrangements, could close mixed fisheries down with serious socio-economic consequences).
A ‘proportionate and intelligent’ approach to MSY in mixed fisheries would find ways of providing protection for vulnerable stocks whilst avoiding a blunt lowest common denominator approach. Such an approach would find support with the industry in the identification of measures such as avoidance plans whilst avoiding disproportionate closures.