21 February 2014
Midnight January 1st 2016 marks the embarkation date for the EU discards ban for our demersal fisheries. Like the Titanic, it is doomed to collide with some hard realities.
With fatal
design flaws and a course that will lead it through treacherous waters, the EU
landings obligation is a high-risk gamble that has great potential for
catastrophe. Like the Titanic, where the expectations and aspirations of the
owners set up time pressures that precluded a much safer course to the
destination, the European co-legislators and the Commission have created a dangerous
path to the objective of low discard fisheries. At risk are all the gains that
have been made over the last 10 years in putting European fisheries on a sound
and sustainable footing.
Those design flaws include:
- A rushed timetable for
implementation; the Norwegian experience suggests that an incremental and
adaptive approach is required to resolve the multiple issues associated with
the biggest change in the history of the CFP
- Signs that the clean sweep of
all discard generating rules within the CFP, prior to the application of the
discard ban will be inadequate and incomplete
- Imposing an obligation on EU fleets which
requires Norway’s agreement on critical elements to make it workable
- Applying a discard ban before
serious data deficiencies have been
resolved
- Embarking without a plan on how
to deal with choke species (where the premature exhaustion of one (often
bycatch)species prevents uptake of the main economic species
- Unreasonable and unachievable requirements
that crews provide “detailed and precise records” of every last fish discarded,
when even “experts” can have problems distinguishing between species on deck
- Devolving implementation
responsibility to the regional level but then imposing unachievable conditions.
Like the Titanic, the discard ban is a grandiose, eye-catching initiative. The
great white ship impressed those who knew little or nothing about ship design, navigation
or seamanship; similarly, fishermen, scientists, control authorities and
fisheries administrators, have all voiced their concerns about the
implementation of the new discard legislation. Agreed in a maelstrom of
publicity as the centrepiece of the CFP reform, even some environmental NGOs are
now backing away from the monster that they have helped to create and set on
course towards the ice fields.
Like the
Titanic, the owners of the discard ban will be miles away and long gone when
tragedy strikes. Commissioner Damanaki,
TV celebrities, MEPs and ministers who created the bandwagon will no longer be
there to take responsibility. Some ministers, including our own, have already
gone, and more MEPs and the Commissioner will leave the stage this year –
having milked all the credit possible for the media-inspired policy and leaving
the policy to make its fateful rendezvous with the iceberg.
A Change of Course?
A change of course could save the ship even at this late stage, despite its
grievous design flaws, by navigating away from the danger zone. Member states
have the scope and responsibility to design and shape regional discard plans in ways that could reduce the risks.
Altering course through exemptions and quota flexibilities, by applying a
pragmatic control regime and by facing down some of the more poorly thought-through
aspects of the owners’ demands, could save the vessel even at the 11th hour.
There is much
to be said for regionalisation of the
CFP. It offers a means to at least begin to break away from the
over-centralised command and control approach which lies at the heart of so
many of the CFP’s failures. But to confront regionally cooperating member
states on their first outing with mission
impossible – the implementation of the discard ban – could look like a
devious plan by the Brussels technocracy to discredit decentralisation; a plot
beyond even the most swivel-eyed conspiracy theorist.
But regionally cooperating member states, working with stakeholders in the
advisory councils, is all that lies between an industry and policy moving at
full-speed towards the iceberg. That is why with our own fisheries department
in DEFRA, in the regional advisory councils and in discussions with scientist
in ICES and STECF, the NFFO has been working assiduously to secure a post-2016
regime that is consistent with the viability of the industry and which does not
squander the hard won gains made in recent years.
Pilots and Preparation
We are also
urging a dramatic expansion in funding and quota availability to undertake
pilots and trials that will allow us to anticipate the choke species – and
develop solutions consistent with the landings obligation.
One of the central issues which will determine the fate of the discard ban, and
the fishing industry’s attitude to it, will be the scale and sequence of the
quota uplifts to cover fish previously discarded. Given the extent of data
uncertainties, this has to be a central worry and we are arguing vigorously for
a thoughtful rather than a fingers-crossed
and hope for the best approach.
Follow that Ship?
Before the discard ban hits its main target – the mixed demersal fisheries – the
landings obligation will be applied to the pelagic fisheries from 1st January
2015.
Whether there will be lessons learnt from this experience and whether they will
be the right kind of lessons is a moot point. Pelagic fisheries certainly
present a lesser challenge than the mixed demersal fisheries but that it not to
say that there are no problems. Lessons will surely be learnt but is doubtful
that this will provide a helpful overall template for whitefish.
Unnecessary Voyage
One important
omission in the extensive and intense media coverage of discards has been that
before it hit the headlines, discarded fish was a problem progressively
reducing in size. Discards in the English fleet for example had reduced by 50%
in the previous decade and there is every reason to believe that this progress
would continue. Similar initiatives and
trends have taken place in other parts of the UK and in other member states.
Admittedly,
the CFP needed a shake up to remove all the legislation that currently helps to
generate discards – the catch composition rules and effort control spring to
mind – but this could have been approached in a different manner. Even in
Norway, where a discard ban has been applied pragmatically and incrementally
over 20 years, the evidence is that discarding still takes place at some level,
possibly as high as 15%. That is great progress from over 50% but it is not
zero. At least with an incremental approach there is a chance to adjust to
address the inevitable problems as they arise.
North Sea Realities
It’s been a while since there were icebergs in the North Sea but there are
certainly plenty of potential complexities and pitfalls in implementing the
landings obligation there.
The emerging statistics on the North Sea discard pattern are instructive. 40%
of the catch in the North Sea is discarded. Of that 40%, 80% is comprised of
two species: plaice and dab. Plaice (depending on a range of factors) is
estimated to have a 60% survival rate when returned to the sea. Does it make
sense to retain on board and land (dead) plaice in those circumstances,
depriving the biomass of that 60%? Is this not a prima facie case for a high survival exemption?
And the reason that dabs are discarded is that there is low market demand for
them. This is somewhere that celebrity chefs and their TV programmes could
actually do some good.
All this illustrates that the discard ban is going to be anything but
straightforward. Even before we get to the problems associated with exemptions
there are the issues of inter-species flexibility, choke species and
negotiating TAC arrangements for shared stocks with Norway.
Western Waters Complexities
If anything, the complexities are even greater in Western Waters, the seas
traversed by the Titanic on its fateful voyage. There are certainly more data
limited stocks in these fisheries, notwithstanding the close collaborative work
undertaken between ICES and the North West Waters RAC. And the fisheries are
much more mixed, raising multiple questions about quota uplift and choke
stocks. Much work remains to be done.
Disaster Averted?
Despite the parallels with the Titanic there is still time to steer the
landings obligation clear of the ice. It will not be easy, constrained as we
are by the owners’ orders. But if the captain has the courage and skill to set
a new course and to challenge, and if necessary defy, his superiors, there is a
chance that disaster can be averted.