Friday's top quality fish day!

Staff team from the award winning Harbour Lights fish and chip shop in Falmouth have come to Newlyn to see at first hand where their top quality locally sourced fish come from - and its good to see these guts have hake on their menu...

R is for Red, as in gills that is...

silver is skin, bass skin...

B is for Bass from the Butts, skippered by King Cod...

A is for Auction it begins at six...

C is for Cuttlefish, black gold to some...

bidding is brisk on the last market for the week with mainly top quality inshore fish and a few short trips from the beam trawlers that landed...

almost done and dusted, the view down the grading machine...

the scaffolding has gone up on skipper Corin's new command...

there's both sides of gear to do on the Karen...

and the old sidewinder, Anthony is being broken up and taken away in section...

D is for Dawn that breaks over the Lizard.

Is this a flare just gone up in Mount's Bay?

Hot off the press! - Catch Quota Trials 2012 - Interim Report (November 2012)

 

This interim report provides a summary of the progress of the 2012 trials, to the end of September, of catch quota management using remote monitoring and CCTV.

A total of 22 English-administered vessels are fitted with remote monitoring equipment and CCTV and are engaged in trials for a range of stocks as well as non-catch quota-related trials. The results, to date, are demonstrating that discards have been virtually eliminated for the species under trial.

So reads the first few lines of the MMOs 2012 interim report on video surveillance, sorry, monitoring of fishing vessels in the North Sea and South Western Approaches. You do have to wonder at the lengths to which fishermen have to go in order to prove they are making a legal living these days. Trying to turn things round and look at this latest ruse to monitor fishing effort in a more positive light - the video recordings may also be useful in demonstrating just how MUCH fish of so called endangered species are being caught in abundance at times!

 

Grimsby heyday of the 'three-day millionaire'

It was easy to spot a so-called "three-day millionaire" in Grimsby in the 1950s.

The moneyed men were from the town's trawling fleets and made their living working "at the hardest job in the world".

After about three weeks toiling in the fishing grounds, they would return for just three days on land to spend their hard-earned cash before going back to sea.

'Look at my money'

Their lives and other aspects of the booming Grimsby fishing industry of the 1950s are being marked in an exhibition called Fish, Ships and Rock 'n' Roll.

Local history enthusiast Alf Ludlam, 71, said: "The men would stand out in what almost amounted to a uniform.

"They would wear pale grey or blue suits with lots of pleats in the back of the jackets and baggy trousers."

And the men wore open-necked shirts as "however cold it was in town, it was never as cold as on a trawler off Iceland," he addedMr Ludlam, a museum volunteer with Grimsby Council, said the suits were a fashion statement but also a way of saying "look at my money" because the trawlermen could afford to buy a extravagant quantity of cloth.

Mr Ludlam remembers watching the men roaming his home town during the 1950s, a time when "thanks to fishing Grimsby was making more money than ever".

At its peak in that decade, Mr Ludlam said Grimsby was "the largest fishing port in the world".

The vibrancy of the fishing trade had a spin-off for the rest of the town until the mid-1970s. It was a great period to grow up in Grimsby, Mr Ludlam said, because "everything was in the melting pot".

"Fishing was Grimsby's raison d'etre - no fishing, no Grimsby, " he added.

Icelandic confrontations

The heyday for the trade lasted about 20 years but the reliance on fishing proved to be a problem for the town as the trawler fleet contracted during, and after, the two decades of the Cod Wars.

Iceland started extending its territorial limit around the island to exclude foreign vessels from the water it claimed as its own.

The limit was extended on three occasions between 1958 and 1976, each time forcing British fishing vessels further offshore.

The limit was finally extended 200 miles off Iceland.

This led to confrontations at sea between the Icelandic coastguard and trawlers from Grimsby and Hull.

Several ships were even rammed as trawlers continued to try to fish within the new limit.

'Daggers drawn'

The neighbouring fishing ports of Grimsby and Hull vied with each other in the size and skill of their trawler fleet, and the quality and quantity of fish landed.

Mr Ludlam said the ports had "always been at daggers drawn" and their fishing fleets were a source of civic pride.

He said the collapse of the trawler industry in Grimsby mirrored the similar economic and social struggle former mining towns experienced after the pits closed.

The two industries of fishing and mining were also linked by the level of danger encountered.

Mr Ludlam said: "Fishing was the most dangerous - when you set sail you didn't know if you were going to come back."

The free exhibition Fish, Ships and Rock 'n' Roll is open until Sunday January 13 at the Fishing Heritage Centre in Grimsby

Nearly one-in-10 products at major markets mislabeled; Europe’s largest department store pulls fish after ICIJ investigation

Consumers in Spain trust the mild-flavored white flesh of hake, the most popular fish in a country that eats more seafood than almost any other in Europe. Hake is considered safe for pregnant women, and kids crunch into the cod-like fillets as fishsticks.

“There’s trust because of the cultural bond,” said Cristina San Martín, head of quality and food safety at Fedepesca, a trade group representing Spanish fish retailers. “You see it from the time you’re a kid, and it also has a good price.”
What Spaniards probably don’t know is that the fish they take home for dinner might not be hake at all.


Video: The hake hoax Hake is Spain's most popular fish, but consumers aren't always getting what they think they are buying. A scientific study commissioned by the International Center for Investigative Journalists found that almost one in 10 fish purchased at markets in Spain were mislabeled. This video follows reporters buying the fish and explains why mislabeling can mask bigger problems in the oceans.

The Spanish public is being cheated by a seemingly pervasive and dangerous form of commercial fraud: Different species — including cheaper fish such as catfish from Vietnam and grenadier from the Pacific Ocean — are sold as hake in markets across Madrid. A DNA study commissioned by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found in July that nearly one in 10 fish were mislabeled. A study completed last year by the same scientists found mislabeling in nearly 40 percent of samples.

“Some of the revealed cases are really ‘cheeky’ and shockingly blunt attempts to fool consumers,” said the European Commission’s top fisheries DNA expert Jann Th. Martinsohn, who reviewed ICIJ’s methodology and findings. “And worse, they are not unique.”

Hake is big business in Spain, where sales exceed €1 billion a year. Mislabeling could bump the bottom line of companies that pass off cheap fish as higher-quality fillets, and may even mask illegal fishing, marine biologists and economists say. The European Union has strict regulations requiring that a paper trail follow fish from ship to shop. But the law doesn’t require that inspectors implement DNA testing to verify accurate labeling.

“The majority [of mislabeling] is commercial fraud,” said Ricardo Pérez, DNA expert and investigator of the Spanish National Research Council. “In recent years there’s been an increase of it, I think because companies know they’re not being watched.”

Mislabeling seafood is a global phenomenon. The environmental group Oceana reported in May that studies in different countries around the world found between 25 to 70 percent of the fish being mislabeled. In the United States, tilapia was sold as red snapper. In South Africa, mackerel was sold as barracuda. In New Zealand, protected hammerhead shark was sold as lemon shark.

Europe’s top department store El Corte Inglés pulled a batch of more than a ton of mislabeled fish from its shelves when told of ICIJ’s findings. The majority of markets that carried mislabeled fish attributed the problem to human error. And every one of the eight shops where ICIJ found mislabeled samples said it was a one-time occurrence. Authorities in Spain seemed to agree. They said they didn’t think the results of ICIJ’s study were significant enough to show a trend, or present a major threat to the public.

Almost half Spain’s consumers buy their food in or near Madrid. Yet in 2010, regional and city authorities taxed with controlling consumer goods used scientific testing to identify fish species of 59 samples — about a third the number included in the ICIJ study. One thing appears clear: Consumers are largely ignored in the equation.

“What they [authorities] answer, is, ‘will somebody die? No. Well, then it’s only money,’” said Gemma Trigueros, nutritional coordinator at the Spanish Consumers and Users Association (OCU).

What’s on your plate?

Hake is found across the globe — from Argentina and Namibia, to Ireland and New Zealand — and there are at least 12 distinct species of hake in all. Some, like southern African hakes, are cheap. Others, like European hakes, return a higher profit.

Spain imports more than 60 percent of the hake coming to the EU. So scientists at the University of Oviedo in Spain partnered with a Greek university and last December published findings of a multi-year study. Their results showed that more than one in three hake products sold in Spain and Greece were not what they appeared. Researchers identified a trend: Cheap species were sold as higher-priced European or American hake, leading scientists to deduce that companies were committing fraud.

Eva García Vázquez, the primary author, did not publish company names in her report and declined to share those with ICIJ, although she said she would have given the information to the government, had officials asked.
So ICIJ undertook a sampling in Madrid to find out if the mislabeling continued and what companies were involved. In June, reporters collected 150 hake samples from major supermarkets, fishmongers and bulk suppliers. ICIJ commissioned the experts at the University of Oviedo to conduct a blind DNA analysis of those products.

DNA testing is better known for its use in forensic analysis, publicized on TV programs like CSI. Yet the tests are today fairly simple, cheap and quick. And they have a wide range of uses. Thanks to an enzyme-based technique developed in the 1980s, scientists can obtain the DNA sequence from a fish and, by matching it to an online database, identify the species in just one day.
ICIJ’s analysis showed that 8.6 percent of samples were mislabeled. The researchers concluded that the actual level of mislabeling is likely much higher than what ICIJ’s snapshot study has documented.

'Surely Deliberate'

The most worrisome findings involved entirely different families of fish being sold as hake. Long-bodied Patagonian grenadier from the southern ocean, bulbous-eyed Pacific grenadier found off the coast off of California, and striped catfish pulled from rivers in Vietnam look nothing alike when they’re swimming. Yet as a frozen fillet, most shoppers just see white fish.

But the fish dealers can tell.

“They don’t even look alike,” said Gonzalo González, a fishmonger whose family has been selling fish since the 1920s and is president of Fedepesca. “Some are whiter than others — like detergent commercials say.” This helped experts at the University of Oviedo conclude that swapping species was “surely deliberate.”

When alerted to the ICIJ findings, El Corte Inglés, Europe’s largest department store, took immediate action to independently verify the problem. The high-end market said it conducted its own DNA analysis of seven batches of the mislabeled product and found that the samples from one shipment of 1.4 metric tons were also mislabeled. 
 
“We’ve withdrawn that entire batch from our shops,” said a spokesperson for the store. “We’re in conversations with the provider to take drastic measures.” She declined to share the provider’s identity for “confidentiality reasons,” and said El Corte Inglés has started to carry out genetic testing of fish as part of its routine quality controls.

ICIJ also encountered problems with products sold in top supermarket Alcampo from Spain’s leading fish exporter, Freiremar. Two products of its brand Nakar were mislabeled — one was a different species of hake, the other was a Pacific Ocean grenadier. Freiremar said it doesn’t regularly conduct genetic analysis “unless there’s a well-founded suspicion.” Freiremar asked the supermarket to withdraw the products identified by ICIJ’s study as Pacific grenadier “as a precautionary approach.”

All the experts who weighed in on the study said the most egregious finding was the case of Vietnamese striped catfish sold as hake by a local fishmonger, Pescados El Bierzo. This river species is criticized for higher contamination levels and lower nutritional value than other fish.

The shop is housed in a market serving immigrants in Madrid’s city center. Its manager Vicente — who declined to give his last name — said ICIJ caught a one-time error, not a widespread practice. He said various types of bulk frozen fillets are separated only by plastic sheet. The mislabeling likely occurred by a “fillet of catfish jumping into the hake area.”

Health at stake

Researchers at the University of Oviedo warned that cases where a different fish than expected is sold could cause “severe health problems to unaware consumers.”

Allergist Dr. Beatriz Rodríguez of Madrid’s Getafe University Hospital said that while normally people are allergic to fish generally, it’s increasingly common to develop sensitivity to one particular species group — like catfish. Kids are the most vulnerable.

“If I tell the mother: avoid catfish and then she buys hake thinking she’s safe, the child could have a severe allergic reaction,” she said, causing hives, diarrhea or even problems breathing. In Hong Kong, more than 600 people became violently ill in 2007 after eating what they thought was “Atlantic cod” — and turned out to be poisonous oilfish, named for the indigestible wax esters in its flesh.

Scientists warn of other health risks with fish mislabeling: pollutants, toxins and other harmful substances like mercury specific to geographic regions or species. Health officials in the EU and Spain said there are currently no health alerts caused by fish mislabeling.

National fish sells

Sergio Sánchez manages Pescados y Congelados Conchi, a bulk foreign fish shop where both of ICIJ’s hake purchases were mislabeled. He said when he buys fish for his shop, he cares about the best-by date and appearance. He said some consumers turn up their noses when told the truth about the origin of fish.
“National species sell. You tell people that hake is from Chile and they don’t want it,” Sánchez said. “You tell them shrimp is from China — and not from Huelva [in southern Spain] — and same thing.”

Supermarket chains Alcampo, Hipercor, Eroski and Carrefour each blamed a one-time error by an employee. All the markets said they adhere to strict quality controls. Carrefour said it “last year … rejected 188,909 kg (for not being correctly labeled or because they did not meet minimum size requirements).”
In the cases where more expensive European hake was billed as cheaper hake species, Alcampo said the consumer wins. “We were giving the client a product of higher quality than what the label said,” the company wrote in an email response.

Stefano Mariani of the University College in Dublin, thinks cases like this may point to another problem: overfishing. When a boat reaches its quota, it must stop targeting that type of fish. But any additional catch could be laundered into the legal market as a different fillet, Mariani reported in a study published earlier this year.

“Would you accept getting pig meat when you buy beef? Absolutely not,” he said. In a tightly controlled market like the EU he finds the problem alarming.
European hakes are subject to strict catch limits under recovery plans, a result of decades of overfishing. Meanwhile fishmongers have been complaining about the low prices they’re getting for the fish, which leads some vendors to conclude that fishermen aren’t adhering to the quotas. The Ministry of Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries denied Spanish vessels are exceeding hake quotas .

Law and disorder

EU law requires a label follow the fish from net or farm to the final vendor.
The Health and Fisheries ministries are required to verify that imports are really what they appear. The latter is also taxed with inspecting fish landed at Spanish ports. The Fisheries ministry did not provide the number of inspectors, although it said more than 200 people were involved in their entire control operations.
Neither ministry would comment on ICIJ’s findings, saying they could not “draw general conclusions.” They did not respond to questions regarding the earlier multi-year study by the University of Oviedo.

No EU law requires member countries to conduct DNA testing to find out if labels and products match. And most — including Spain — largely do not employ such testing.

Several authorities share control of tracking fish, safety and labeling in Spain. The fractured oversight allows individual authorities to shrug off blame. Regional governments oversee supermarkets, restaurants and factories. The Madrid regional and city governments administer products for a region comprised of more than 7 million people and the world’s second-largest fish market.

Yet officials there scientifically tested just 59 fish to verify the species in 2010. José Manuel Torrecilla, manager of the health authority in the city of Madrid, acknowledged they do very few tests on fish identification, but said the city plans to increase the number in coming years.

“It’s more important what causes a health risk to consumers: contaminants in fish and its freshness,” he said, pointing out that the city labs conducted about 500 tests for freshness and contaminants in 2010.

Scientist Ricardo Pérez has been conducting DNA analysis of fish for more than two decades. He said he feels frustrated because regional governments just aren’t interested in what he offers. “There’s no money for that,” they tell him.
“You develop interesting tools for governments to improve control, and it’s almost impossible to get them to do something,” he said.

The EU Commission research center recently published a study showing how scientific techniques such as DNA testing are vital to fight illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. Co-author Jann Th. Martinsohn told ICIJ the cost of scientific testing is no longer prohibitive — it can be as low as €35 per sample if you test in bulk.

Martinsohn has spoken to officials across the EU, pushing governments to implement the kind of testing that private industry has been doing for years. Spanish officials told him the Fisheries ministry only does sporadic DNA testing, while the industry group Anfaco has its own private laboratory.

Carlos Ruiz, technical and policy coordinator of Anfaco, told ICIJ its lab conducts 47,000 tests a year — about 1,000 of them being DNA analysis of the species. But they don’t share results with the government unless it’s a commissioned job paid for by officials. And those are rare.

“This is a private lab,” Ruiz said. “We’re not watchdogs of the market.”
Martinsohn lists Denmark as one of the most advanced countries in the EU on the use of DNA analysis in fisheries enforcement. The Danish Fisheries Inspectorate collaborates with the public university to conduct the testing. Inspectors there carry small toolboxes to obtain tissue.

Pérez, the Spanish researcher so frustrated with government’s disinterest, is taking his research a step further. He’s developing a test kit akin to a pregnancy test so inspectors can verify the species within minutes. But he said if governments don’t take the lead, he encourages consumers to speak up.
“I hope that if there are complaints, agencies will start answering them,” he said. “If companies know they’re not being monitored, what they’re going to do is try to make more money.”

Article courtesy of the Public Integrity web site:

Cefas Endeavour JNCC cSAC and SMPA Survey - North Sea

Below is an extract from the current Cefas Endeavour survey in the North Sea. The current set of posts have proved very informative and give an excellent insight into the daily (24 hour that is) work carried out on board. The post below, from last Sunday is of particular interest to prawn fishermen. When there was a small but active Newlyn prawn fleet the boats did not fish during darkness as the langoustine were reportedly safely tucked up in their mud borrows - not so it seems in the North Sea!

The current survey is of particular interest to fishermen as the boat is gathering data about a number of MPAs due to be implemented soon. Visit the JNCC site for more information about the designated offshore SACs here.

"Welcome to the first of our blogs from the Cefas Endeavour where we are collaborating with the JNCC to undertake survey work at a number of candidate Special Areas of Conservation (cSAC) and proposed areas for national nature conservation Marine Protected Areas (MPA) in the Fladen Grounds."

Once again, the weather has improved (for now...) and we have managed to complete our video survey of the 'Scanner cSAC'.  The seafloor habitats in and around the site largely comprise muddy sediments which are populated by a diverse range of animals which live on the seabed (commonly known as epifauna) and also those which burrow within the mud.  A species that we frequently sighted during the video survey was the Norway Lobster (Nephrops norvegicus) - also known as 'Scampi' or the 'Dublin Bay Prawn' (see below).

 

A number of other creatures were commonly sighted during the video survey and these included burrowing anemones, sea pens and the 'sand star' Astropecten irregularis (see below).

 

Having completed the remainder of the video and grab stations the wind has picked up once again (as predicted) so we have decided to use this poor weather window to transit down to the next survey area which is the 'Turbot Bank nature conservation MPA proposal'.

 

Hopefully, the wind and waves will subside during our journey south so that we can begin our survey on arrival at the Turbot Bank...

Click here to view the page on the Cefas web site and blog.

Looting the seas - Blue Charity involvement

Yesterdays post on Looting the Seas is another example of the work by Blue Charities in funding resources that impact directly on the public's perception of fisheremn as the bad guys - looting is an evocative word, more often associated with the terrible atrocities carried out around the world in the name of desperate causes - often used in conjunction with rape and pillage and designed to arouse people's ire and emotions.

 

 

Looting the seas was financed by PEW, Oak, Adessium and David & Lucile Packard foundations

ICIJ is in fact the Centre for Public Integrity

Funder	year	beneficiary	US$	Title	weblink	Purpose of the grant
The PEW Charitable trusts	2009	Centre for Public Integrity (+ ICIJ)	100 000	Looting the Seas : phase 1 Bluefin Tuna	http://www.pewtrusts.org/program_investments_grant_details.aspx?id=85899358224	To investigate the entire "chain of custody" of companies illegally depleting blue fin tuna populations to produce in-depth, global reports.
Oak foundation	2010	Centre for Public Integrity (+ ICIJ)	249 000	Looting the Seas	http://www.oakfnd.org/node/3133	To investigate and expose some of the worst excesses of fishing fleets around the world. The main objectives are to: 1) investigate the political, regulatory and legal climate in Spain; 2) launch a major investigative series by November 2011 on the role of the Spanish fishing fleet, with multiple stories and multimedia; and 3) disseminate the investigation to key stakeholders, including policymakers, regulators, NGOs and the broadest possible public audience.
Adessium foundation (NL)	2010	Centre for Public Integrity (+ ICIJ)	255 000	looting the seas ?	F990 Center of public integrity
The David & Lucile Packard foundation	2011	Centre for Public Integrity (+ ICIJ)	250 000	Looting the Seas	http://www.packard.org/grants/grants-database/center-for-public-integrity/	For an investigative report on black market fisheries along the Pacific Rim

SCAR - Fish

The Standing Committee on Agricultural Research (SCAR) in 2012 agreed on the establishment of a policy-driven strategic group with the objectives to advise the Commission and Member States on research policies and research themes in order to better coordinate and direct these activities in support of the revised Common Fisheries Policy.

Furthermore the group shall develop collaboration between Member States in order to support cost efficient science and advice.



SCAR- Fish has prepared a draft discussion paper regarding prioritising of science and innovation in support of the CPF. The paper has been sent 25 November 2012 to a number of parties responsible for management and science issues, and it is open for input until 7th January.
Comments should be short and concise and forwarded to Michael Knudsen mikn@naturerhverv.dk.

• Draft SCAR Fish Report (25 November 2012) pdf

Terms of Reference

• SCAR Strategic Working Group (SWG) on Fisheries and Aquaculture

Working documents for SCAR-Fish

• The first meeting of SCAR-Fish took place 14th June 2012.
• The report from the first SCAR-Fish meeting
• Annotated agenda from the first SCAR-Fish meeting
• A Letter from SCAR-Fish and JPIOceans to The European Fisheries and Aquaculture Research Organisation (EFARO)

Members

• List of SCAR-Fish Members (updt. 01.08.2012)

Contact

• Chair of SCAR-Fish is Mogens Schou [msc@fvm.dk]
• Assistant Michael Knudsen [mikn@naturerhverv.dk]
• Jacques Fuchs (DG Research & Innovation) [jacques.fuchs@ec.europa.eu]

Nearly €6 billion in subsidies fuel Spain’s ravenous fleet!

Decades of overfishing have left Europe’s fish stocks in peril and its fishermen in poverty. It’s an impasse paid for by EU taxpayers. Yet a proposed revision of the EU’s fishing law, hailed as sweeping reform, is rapidly losing momentum.

Flag of convenience vessel registered in Falmouth.

A look at the industry’s biggest player — Spain — shows what officials are up against. Billions of euros in subsidies built its bloated fleet and propped up a money-losing industry. All the while companies systematically flout the rules while officials overlook fraud and continue to fund offenders, an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has found.

“Spain has earned its bad reputation,” said Ernesto Penas Lado, director of policy and enforcement at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries. “The problem is others don’t have the reputation and deserve it just as much.”

Spain may not be alone. But as the EU’s most powerful fishing fleet, it is the starkest example of a failed EU policy, critics say.

The Spanish fishing industry has received more than €5.8 billion (more than $8 billion) in subsidies since 2000 for everything from building new vessels and breaking down old ships to payments for retiring fishermen and training for the next generation, an unprecedented analysis by ICIJ shows. Subsidies account for almost a third of the value of the industry. Simply put, nearly one in three fish caught on a Spanish hook or raised in a Spanish farm is paid for with public money.

ICIJ’s analysis is the first in-depth look at just how much public aid Spain has received for fishing — primarily from EU taxpayers, but also from Madrid and regional governments. The country has cornered a third of all the EU’s fishing aid since 2000, far more than any other member state. The central government doles out even more for things such as low interest loans and funding for its largest industry associations, which in turn lobby the EU for more industry subsidies, records show. Since 2000, the sector has avoided paying €2 billion ($2.7 billion) in taxes on fuel to the Spanish Treasury.

Public monies also fund a surprising range of services. More than €82 million ($114 million) has been spent to promote the fishing sector through advertising and at trade shows. After fishing vessels were hijacked by pirates in the Indian Ocean, Spain in 2009 changed its law to allow vessels to hire private security forces onboard, and then it helped foot the bill to the tune of €2.8 million.

The root of the problem, regulators say, is that out-of-control subsidies encourage countries to build up already oversized fleets that are rapidly depleting the seas.

“Fish are not an unlimited resource,” said fisheries economist Andrew Dyck of the University of British Columbia. “When the public purse is the only thing propping this industry up, we are paying for resource degradation.”

The European Commission itself recently concluded that “too many boats continue to chase too few fish.” It blamed the situation, in large part, on subsidies.

Fish, not human rights

One of the most controversial forms of public aid pays for foreign fishing licenses. With its own waters increasingly empty of fish, the EU buys rights to the fishing grounds of developing countries such as Morocco, Mozambique and the Ivory Coast.

Green groups, fishing experts and some EU politicians have criticized the agreements, saying European fishermen take advantage of poor countries that often lack knowledge and resources to protect their fish stocks. And key agreements cost more than they return on the value of fish; that is the case with Morocco, where each euro invested returns only €0.65 in value added, according to a study funded by the EU.

The Spanish industry has received more than €800 million ($1.15 billion) in foreign licenses over the past decade — about two-thirds of the EU licenses overall, according to the ICIJ analysis.

The agreements have the support of Carmen Fraga Estévez, the EU Parliament’s most powerful legislator on fisheries issues. A sharp-tongued politician with an encyclopedic knowledge of the industry, Fraga served as fishing secretary in Spain and has held a seat in the Parliament’s committee on fisheries — which she now chairs — for 17 years. Her loyalty to the industry appears to be so deep that when she had to choose between human rights and fish, she voted for the latter.

“The Fisheries Committee has to discuss fisheries issues, not human rights,” she was quoted in the press as saying when in 2009 the committee for the first time voted down a fishing agreement. Days before the vote, 157 civilians died after Guinea’s totalitarian regime opened fire on pro-democracy protesters. The agreement would have handed the Guinean government €450,000 ($639,000) a year for fishing licenses.

Fraga Estévez declined requests for interviews from ICIJ.

Spanish member of the European Parliament (MEP) Josefa Andrés Barea said the subsidized foreign fishing licenses are vital. When Spain entered the EU in 1986, very few Spanish vessels were allowed in the Union’s waters. So fishing in foreign waters was — and still is — the only way for many ship owners to make a living. And if Spain isn’t fishing, she said, less savory global players will scoop up the catch instead. "There's a fundamental problem here which is that major [fishing] powers like China will be there if we're not. And they don't have any rules,” Andrés said. “They're much more predatory than we are."

Fewer fish, poorer fishermen

EU waters are among the world’s most exploited. Scientists say three quarters of assessed fish stocks are overfished. Eels once served as a delicacy are so depleted scientists doubt they can recover despite a Europe-wide rescue plan. Irish Sea Cod, Baltic Sprat and West of Scotland herring are all on the downfall.

The trend stretches across the globe. In 2006, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that 75 percent of the world fish stocks were fished to the very limit of — or beyond — sustainable levels. In its latest report, from last year, that figure had risen to 85 percent.

“Europe has a long and dark history of overfishing,” said Boris Worm, one of the world´s most renowned marine biologists, working at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada. In a 2003 study, Worm showed that industrialized fishing has, since 1950, emptied the oceans of nine out of 10 fish longer than 20 inches such as salmon, cod and halibut.

Fewer fish mean fewer — and poorer — fishermen. Across the EU, the sector often costs taxpayers more than it produces. According to a recent report by the environmental group Oceana, at least eight countries received more money in public aid in 2009 than the value of their landed fish.

The fishing industry was the only segment of Spain’s economy that shrunk in the 2000s. The northwestern region of Galicia more than anywhere else in Europe relies on the industry — and the subsidies — to stay afloat. Yet the area lost a third of its fisheries-related jobs in the decade leading up to 2006.

In the Galician port of Vigo on the Atlantic coast, more fish pass across the docks headed for consumers’ plates than in any other port in the world. Coastal towns are riddled with signs boasting subsidized fishing projects. Politicians include the sector as a central theme in their campaigns.

The industry’s power was propelled by the 1960s push for industrialization by the fascist Franco regime. Franco himself was an avid fisherman and a Galician by birth.

“Economically the [fishing] industry is between the tomato and the potato. But politically it is more important than any other industry,” said EU’s head of fisheries control Valérie Lainé. The sector “has always been protected by the government — without the industry, Vigo would be dead, Galicia would be dead.”

The powerful Galician industry group ARVI, which boasts of its close ties to lawmakers, acknowledged that fishing wouldn’t be viable without public funding. In a recent position paper, it encouraged politicians to support subsidies to modernize outdated vessels, fish in foreign waters and build new on-shore cold storage.

Meanwhile subsidies steadily flow to the region, but sometimes only make things worse.

Víctor Muñiz has relied on fishing for decades. He used to own vessels, as did his father before him. Not anymore. Now they operate a fish processing plant in the Galician town of Meaño. The factory was renovated in 2009 with EU subsidies to process and freeze up to 300 tons of fish per hour; it was expected to employ 100 people. But the brand new machinery stands silent.

“There should be 10 trucks with mackerel here,” Muñiz said in a bitter tone as he walked through the 8,000 square meter plant in April. But within 20 days of the start of the season, most vessels had already scooped up their entire mackerel quota.

Muñiz said the quota is too low, but his major frustration is that too many factories like his were subsidized in the first place.

“You present a €2 million project, and they give you 60 percent. You’ve told them how much fish you're going to produce and what kind. Somebody should have told the processing plants: ‘No, sorry, this is the quota for mackerel.’”

Policy in Shambles

By 2006 it was clear that EU’s fishing policy was in shambles. Fleets were bloated. Stocks were crashing.

Researchers commissioned by the EU drafted a series of reviews of the community’s fisheries law — the Common Fisheries Policy, which will govern the fleet for at least a decade. One little-known document is informally called the “Frankenstein report” because of its damning conclusions. It lays the blame squarely on influence-driven subsidies: The sector would be broke without them.

Swedish Green Party MEP Isabella Lövin said the key problem of the EU fisheries policy is that it was “modeled after agricultural policy. You provide fertilizer and farming equipment, you get more vegetables. So they used the same model in fishing — you increase the number of boats, you get more fish. But it doesn’t work that way,” she said. “You end up with less fish.”

Subsidies over the past decades built a bloated EU fleet that plundered fish stocks. Efforts to reduce the capacity have focused on paying companies to break down old vessels. But that reduction has been undercut by subsidies given to modernize existing vessels, enabling them to catch more and more fish.

According to the 394-page “Frankenstein report”, EU-countries need to cut capacity in half and severely restrict — and adhere to — quotas for fish stocks to recover.

But Spanish Fishing Secretary Alicia Villauriz said policymakers must consider more than capacity. “You cannot make a statement saying: If you reduce the fleet everything will be more profitable. You'll also destroy a lot of employment.” Any transition, she said, would need to happen slowly.

That the European fleet was bloated was nothing new — calls to cut it down began in the 1980s. But the aid kept rolling in to build new ships and modernize old ones. “The sector has managed to attract more financial resources than would be justified under normal conditions,” the “Frankenstein” report said.

The EU researchers also found that groups set up to advise the Commission on a new fishing policy — largely made up of industry representatives — consider the platform “mainly as a channel for political influence, and secondly as a forum for discussion” of the new law.

In short: They were lobbying for their interests instead of trying to find solutions.

The EU-commissioned “Frankenstein” report concluded that EU policy did “not provide the right incentives for responsible fishing, or may even induce irresponsible fishing.”

Turning a blind eye

Protected stocks worth as much as $23 billon (€16.7 billion) are illegally traded worldwide every year — making the black market in fish more valuable than smuggling stolen art. Many of the players in the illicit trade set up shell companies in places that do not adhere to international conventions protecting the oceans.

Spanish nationals register more vessels to “flag-of-convenience” countries than any other besides Panama, Honduras and Taiwan — which are themselves considered nations where a ship-owner can register its boats without having to adhere to strict tax or safety requirements, and can operate without oversight.

It is rare for the Commission to take a member state to court. The EU Court of Justice — Europe’s highest court — has found Spain guilty three times of failing to implement EU fishing laws. Spain has refused to enforce catch limits, police its fleet or impose adequate punishment, the court ruled. One of Spain’s most widely criticized shortfalls is policing its port of Las Palmas on the Canary Islands off the Moroccan coast. Illegal shipments of fish plundered from West African waters regularly filter into the EU through the port, according to multiple investigative reports.

Fishing Secretary Villauriz said control in Spain is expensive because of the sheer size of its industry — more than 10,000 fishing boats, 3,084 miles of coastline and 47 major ports. “But that doesn't mean we're not taking care of our obligations in control matters” she added.

The Spanish Ministry of Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries told ICIJ that inspections have nearly doubled since 2004 to 9,323 in 2010. That’s still far from the number of inspections other countries are carrying out — the United Kingdom logged nearly 50,000 inspections in 2004.

But some things don’t appear to have changed. The number of inspectors in the port of Vigo — Europe's largest fishing port — remains the same as in 2003, when EU officials blasted Spain for the measly number of national inspectors at its ports. Today four inspectors oversee more than 700,000 metric tons of fish a year — that’s nearly 20,000 kilos of fish per inspector for every hour of every day of the year, including Christmas.

Subsidized offenders

Spanish officials, like those in many other EU countries, do not take into account whether its nationals have been involved in the illegal fishing trade before doling out public aid.

Neither Spain nor the EU will make public information about offenders who have been fined for illegal fishing — also called Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing (IUU). But a sliver of insight can been gleaned from a database of appellate court rulings. ICIJ reviewed every court case adjudicated since 2000 in which subsidized companies unsuccessfully appealed fines imposed by the Spanish government. In more than 80 percent of cases in which the appellant could be identified, firms continued to receive subsidies after the court had upheld penalties, the analysis shows.

There’s only one case in which the ministry of fisheries tried to prevent a company from receiving subsidies, according to ministry officials.

That Spanish ship-owner so exemplifies the quagmire as to make it a near cliché. Government officials and international regulators have repeatedly targeted Vidal Armadores for its alleged involvement in a decade-old international network of pirate fishing vessels, court and law enforcement records show. Brussels demanded multiple times that Spain recover subsidies and “take action against” Vidal Armadores. At least through 2010, however, Spain and the EU continued to pay the firm — at least €8.2 million ($12 million) since 1996. Last year the government finally fined the company and cut off aid, but the case is pending appeal.

In an interview with ICIJ, one of the firm owners, Manuel Antonio Vidal Pego, denied allegations of illegal fishing and said the company was entitled to the subsidies it received.

Like Vidal Armadores has in the past, seafood giant Pescanova targets Patagonian toothfish — sold in the U.S. as Chilean sea bass. Unlike Vidal Armadores, Pescanova is a member of an association that fights illegal fishing. In Spain, it boasts a trusted motto: “Lo bueno sale bien,” translated as “Good things go well.” But the company has its own troubles.

Last year Pescanova’s U.S. subsidiary pleaded guilty to illegally importing $1.2 million worth of toothfish. While that case — nicknamed “Operation Toothless” — was pending, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a second investigation into another allegedly illegal importation. The status of the second investigation is unknown.

Pescanova is one of the Europe’s three largest seafood companies, with a fleet of around 100 boats fishing worldwide and annual sales of €1.53 billion (more than $2 billion). Yet, since 1995 the company has pulled in more than €175 million ($250 million) in subsidies, according to the ICIJ analysis.

Pescanova repeatedly declined requests for interviews from ICIJ. “We've had 50 years of positive history,” said spokesman Angel Matamoro during a brief phone exchange. “I don't think you're asking about themes that will promote our image.”

Regarding the U.S. investigations, he said, “Whatever we had to say, we said it to the U.S. court. The company follows scrupulously the law in every country it’s in.”

Another firm that broke the law and continued to receive aid is Albacora, one of the largest tuna companies in Europe. The company’s boat Albacora Uno last year was fined $5 million — the largest fine in U.S. history — for illegally placing fishing gear in U.S. waters multiple times during a two-year period. The boat was built with subsidies and used subsidized fishing licenses. And even after the U.S. fined the firm, Spain granted Albacora €1.8 million ($2.6 million) worth of subsidies to fish in foreign waters.

The Spanish ministry of fisheries told ICIJ it had fined Albacora but will not deny the company further aid.

Albacora director Jon Uria said the 67 infringements were an “isolated” incident. The company was unaware of the infractions, he said, until the U.S. government alerted executives. In his view, the fine was disproportionate to the offense.

A Radical Reform?

Javier Garat is the Spanish industry’s most visible and eloquent lobbyist. He was born into the family that cofounded Albacora. Garat is now a shareholder of the company, but he says that doesn’t influence his lobbying.

In his meetings with officials, he often requests subsidies for the sector. “That money has generated wealth,” he said. “It’s been used to modernize an obsolete fishing sector” so that today “we have better, more modern, more secure vessels.”

Garat heads Spain’s powerful lobbying group Cepesca as well as the Europe-wide industry group Europêche — both of which operate with EU subsidies. In the halls of the ministry of fisheries in Madrid, the word is that Garat will be appointed Spain’s next fishing secretary.

Following closed-door meetings at the ministry in April, Garat and Spanish Minister of Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries Rosa Aguilar announced that the ministry and Cepesca were devising a “common roadmap to defend Spanish interests” in the overhaul of the EU fishing policy.

After two years of deliberation, the European Commission presented its proposed legislation in July. No one but the Commissioner herself appears satisfied with the draft. But the negotiations have just begun. Political alliances and lobbying will determine the final language to be voted upon before the law goes into effect January 1, 2013.

Garat called the reform draft “cowardly.” He said the Commission succumbed to pressure from environmentalists and biased media “without taking into consideration the repercussions on the fishing sector.” In his view, the state of the fish stocks is not as “catastrophic” as Commission officials appear to believe.

Yet it seems the industry’s efforts have staved off its worst nightmares.

Nothing came of ambitions to make overfishing a crime, as happened in the U.S. under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, or to require quotas be consistent with what scientists say is biologically sustainable. There was no proposal on how to limit the oversized fishing fleet or to implement quotas in the fishing agreements with foreign countries.

EU’s top fisheries official Commissioner Maria Damanaki told ICIJ her proposal is “radical.” She said Brussels will stop directly subsidizing the industry. “Now we are going to give money in a very prudent way and under very strict conditions,” she said. “And we are going to ask for paybacks in the case of illegal fishing.”

Damanaki also highlighted proposed changes in the fishing partnership agreements. “We are going to call them sustainable fisheries agreements because we're going to fish only for the surplus — if there is any surplus,” she said. “Also, we're going to respect human rights in these areas.”

Given the hype, Green party MEP Lövin said, “I had expected a clause on human rights.” But the human rights clause originally in the legislative text was missing from the final proposal.

Lövin ran for office on a ticket pledging to change the fishing policy. She said the proposal is a lot less radical than she had hoped — especially as the coming negotiations will water it down even more. “The law can´t allow for politicians to compromise with the environment when long-term environmental goals clash with short-term profit,” she said.

Ernesto Penas Lado, director of the European Commission’s fisheries policy unit, said the mindset in Spain and among fishing nations globally is that no single country feels responsible for the fate of the fish in the sea.

“It’s the tragedy of the commons,” he said. “Because the resources belong to no one, they belong to everyone.” In the EU, 27 countries have to come to a consensus on a common fishing policy. There’s no mentality of making a sacrifice for preservation, Penas said. “People think: Whatever I do not fish, my neighbor will.”

David Cabo (Spain), Fredrik Laurin (Sweden) and Brigitte Alfter (Denmark) contributed to this story.