Discard Action Group - presentations

Discard Action Group - presentations from 2 April 2019 meeting are online. Next meeting likely to be October 2019.

Thank you to all those who attended the Discard Action Group meeting on Tuesday 2 April 2019. There were some really informative presentations on the implementation of the landing obligation and how to evidence compliance. In the afternoon we had selectivity at the forefront with footage of the selectivty devices being used by David Milne, Jimmy Buchan, James Stephen and Adam Robertson and this prompted an interactive Q&A session with these skippers.

All the presentations are on the Karen Green by Monday 24 June.
We are planning to hold the next DAG meeting in October 2019. Date TBC. See the revised Term of Reference for DAG here


House of Lords enquiry into the impact of the landing obligations + new regulations to note.

For the background see the reconvened House of Lords enquiry into the implementation of the landing obligation has focused attention on a number of interrelated questions:

• Is the new legislation being complied with?
• Is it reasonable to expect large tonnages of fish, previously discarded, to be landed?
• Has sufficient weight been given to changes in selectivity and fishing behaviours, prior to and since the full implementation of the landing obligation?
• What has the effect of the various mitigation measures been?

When the Committee examined the issue in November and December 2018 they found little evidence of the landing obligation being followed to date and an almost unanimous view that the UK was not ready for full implementation. Without being able to discard fish, fishers may reach their quotas much earlier in the year – particularly in 'mixed fisheries' where it will be hard to avoid catching a species for which there may be a very low quota. The Committee heard that fishers could hit their quota for some species in some areas within a few weeks of the landing obligation coming into force, forcing them to choose between not fishing for the rest of the year (which would have serious financial implications for them) and breaking the law by continuing to fish for other species and discarding anything caught over quota. The report was published on 8 February 2019 and the Government response received 4 April 2019. The Committee has been following up on the concerns raised during its earlier inquiry,

The EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee took evidence from fishing organisations and the British Ports Association on the impact of the EU landing obligation. 8 May 2019. Witnesses were: Bertie Armstrong, SFF; Pete Bromley, BPA; Barrie Deas, NFFO; Jeremy Percy, NUFFTA; and Jim Pettipher, CPO. The best way to cope with quota shortages that threaten to create choke species is to revisit relative stability and change the current quota shares that the UK receives under the CFP. As well as concerns over EU quota shares, the industry representatives called for better communication with the industry, and for the MMO to manage the discards ban better for the under-10m fleet. They emphasised how much fishermen have done in terms of changing their fishing patterns and using more selective gear, to avoid unwanted catches. The general view was that the landing obligation has not had much impact so far, and that choke species had been avoided up to now. Mitigation tools such as de minimis and high survivability had been very important in preventing early chokes, as had measures agreed at the December Council. But there was concern that problems will arise later in the year, when quotas start to be used up and quota trading and transfers become more difficult and expensive because there will be a reluctance to let quota go, both internally and internationally.

TheCommittee took evidence from the bodies responsible for enforcing fisheries legislation in England and Scotland. 22 May 2019. Witness was Phil Haslam of the Marine Management Organisation. The committee asked the enforcement agencies what steps they are taking to ensure compliance with the landing obligation and what challenges they face. Also whether the agencies believe the new rules are being fully complied with, and whether they have sufficient resources to detect non-compliance. The MMO reported that since the landing obligation fully entered into force on 1 January 2019 it had carried out 93 vessel inspections. UK authorities have detected 57 ‘issues’ around discards since the ban entered into force. The vast majority of these have been treated not as infringements of the law, but of issues needing correction; largely centered around poor data capture. Though it is called the landing obligation, there are still situations where vessels are exempt from landing every single fish they catch. Chiefly, all quota species must be landed. As of 22 May, 56 metric tons of over-quota fish have been landed by English vessels, up from 33t y-o-y -- though this was largely down to one major haul of Nephrops.

The Committee will take evidence from the Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food as part of its ongoing inquiry into the implementation of the EU landing obligation. 5 June 2019. The Committee will ask the Minister about the number of exemptions to the landing obligation that have been agreed, which will make it easier for fishers to comply but reduce the impact the legislation can have on discarding. The Committee are also likely to press the Minister on how the Government is ensuring that the rules are complied with, and ask whether a lack of compliance (coupled with the various exemptions) could result in harm to fish stocks through overfishing.


Regulations

MMO blog. Forthcoming rule changes which will affect the fishing industry. 30 May 2019.

A new technical conservation regulation is due to be introduced this summer. This regulation aims to reduce the capture of juvenile fish and minimise environmental harm. The new technical conservation regulation is much less prescriptive than the one it replaces. It has also been changed to take into account Landing Obligation rules. The text of the amended technical conservation regulation has now been agreed by European Member States and is expected to come into force during the summer of 2019. The MMO will be producing and promoting public guidance for fisheries affected by changes in these rules. In general, the aim is to encourage the use of more selective gears and to allow fishermen more flexibility in what gear they use. Larger regional baseline mesh sizes will be introduced. Smaller mesh sizes for certain fisheries are allowed, providing certain gear selectivity and bycatch requirements are met. The MMO will be issuing public guidance on the GOV.UK website.

New discard plans for certain demersal fisheries. 4 June 2019.

Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/905 of 13 March 2019 amending Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/2034 establishing a discard plan for certain demersal fisheries in North-Western waters for the period 2019-2021.

Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/906 of 13 March 2019 amending Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/2035 specifying details of implementation of the landing obligation for certain demersal fisheries in the North Sea for the period 2019-2021.

A new European policy bans the practice of discarding fish.

Controversial European policy bans ships from throwing unwanted fish overboard

Long before fillets reach your dinner plate, lots of seafood is thrown away. Overboard, actually. As fishing crews sort through their catches, they toss unwanted fish back into the sea—as much as 20% of the global catch. The vast majority die. On 1 January, the wasteful practice became illegal in waters of the European Union. Scientists believe the policy will lead to more efficient fisheries and eventually boost stocks. But in the short term it could mean hardship for the industry and perhaps even compromise fisheries data, because almost all crews can discard fish without anyone knowing. “This is one of the most dramatic changes in EU fisheries policy,” says Peder Andersen, an economist at the University of Copenhagen.

Read the The European Landing Obligation "Reducing Discards in Complex, Multi-Species and Multi-Jurisdictional Fisheries" by 
Editors: Sven Sebastian, Uhlmann Clara and Ulrich Steven J. Kennelly 

Regulators began to phase in the discard ban, formally known as the Landing Obligation, in 2015. To ease the pain, they started with vessels that didn’t discard much because they catch schools of herring and other single species. Now comes the bigger challenge: fisheries where many species live together, such as those in the North Sea. When vessels drag nets near or along the bottom, they end up with a jumble of species and sizes. Until now, vessels only kept the valuable portion of their catch. The discarding of young fish, which haven’t yet reproduced much, has been a particular impediment to sustainability. Under the ban, fishing vessels must bring back all regulated species, a significant headache. More time will be spent sorting fish, as even the unwanted ones must be tallied and brought to port. Holds will fill up faster, meaning more trips to sea and higher fuel costs. And unwanted fish will be sold for a fraction of the price of the normal catch, if it can be sold at all. The hope is that the ban will incentivise vessels to adopt more selective fishing gear or strategies.

A second problem for industry is that the ban creates the prospect of “choke species” that threaten to shut down fishing. In a fishery with a mix of species, a vessel might catch the same proportion of species each time it trawls, despite varying quotas for the allowed catch of each. Before the discard ban, this wasn’t a problem: Fishers could keep catching haddock and whiting, for example, even after reaching their cod quota. They simply threw away, legally, any new cod caught.

Now, vessels will have to stop fishing once they reach their quota for choke species like cod in some places. Haddock or whiting quotas will go unused—a lost economic opportunity. “Choke species are a huge problem,” says Daniel Voces de Onaindi, managing director of Europêche, a lobbying group in Brussels. “We’re talking about destroying boats, and unemployment.” The discard ban does exempt species, such as Norway lobster, that typically survive after they are returned to the water. And last month, EU fisheries ministers boosted quotas for five species, despite scientific advice to protect these stocks.

Still, case studies from DiscardLess, an EU-funded research project that wraps up this month, suggest the fishing industry could suffer losses on the order of 10% for several years if the ban is enforced.

Over the longer term, the discard ban will boost fish stocks and benefit the overall ecosystem, according to modelling led by Marie Savina-Rolland of the French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea, an oceanographic research centre in Lorient. That could eventually translate to higher quotas and profits, says Andersen, who co-led economic research for the DiscardLess project.

The ban could also stimulate more research on new fishing gear and tactics to avoid unwanted catches. Researchers have already shown benefits from separator trawls, which have a horizontal panel at the opening. Haddock and whiting tend to swim upward when the trawl approaches. The panel diverts them into an upper net, whereas cod and monkfish are collected by a lower net. Unwanted species can escape through an opening in the net. Equipping fishing gear with light-emitting diodes can also help reduce by-catch, DiscardLess researchers have found, by discouraging some unwanted species from entering trawl nets. But these techniques also lose some of the commercial catch, so industry has not adopted them widely. “It’s rare to get a situation where you can avoid unwanted sizes or species and not pay a penalty with the fish you do want,” says David Reid, a fisheries ecologist at the Marine Institute in Oranmore, Ireland.

More quota trading could also help industry cope. If a vessel or fleet has run out of quota to catch cod in its mixed trawls, for example, it could offer its quota of whiting to a fleet with the opposite problem. Last month, EU fisheries ministers increased pressure on nations to start trading quotas. “It’s basically banging their heads together and saying you must swap quotas for this to work,” says Andrew Clayton, who directs the Pew Charitable Trusts’s campaign to end overfishing in northwest Europe and is based in London.

Few expect all fishing vessels to obey the discard ban. “Put yourself in the boots of a fishermen who can see he will run out of quota for a species. If he does, he would have to tie up for the rest of the year. He might have to sell the boat, or sell the house,” says Barrie Deas, CEO of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations in York, U.K. “What’s he going to do?”

Scofflaws could jeopardise not just fish stocks, but also data about how they are faring. Researchers, who suggest catch levels to regulators, get their discard data largely from independent observers on just a few boats—less than 1% of the EU fleet. Observed boats are now likely to discard much fewer fish than other vessels, leaving an official undercount of the discard rate and a falsely rosy picture of how heavily stocks are fished, says Lisa Borges, a fisheries biologist who runs a consultancy called FishFix in Lisbon. “It could bring about a very big, negative change,” Borges says. “I get very worried about European fisheries management.”

Environmentalists want to toughen up enforcement by installing cameras on ships, the practice in New Zealand and a few other places with discard bans. But Voces de Onaindi says this is impractical on some vessels and raises privacy concerns. The lesson from countries where discard bans have succeeded, including Norway and Iceland, Andersen says, is that the gradual introduction of incentives and controls—to develop the economic use of unwanted fish, and create a culture of regulatory compliance—lessens conflict but can take decades to achieve.

Read here for more articles by Erik Stokstad. This was published on Jan. 4, 2019.

As the Landing Obligation looms - the Lords to investigate.

How effective is the landing obligation in tackling the wasteful discarding of fish?  

See the dull extent of the problem in this booklet.

The House of Lords will debate the coming calamity of the Landing Obligation on December 13th 2018. It might seem a little late in the day as full implementation of the LO will hit the statute books and full implementation come January the 1st, 2019. Happy New Year fishermen.

Below is just a small example that highlights the scale and severity of the situation - namely, Haddock, Sole and Cod in ICES Area 7

Written evidence can be submitted online using the form found here. The deadline is 11:59pm on Thursday 13 December 2018.

Lord Teverson, Chairman of the Committee, said:

“Reducing discards is vital to protecting the health of our oceans. Discarding is not only a waste of finite resource, as many fish do not survive, it also makes it difficult to accurately measure how many fish are actually caught.  The landing obligation requires a shift in how we monitor and enforce fishing regulations but there is a lack of clarity within the industry over its implementation and how its requirements will be managed.

“The Committee want to understand the challenges that will need to be overcome, and potential solutions to those challenges. We would really encourage those with experience or interest in these issues to share their views with us.”

Presentations from the Discard Action Group meeting 10th October 2018.

The Discard Action Group is a forum for the discussion of industry-wide problems relating to discards.

The Discard Action Group (DAG) was set up by Seafish in 2009 in light of the many initiatives being adopted by the fishing industry to reduce discards. It is a prime example of an integrated, interdisciplinary, co-operative approach to the issue, and is the only UK cross-industry group addressing the discards issue from all perspectives.

The group is indicative of the whole seafood supply chain with representatives from the catching sector, environmental non-governmental organisations, legislators, regulators, technologists, scientists, retailers, foodservice and, where appropriate, the media. It is a key forum to allow individual interests to have a voice in the debate and to explore means by which discarding can be reduced to the minimum level practicable.

The group is chaired by Mike Park, Seafish Board member and Chief Executive, Scottish White Fish Producers Association Limited. The group meets twice a year.

The Discard Action Group Terms of Reference can be read here.

All the presentations and minutes from DAG meetings are below. We have archived presentations from previous meetings and the minutes prior to 2013 but these are available from Karen Green.

The last meeting was on Wednesday 10 October 2018 in London. The presentations are below and the minutes will follow in due course. The next meeting will be in Feb/March 2019.

Seafish is undertaking a lot of work with regards to the introduction of the Landing Obligation (which will be introduced gradually, between 2015 and 2019 for all commercial fisheries (species under TACs, or under minimum sizes) in European waters. We are providing valuable services to industry and government and our coordination role in communicating about ongoing projects is limiting duplication of work. Key work areas for Seafish are: economic implications; gear selectivity; the Seafish Discard Action Group; briefings and guidance; outreach; a project to assess the impact of the LO on the UK supply chain; sectoral support; and marketing and communications.  See

For more information about the Discard Action Group contact Karen Green. To be added to the DAG mailing list to receive our monthly news update and details on the meetings please register here.

PDF versions of the presentations from 10 October 2018 meeting:

The landing obligation and the path to compliance. Barrie Deas, NFFO
Defra update on discard plans. Stella Bartolini Cavicchi, Defra
Impact of North East Atlantic Multi Annual Plans. Line Groth Rasmussen, DH MARE C1
Discards survival probabilities of flatfish and rays in North Sea pulse-trawl fisheries. VisNed/Cefas
REM scheme in the North Sea and scientific data collection. Martin Arris, Marine Management Organisation
Perspective on the introduction of cameras. Helen McLachlan, World Wildlife Fund
The Take Up of Selective Gears by Industry. Mike Montgomerie, Seafish
Overcoming Economic Barriers: The case for economic data collection. Ana Witteveen, Seafish