You can take part live in the Bi-Annual Scottish Fishing Conference 2018

This year's Scottish Fishing Conference will be livecast over the internet - this means anyone, anywhere can take part live.  Why not get together with a group of people arrange at your local fishermen's mission or other centre (internet-abled pub, training centre, college) who can show the event on a big screen?

This is the final Programme for the Bi-Annual Scottish Fisheries Conference on the 9th & 10th July. 

Many blog readers will be unable to make the long (and expensive in terms of travel cost and more importantly time) trip up to Scotland might be interested to know that this year they catch it online!

Save the livecast link https://www.mindfullywired.org/live-streaming-basfc18 in your online calendar with a reminder so that you can be there virtually.  Anyone can ask direct questions to any of the speakers using the chat box in the bottom right hand corner of the screen via the conference organisers.  You can also follow the conference speakers using the Twitter hashtag, #BASFC18 and ask questions to @fiscotorg

All the sections that are being live-streamed (everything apart from the breaks) are highlighted in yellow.

Please share the agenda, live stream link and hashtags to anyone with an interest in the conference agenda items. We’d like as many people joining online as we can. We’ll be taking questions on twitter but we’ve also set up a function to take questions online, which will be put to the speaker/panel at the appropriate time.

As you can see FIS have keynote speeches from the Faroese FM and a senior representative from the Norwegian Fisheries Department,

All the details you’ll need are here - share them with a friend:

Live stream link: https://www.mindfullywired.org/live-streaming-basfc18 - the chat function in the bottom, right-hand corner will allow participants to submit questions and comments in real-time.

Hashtag: #BASFC18
Twitter handle: @fiscotorg

20 YEARS BEFORE UK CAN FULLY LEAVE EU COMMON FISHERIES POLICY – BLUE LAUNCHES BREXIT FISHERIES REPORT

BLUE partnered with Fishmongers’ Hall in London to host a seminar for the UK fishing industry to hear from a panel of trade, policy and political experts on the likely outcome of Brexit negotiations for UK fisheries and seafood sectors.

Speakers’ observations included:

• As all EU fisheries law becomes UK law after Brexit, it will likely take around 20 years for all EU law to be changed or removed, if at all.

• While fisheries is a card for the UK to play in negotiations, it is unlikely that it will be played for the benefit of UK fishing. Fisheries will likely be traded to secure better terms for a larger sector of the UK economy.

• All food products (including fish) entering the single market can only enter via specific border inspection posts (BIPs). Calais and Eurotunnel currently have no BIP facilities. If the UK leaves the Single Market, EU countries will have to build BIP facilities. UK food exporters will need the transition period to ensure no interruption to trade while these facilities are prepared.

Speakers included:

Charles Grant (Centre for European Reform)
Sam Lowe (Centre for European Reform)
Maddy Thimont Jack (Institute for Government)
Andrew Oliver (Andrew Jackson Solicitors)
Richard Barnes (University of Hull)
Andrew Kuyk (UK Seafood Industry Alliance)

To download a copy of the report click here.

To see video of all speeches click here.

June 24, 2018 by Blue Marine Foundation

Concarneau community combats changing fortunes to preserve the port's fishing heritage

Here's a good news story from Concarneau, Penzance's twin-town in Brittany where changing circumstances are adversely affecting the fortunes of the once great fishing port. 

Looking beyond quotas, rules and regulations, the fishing community in Concarneau, Penzance’s twin town, is looking at other ways to protect its fleet of small fishing boats. A petition has been set up on the change.org website and has already received 266 signatures. Rather than just complaining about the situation, the organisers have put forward a series of proposals to ensure Concarneau remains an active port and stresses that fishing can also attract tourists to the area. 

Among their ideas a public-private partnership to modernise the facilities in the port and the possibility of day boats selling their crabs, lobsters and fish directly to customers. They believe that this would not only benefit those involved in the sector, but also make Concarneau more attractive to visitors, suggesting that a cooperative seafood restaurant be set up to stress the quality of local produce. 

Newlyn needs to remind itself that in order to reap the most rewards from its key role as the largest fishing presence in Cornwall where tourism is by far the county's biggest industry it shoulds also be looking at engaging more proactively with the tourism industry. Ironically, one of the moves planned by the Breton port has already been championed here in Newlyn, - #DrecklyFish took the bull by the horns when four like-minded inshore fishermen got together and, with the help of a sound understanding of social media and technology, set up direct selling their catch to the public! Men of the smaller boats working from Newlyn and all the small coves around the coastline provide a very real face for the holidaymaker to engage with.

Meanwhile, like the rest of the coast of Western Brittany, the town has been exposed to the heavy Atlantic swell with rivers bursting their banks and high tides flooding over sea defences with the authorities closing coastal roads this weekend with 8-9 metre high waves set to batter the coast again this evening. The port of Guilvinec is experiencing similar weather conditions caught on the Thalassa web cam.

Q&A: Eat that fish! When overfishing is also sustainable

Many of us think that if a fish species is overfished we probably should be wary about choosing it at the supermarket or on the restaurant menu. But the opposite may be true. Our boycotting of some overfished species may be hurting us and the American fish industry, not the fish. This counterintuitive opinion is laid out by Ray Hilborn, professor of aquatic and fishery sciences at the University of Washington, and co-author of Overfishing: What Everyone Needs to Know. Hilborn holds that the public, food retailers, NGOs and congress have misunderstood what defines a sustainable fishery. In fact overfishing and sustainable can, oddly enough, go together. SmartPlanet caught up with Hilborn in Seattle, WA to get a better understanding of this paradox and why he thinks a fish boycott doesn’t make sense. 


 SmartPlanet: What are red listed fish? Ray Hilborn: Red lists are advice that a number of NGOs provide on what species of fish one should avoid eating. 


 SP: And Whole Foods stopped selling such fish based on these red lists? RH: Yes Whole Foods made a commitment to not sell any food that’s on the red list of the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Blue Oceans Institute. 


 SP: And other stores and restaurants have done similar things? RH: Yes red lists are widely used. 


 SP: What are the criteria for red-listed fish? RH: The three criteria that most NGOs use. One is status with respect to overfishing. The second is concerns about bycatch. So if you have a fishery that is catching a significant number of turtles, or sharks, or other species they’ll often get red-listed. Finally there are concerns about the environmental impacts of fishing, particularly concerns about trawl nets, or nets that touch the bottom and change bottom habitat. 


 SP: But you have made the point recently that if a species is overfished it doesn’t necessarily mean that it can’t be sustainable. And this seems counterintuitive. People might say well red lists sound more like the right thing to do. RH: There’s an enormous lack of understanding about what sustainability really is. Essentially sustainability has nothing to do with the abundance of the fish and much more about the management system. So if you’re managing it in a way where if it gets to low abundance you’ll reduce catches and let it rebuild. That’s clearly sustainable. You can have fish that are overfished for decades but still be sustainable. As long as their numbers are not going down they are sustainable. Some of it is “overfished” with reference to the production of long-term maximum yield. It doesn’t imply declining and it doesn’t imply threat of extinction. 


 SP: And even if it falls into this latter category that you just described it should be safe for consumers to eat? RH: So long as it’s in a management system like the U.S. where when stocks get to low abundance we dramatically reduce catches, and the evidence is they then rebuild. Then yes, those stocks are perfectly sustainable. 


 SP: What about this issue of bycatch? RH: OK, so the NGOs will say, “Oh this stock is not sustainable because there is bycatch of sharks.” Well the stock is sustainable. Every form of food production has negative impacts on other species. And that’s where there’s an enormous double standard applied to fish. For instance, I guarantee you there’s a big environmental impact of buying soybeans that come from cutting down rainforest. There’s a much higher standard applied to fisheries than almost anything else we eat. 


 SP: What goes into creating a sustainable fishery? RH: The first thing is you have to monitor the trend in the stock. You have to have a system based in good science, that says this stock is going down. Then your management actions have to respond to the trend. 


 SP: What about foreign fish? Which ones can we eat? RH: Much of the fish of the world do not qualify as sustainable because we just don’t know what’s happening in other countries like Africa or Asia. Now, very few fish from those markets makes their way to the U.S. market. But some of the Atlantic cod populations in Europe are still fished much too hard. But the big propulsions in Europe are actually quite sustainable. Much of the cod that make it to the U.S. are coming from Iceland or Norway where the stocks are in good shape. 


 SP: But how do you tell the difference if it’s cod coming from an overfished area? RH: Well, that is a major problem. But if it’s Marine Stewardship Council certified you can be pretty sure that it’s what it claims to be. Personally, I tend to buy a pretty narrow range of fish that come from my region, like salmon, halibut, and black cod. And pretty much all of those are MSC certified. 


 SP: You mention that the boycott on sustainably caught fish does nothing for conservation. RH: You can boycott this all you want, it’s not going to affect what’s caught. Because for these overfished stocks enormous effort is being taken to catch as little as possible and it’s not the consumer market that drives the amount of catch. Those fish are going to be caught and they’re going to be sold because there are a lot of markets in the world that don’t care about classification and red lists, essentially all of Asia, which is the world’s biggest seafood consuming market. The places that consumer boycotts might have an effect is for fish like bluefin tuna or swordfish. 


 SP: Well if boycotting makes no difference, is there a negative side to boycotting? RH: My real target is to tell retailers and the NGOs, “Look, let’s get more reasonable about what we mean by sustainability.” 


 SP: And we need to get more reasonable about the definition of “sustainability” because there are real economic dangers to the fishing industry? Or is it because of something else? RH: Yes, that’s certainly one of the issues. Let’s not punish these fishermen who have paid a very high price to rebuild these stocks. Let’s let them sell what they’re currently catching. 


 SP: So it seems the word “overfished” is also more nuanced? RH: Well I think Congress had this very naïve view that somehow you could manage every stock separately and if cod is depleted, at low abundance well we stop fishing it, but they don’t appreciate the cost of all the other species that we could not catch because we can’t catch those species without also catching some cod as bycatch. Now, there’s a lot of work going on to try to solve that problem. But I it’s important to convince people that we will always have some overfished stocks. And if we continue with our current U.S. statement that ‘no stock shall be overfished’ we’re going to have to give up a lot of food production. We’re certainly doing that now. 


SP: You’ve also argued that fish is a food we need? RH: If we don’t catch certain fish with trawl nets, and let’s say it’s twenty million tons, then that food is going to be made up some other way. And what’s the environmental cost of the other ways of producing the food? My initial calculations suggest that it is quite a bit higher. We should always be saying, “Well if we don’t eat this, where else is the food going to come from, and what’s the environmental cost of that?” 


 SP: So you ultimately feel that the marketing of these red lists has gotten to the point where it’s lost rational sense? RH: Yes. I’m pretty convinced that seafood production is more sustainable than growing corn in Iowa or wheat in Kansas. Because growing corn in Iowa forces us to lose topsoil every year. In another 200 years the topsoil will be be largely gone. Is that sustainable?

By Christie Nicholson | May 30, 2012, 7:17 AM PDT

Fishing People of the North: Cultures, Economies, and Management Responding to Change

Open publication - Free publishing

With the coverage of commercial fishing popularised on TV through shows like the Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel conference like the one above should attract a huge following. It would be good to see a similar event take place in the UK that addresses the same issues in a pan european context - the response to change is every bit as crucial here in the UK as elsewhere in the world. This is a document that would make good reading for the current harbour commissioners as the future of Newlyn as a fishing port depends to some degree on their vision of the future and how the harbour intends to manage its responds to change.

The international symposium is a forum for scholars, fishery managers, fishing families, and others to explore the human dimensions of fishery systems and the growing need to include social science research in policy processes. It will be a place for sharing what we have learned about the opportunities and constraints that fishing people in northern countries encounter in a time of significant environmental, social, and economic change. Diverse panels and presentations will address sources and effects of external impacts on fishing people and their communities.

27th Lowell Wakefield Fisheries Symposium

Hilton Downtown Anchorage Hotel
Anchorage, Alaska
September 14–17, 2011
Contact: Courtney Carothers, clcarothers@alaska.edu