There are at least 67 scallop trawlers currently vying for room...
to fish for scallops in the Bay de Seine - there may be many more who do not have AIS fitted to their vessels - as it is not compulsory for vessels under 15 metres - though many do for security purposes.
at the moment there are just a handful of big UK scallopers fishing outside the 12 mile limit.
After the appalling weather last week, there's a small fleet of UK scallopers fishing for scallops outside the 6 mile limit in the Baie de la Seine this week...
each boat works a very tight set of tows...
which cover a relatively small area..
while inside the 6 miles a large fleet of small French scallopers are busy.
The UK and France have failed to agree a deal to end a dispute over scallop fishing in the English Channel. Crews clashed in the waters last month over laws that allow British boats to gather scallops year-round, but places restrictions on French vessels. The two sides had agreed on the principles of a deal earlier this week, but were unable to finalise it during negotiations on Friday. A government spokeswoman said discussions were continuing. Further talks have been proposed for Tuesday, but the meeting has not yet been confirmed.
Radio 4's Today coverage early this morning on the so called, 'Scallop Wars' meeting in London today. Talks will be held in London later in a bid to resolve tensions between French and British scallop fishermen. The British fish producer organisation will meet with their French counterparts and Defra officials to try and find a solution. Around 40 French boats clashed with five UK craft last week in a row over scallop fishing off northern France. British crews said rocks, smoke bombs and other projectiles were hurled at them during the confrontation. French agriculture minister Stephane Travert said on Tuesday that France's navy was ready to intervene to prevent further clashes. He told French broadcaster CNews: "We can't keep going on like this. We can't keep having skirmishes like that. "The French navy is ready to step in if more clashes break out, as well as carrying out checks." UK boats are entitled to fish in the scallop-rich area of the English channel, 12 nautical miles (22km) off the Normandy coast, in the Bay of Seine. However, their presence has angered the French, who have accused the British of depleting shellfish stocks. Environment secretary Michael Gove says the UK boats were fishing legally and that it is for the French to take any steps needed to prevent violence in the area. Mr Gove said last week: "These are French waters, it's the responsibility of the French to ensure that those who have a legal right to fish can continue to fish uninterrupted." While Defra says there is no ministerial involvement in today's talks, Downing Street has said both sides are hoping for an "amicable" solution from the meeting between officials and industry representatives. Prime Minister Theresa May's official spokesman said: "The important thing is that there are talks taking place between the two sides. "I think everybody - ourselves and the French government - is hoping that this will reach an amicable outcome." French fishermen have clashed with their British counterparts off the coast of Normandy in a dispute over scallops. But what are the relevant rules? Scallops are among the more valuable shellfish, coveted for their delicate taste. They're causing trouble in the Channel, where French fishermen say UK rivals are "pillaging" stocks off the coast of Normandy. British fishermen say they are operating within the law and that French boats have no right to try to stop them dredging in the Baie de Seine area. Scallops - the broader picture: Under the European Union's Common Fisheries Policy registered fleets from any member state have equal access to EU waters. But each country has powers to limit the access that fleets from other EU countries have to waters within 12 nautical miles of its own coastline. This means France can impose restrictions on UK and other non-French EU boats operating within this zone, but not beyond. But - amid stated concern over the level of scallop stocks - France operates an extra law that applies only to its own fleets. This allows them to dredge the Baie de Seine (some of which is less than 12 nautical miles off the French coast, and some of which isn't) only during a "season" lasting from 1 October to 15 May. So, UK fleets can dredge the area lying more than 12 miles off the coast at this time of year. French fleets, because of their own country's law, can't do this until the season starts next month. French fishermen say this is unfair, arguing that ships from other EU countries are getting an advantage over them. But the UK's Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs points out that, overall, French fleets make far more money from catches in UK waters than vice versa. In the past, the UK and France have worked out what the European Commission called "common management measures" for harvesting scallops, but this has not been repeated this year, amid increasing acrimony. The commission said it was "in the interest first and foremost of the fishermen" to come to a new agreement. France24 reported news of the meeting this way: British and French fishing groups will hold talks Wednesday to avert new clashes between their vessels, after tensions flared last week in scallop-rich waters near Normandy and as Brexit looms on the horizon. The meeting in London, facilitated and attended by government officials from both sides, will see scallop industry leaders discuss access to stocks of the pricey delicacy in the Seine Bay. "We're going to have to work on this, because this situation cannot continue," French Agriculture Minister Stephane Travert told CNews television on Tuesday. "We can't have clashes like this," he said, calling for the "sustainable and efficient management of scallop stocks". Tensions boiled over last Tuesday when five British vessels sparred with dozens of French boats in the sensitive area, with video footage showing fishermen from both sides ramming each other. The latest skirmish in the long-running so-called "Scallops Wars" has led to France placing its navy on standby to deal with any further confrontations. It comes as Britain prepares to leave the European Union -- and its common fisheries policy which sets catch quotas and other restrictions for member states -- next March. With British fishermen heavy backers of Brexit, "we must recognise that tensions are reviving," added Travert, who warned the industry should not be used as a bargaining chip between London and Brussels. "We want a global accord, and do not want to see fishing treated separately, because fishing should not be a variable for adjusting Brexit," he said.
The recent clashes in the Channel between UK and French fishing vessels over scallop grounds highlight a number of important issues. The most important of these is that, whatever the rights and wrongs of disputes over fishing rights, it is never permissible to resort to intimidation and violence. There have been many fishing disputes in the past and doubtless there will be many in the future. French and British boats clashed earlier this week in video captured by France 3.
The correct place to resolve these is around the table, not on the high seas using flares, bottles stones and shackles to intimidate crews. Our vessels were forced to withdraw from the disputed area as skippers feared for the welfare of their crews. The issues this week led us to raise the matter with the British government.
We asked for protection for our vessels, which were fishing legitimately as part of their work in the UK scallop industry, which is worth £120m and supports 1,350 jobs. While the clashes off the coast of Normandy have made headlines around the world, it is worth noting that every day of the week many French fishing vessels fish within UK waters, sometimes as close as six miles from the coast, much to the annoyance of British fishermen.
On many occasions, UK fishermen have been tied up, quotas exhausted, as French vessels with their much more generous allocations have continued to fish in sight of land. The French share of Channel cod is 84 per cent. The UK share is nine per cent. This has been intensely frustrating but at no time have British fishermen resorted to intimidating or violent tactics. Only last week, French trawlers - not for the first time - towed away crab pots set Cornish fishermen only eight miles from the UK coast. This provocation was met with fury and protests by our fishermen but also restraint.
The UK’s departure from the European Union, and therefore from the Common Fisheries Policy, will be a game changer. It is true, as the local French fishermen engaged in the Baie de Seine dispute claim, that after Brexit UK vessels will have no longer have an automatic right of access to fish in this area because it is located within the French Exclusive Economic Zone. Their French colleagues along the coast will not, however, miss the much bigger implication. As the UK will (automatically) become an independent coastal state when the UK leaves the EU, French vessels will no longer have an automatic right to fish in the UK Exclusive Economic Zone. As the European fleets currently catch around six times as much in UK waters as UK vessels catch in EU waters, they rightly understand that the writing is on the wall for the grossly asymmetrical arrangements that have existed under the Common Fisheries Policy. Under UN law of the sea, the coastal state has responsibility for managing the resources within its EEZ and to determine who will be allowed to fish in its waters and under what conditions. The EU will of course have the same rights to exclude or apply conditions to UK vessels fishing in French waters. But their pool of resources is much smaller and our effort in their waters by comparison is tiny.
The attacks were carried out in international waters - outside the French 12 mile limit.
The scallop wars last week were a local spasm that will have embarrassed the Government in Paris. France, and all of the other EU fishing nations, are intent on keeping something as close as possible to the status quo on access to fish in UK waters and quota shares. Their cause is not helped by a bring it on attitude within parts of the French industry. Controlling access to our waters and rebalancing quota shares to more closely reflect the resources located within UK waters are a centrepiece within the Government’s White Paper of Fisheries. Doubtless there will be a period of adjustment with more or less turbulence, but things will settle down. There is a legal obligation on all countries which share transboundary fish stocks, to cooperate in their management and sustainable exploitation. The most likely future model for management of shared stocks is annual bilateral agreements – as currently happens between EU and Norway. Safe harvesting rates are agreed on the basis of scientific advice and levels of access to fish in each other’s waters, along with quota shares are agreed during autumn negotiations each year. The French authorities have primary responsibility for ensuring that there is no recurrence of the anarchic and troubling scenes witnessed last week. If such events were to take place in UK waters, doubtless a police investigation would be under way and there is no dearth of evidence, supplied on video by the perpetrators themselves. On the political front, a meeting is to be held in London next week involving Government officials and fishing representatives from both sides to try to resolve the dispute. Scallops are a valuable resource and it is vital that they are fished only at sustainable levels. There is no fundamental reason why in a spirit of reconciliation and compromise, a deal acceptable to both sides cannot be reached. And in the meantime, the UK continues to head for the door, leaving the Common Fisheries Policy behind. This rather than the events of last week is the bigger game in play. Barrie Deas is Chief Executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations. Read more at: https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/barrie-deas-scallop-wars-a-skirmish-compared-to-bigger-game-of-brexit-1-9329424
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this long standing dispute between British and French scallop fishermen the jingoistic language used by the media reporting the story with calls to 'send in the navy' and comments like 'sink a few frogs' serve only to further divisions rather than focus on the real issue at stake. However, when a fishing boat - fishing legally - is bombarded with petrol bombs, the situation needs addressing with the utmost urgency in order to protect the welfare of all concerned. Fish, whatever their value, are not worth the lives of fishermen - but they are their livelihoods.
This long standing dispute can only be solved by talk - calls to 'send in the navy', sink a 'few frogs' and other calls for similar action will, as history tells, solve nothing. This has nothing to do with Brexit either - though the consequences of Brexit could potentially result in British fishermen no longer fish in the Baie de Sine as the area off the Normandy coast is well inside the median line between France and the UK and in French territorial waters.
The protest must have been carefully orchestrated by the French fishermen as this video footage shows there is a TV crew aboard one (many of which were not scallopers) of the french trawlers taking part in support of their own scallop fishermen. Around 1:58 a flare is fired over one of the British scallopers.
This was how France 3 Normandy reported the incident (Translated by Google):
"Forty fishermen from Normandy left very early to sea on August 28, 2018. Their objective? Meet with their English counterparts to express their dissatisfaction with the scallop fishery. A meeting that degenerated into a naval battle!
A naval battle off Normandy! Between 40 and 50 fishermen went to sea early this morning from Trouville-sur-Mer, Port-en-Bessin or Ouistreham (Calvados). They headed for England, off the Seine Bay, to meet English fishermen with scallops.
A meeting that turned to confrontation. The forty or so French boats surrounded the English ships to force them to stop fishing. While the smoke and the insults added more to the atmosphere, some boats were rammed while driving on others. Three boats were damaged with holes in their hulls.
After the first charge, the British retreated before counter-attacking! The boats turned around again and, amid tense exchanges, the gendarmes are busy. In particular, the latter carried out checks on the British.
Unfair competition
The Norman fishermen complain of unfair competition in international waters. Indeed, fishermen flying the tricoluor (French) flag are not allowed to fish scallops before 1 October each year. The English do not have this restriction upon them so can legally fish for scallops in the bay. Consequence: the French must often be content with the result.
"The French regulation requires French fishermen not to exploit the shell between May 15 and October 1. The English do not have to respect this regulation," approves Dimitri Rogoff, president of the Regional Committee for Marine Fisheries of Normandy."
Later in the day the French national maritime news weekly (equivalent of the Uk's Fishing News) posted this follow-up article:
Baie de Seine: Call for the return of "peace on the water"
In the wake of the forceful expedition of 35 Norman ships against five British shells on the edge of the Seine Bay on Tuesday, August 28, Dimitri Rogoff, president of the CRPMEM of Normandy, called Wednesday, August 29 for the return of "peace on the water" . "It went a little too far on both sides ," said Dimitri Rogoff. There is a time to protest at sea and a time to discuss . But we must remember that the French fishermen have agreed to manage their deposit for a long time and that the British come, collect all because they are not held to the same limits as us. Then they freeze the shell and sell it at low prices in France. It's double standards ... " "I regret the altercation, but I understand it. It could not finish otherwise , added Pascal Coquet, vice-president of the CNPMEM, president of the shell commission. I hope that will not happen again. " .
No agreement with the English this year
For this lively resumption of the "war of the scallop" has a cause: "The agreement that we have usually with the English, exchange of kilowatt-days against the fact that they do not come to the scallops before the 1 st of October , was not renewed in July , explains Pascal Coquet. As a result, as they are short of fishing days, they threatened to come and make the area " blank" on the scallops and several boats had started a few days ago. " According to Dimitri Rogoff and Pascal Coquet, as the agreement reached so far with the British did not encompass boats less than 15 metres, their number in the British flotilla has increased in a few years from just ten to fifty. "There was a flaw in this deal, they rushed into it. In July, in the region, then in national, the French fishermen said that the agreement would not be renewed if the English did not accept to include their ships of less than 15 meters in it ..." , explains Dimitri Rogoff.
Resumption of negotiations?
"The British are in their right (when they come out of the 12-mile limit, Ed.) , But as we have not signed an agreement this year, their fishermen may run out of fishing days to use up, adds Pascal Coquet. If they finally agree to include boats under 15 meters in the agreement, we are quite ready to get back around a table. " The British leader for scallops, Jim Portus, reconnected with his counterparts on the evening of the naval confrontation. And Pascal Coquet said Wednesday, August 29 that he had responded by proposing the resumption of negotiations to find an agreement between the two fleets and remove the tension. Story courtesy of Alexandra TURCAT from le MarinPosted on 29/08/2018 16:09 | Updated on 29/08/2018 20:02
Western Waters (ICES Area VII) 2015 edible & Spider Crab effort annual limit
Details of the approach to managing the over 15 metre Area VII crab and scallop fishing sector to keep the fishery within EU effort limits. Defra and MMO officials met with a number of industry representatives with an interest in the area VII crab fishery on 12 November 2014 to discuss a management approach for the fishery during 2015 in line with the Western Waters regime. At this meeting, various management options were considered to ensure that the industry does not exceed the effort limit allocated to the UK under the Western Waters regime.
It was decided that days at sea limits will be set for vessels operating in this area for the full 2015 year. This will be enforced via a licence variation. The 150 day limit will be applicable to all over 15 metre vessels with a shellfish entitlement operating in area VII and targeting crabs under the Western Waters regime.
The MMO will actively monitor days at sea uptake by vessels and a review meeting will take place on 22 July 2015 to evaluate uptake to date and discuss the management approach for the remainder of 2015.
If the UK looks like it will exceed effort limits prior to 31 December 2015 as set by the Commission, then fisheries administrations will be required to close the area VII crab fishery to over 15 metre vessels for the remainder of the year in line with the Western Waters regime. Crab effort uptake for 2015 (last updated 3 June 2015)
Area
European limit (kilowatt days)
Real-time uptake to date (kilowatt days)
Percentage of effort used to date
VII
543,366
149,072
27%
V-VI
702,292
224,770
32%
2. Days at Sea Limits 2.1 The maximum number of days a vessel can fish for crabs in ICES Area VII is established in the vessel’s fishing licence.
2.2 Any days remaining at the end of a management period will not be transferred across management periods.
2.3 Days at sea are not transferrable between fishing vessels.
2.4 The number of days spent at sea will be monitored for enforcement purposes by MMO/Devolved Administration offices. However, it is your responsibility to monitor your uptake and be aware of how many days you have available. If you wish to check the information held by the MMO on your vessel’s activity you should contact your local MMO coastal office.
2.5 It is an offence to exceed the maximum number of days at sea established in your vessel’s fishing licence, and action may be taken in accordance the relevant fisheries administration’s compliance and enforcement strategy.
3. Recording of days at sea 3.1 Days at sea are counted in calendar days (midnight to midnight) or part thereof. For example a fishing trip leaving port at 0200h and returning to port at 0100h the following day counts as two calendar days. In comparison, a fishing trip leaving port at 1000h and returning at 1700h the following day is also counted as 2 calendar days.
3.2 Trip data must be recorded in UTC (universal time constant) with no daylight saving adjustment.
3.3 Steaming trips are not counted against a vessel’s days at sea providing that no gear is deployed or hauled, no landings are made and vessel activity is declared as ‘CRU – steaming/cruising’ on the electronic logbook.
3.4 Time at sea will not count against a vessel’s allocation where it comes to the aid of another vessel in need of emergency assistance or because it is transporting an injured person for emergency medical aid. You must advise your port of administration in such cases.
4. Once your allocation of days are used 4.1 Any vessel that has exhausted its allocation of days must cease fishing for crabs in Area VII immediately and return to port. The vessel may then undertake other activities. See the full story from the MMO here:
Published on Wednesday 20 February 2013 11:45 I have just watched Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s TV programme, Fish Fight.
Whilst I agree fundamentally with what he’s trying to do, I disagree with the way he’s going about it.
He has a few ‘facts’ wrong.
Firstly: The ground shown at the start of the show was a rocky area hardly likely ever to have been fished by scallopers.
The second ground was flat and sandy, exactly the sort of place scallopers do fish.
The flora and fauna on the first ground cannot grow on the second type of ground as most of the weed, coral and fern type animals require a rocky base for anchorage; they would not get a foothold on sand or gravel so cannot grow there.
This means that this type of ground always looks barren. It isn’t barren by any means as it is full of worms, prawns, crabs, razor-shells and small flat fish and their various predators, most of which will bury themselves as soon as they perceive a threat, such as a couple of noisy divers who are looking for them.
There is no way that the second ground would ever look like the first. That is like comparing a flat field to a rocky outcrop, totally different topology and therefore totally different ecology.
Secondly; HFW infers that scallopers and beam trawlers do this type of damage to all the seas around the coast of Britain.
This is not true as most scallop fisheries are very localised and make the most of flattish areas, not rocky coasts, which dominate the British coastline.
Scallops do not occur everywhere and the Dover soles and Plaice caught by the beam trawls are migratory and move in and out of areas according to seasonal changes and their breeding cycles. So trawlers are A) not fishing in the same areas all the time and B) not fishing absolutely everywhere at any time.
Thirdly; The circus side-show type ‘demonstration’ he performed at Weston Super-Mare was ridiculous and so unscientific as to be farcical.
But it had the effect he wanted, shock and horror! What a pity he didn’t do something more realistic, still as shocking and horrific but more true to life.
Like following a real set of scallop gear over some of the rocky terrain he wrongly claimed they fish on.
To see the gear being smashed to pieces, tow-pipes bent in half and tooth blades ripped from the frames would hopefully let the public see just how hard it is to make a living from the sea in the first place without having an ill-informed, opinionated TV star trying to gain notoriety a la Jamie Oliver and his assault on school meals!
Also; Much of the fishing happens well away from coastal areas in deeper waters where there is little light at depth and almost no flora at all, so corals and ferns do not grow there and all of the fauna is predatory upon other fauna which is unfortunate enough to be smaller.
Shoals of fish will pass over these grounds on their way to feed or spawn but none stay there all year round.
This results in large areas of the seabed having no fish at all. Many areas will only be populated by certain species at certain times as feeding and spawning grounds and they are dependent upon a supply of whatever that species of fish feeds on.
Much of the phyto- and zoo-plankton at the bottom of the food-chain is affected by run-off from the land and is very susceptible to poisoning by agricultural pesticides and fertilisers and industrial contaminants, even hundreds of miles offshore. Even if this pollution doesn’t kill the fish directly, phosphate and nitrogenous fertilisers can cause plankton to ‘bloom’ in massive clouds which clog the gills of fish and kill them that way.
Furthermore: Much of the damage done to a ground recovers fairly quickly.
His estimate of 100 years is true for some of the wildlife such as coral but not for most of the things that live in the sea. I have seen a fairly barren area of the sea bed suddenly ‘blossom’ with life a year later as a result of the activity of dredging, mainly because it stirred up a lot of the nutrients buried beneath the floor of the seabed and many species came to that area after we had left to utilise that newly available resource.
I know this because when we returned to the same ground a year later there was an abundance of diverse creatures to be found there whereas there were very few the year before. In that instance the dredging had formed a rich and diverse ecosystem where a very sparse one had existed previously.
Much of the over fishing that has occurred over the last 30-odd years has been of a particularly perverse nature.
For instance, in northern Scottish waters, Danish boats have been catching large quantities of sand-eels for many years, not to feed people but to be transformed into pig food and eventually Danish bacon for the British breakfast.
Roughly 100 tons of fish is needed to produce one ton of bacon. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that that is not a good way to go about things.
Much of the over-fishing is the result of British people eating a very small range of fish, i.e. cod and plaice.
It would certainly help with the pressures on those species if the British palate would try more of the amazing variety of tasty, nutritious fish that live around our coasts. Much of the ‘fish product’ sold in supermarkets in packages and boxes are this type of fish, mashed up and reformed and flavoured and sold as fish-cakes and similar.
Many of the boats which now fish scallops and beam-trawls were at one time fishing for round-fish but either had no licences or had them revoked in fisheries cut-backs. To keep the boats fishing, the owners were forced to start scalloping as there was very little regulation concerning the scallop fishery. Once these boats began to catch scallops the stocks were severely reduced in a very short time. So it was a knock-on effect from other poorly thought out legislation which caused so many boats to become scallopers in the first place.
The Isle of Man has always had a self-imposed off season and a 110mm size limit across the widest part of the shell. The adjacent countries have no closed season and a 100mm limit.
So the Manx fishermen have been doing more, voluntarily, than the EU or UK Govt have ever done through legislation. This is highly commendable and should be remembered in any future discussions on the subject, as the Manx fishermen have been proactive leaders, not reluctant followers.
So you see, this is not a simple problem that can be resolved simply by banning trawling and dredging. But you can bet that that is what will happen as ill-informed and worse, deliberately mis-informed people clamour to protect the seas which they actually know nothing about!
Other than that, I think it is a very good idea to have reserves for the regeneration of various species, but don’t let the idiots in Brussels or even Whitehall or Tynwald decide where or how big these reserves are as they will make a ‘vote conscious decision’, rather than a find a proper balance between the needs of an industry and the needs of the animals themselves. After all, there would be no point in preserving the fishery if it costs the livelihoods of the fishermen.
John Callister
