Please anyone involved with the bay and the fishing industry around this area tell us how it will affect you post it on here and we will put all your points forward HAVE YOUR SAY NOW! tell your friends! hurry we only have until the 31st of march!!!!
The fishermen of Hythe bay and the local areas have been trying to work with balanced seas so we can have marine protected zones in place to safe guard the future of our grounds and fish stocks. But now it has come to light that the rich fishing grounds that we were willing to give up for help in this project have been ignored. Now the proposed zones put forward by the wildlife trust are being considered. The problem with these zones are they just shut off big local areas which the local fishermen rely on to make a living. These proposed zones also contain no science that they need any recovery,in fact the science behind the species recommended for protection within the site their numbers have increased over the year. This then leads to the question why do we need such zones that show no signs of recovery needed? Why do we need such zones that shuts off so much ground to fishermen that rely on them. Why can't the real stakeholders (the fishermen) have a real say on where these zones should be placed, after all we know the grounds better than anyone else. We have worked hard and many of us have given up our free time to help with this project, taken our time to come up with zones that not only protect the grounds in the best way but have taken in to consideration that the local fishermen rely on there local grounds to survive which I think is a consideration that has been over looked by the rest of the groups involved with balanced sea.
This will affect more than just fishermen, we are just the tip of the iceberg if we fold its a knock on affect for fish mongers, nets makers, commercial refrigeration, delivery drivers etc all the way down the chain to the consumer, as we will have to import fish from overs sea. fish that comes from 6 miles off our shore at higher prices. so if you have a fish restaurant or a net maker ect or you just love eating local fish please tell us your thoughts this will affect you! write to your mps NOW! http://www.writetothem.com/
Malcolm Gosman ......As a fisherman from Ramsgate Hythe Bay and the surrounding area has become an important fishery for me now as the fishing grounds around the Thanet coast line are getting beyond the point of not being viable to fish because of all the wind-farms now erected, there are now in excess of 400 turbines now and that is a lot of ground gone for ever! as for marine protected zones there all right on paper but in practice that's another thing, the only people who no the grounds are the fisherman themselves but as usual we are not heard because we're nothing more than a nuisance they say they listen but they don't! there are so many implications to think of the main one safety! vessels will have to go further to fish which with a small boat is not always best! so for me I'm for and against MCZ's there all right but there needs to be a bit of fair play and for once sit round the table and listen to the people that know the fisherman.
Save the Fishermen of Hythe Bay 400 turbines......i wonder if Hugh has allowed for that in his 0.001%?! Somehow i doubt it, and there's dozens of windfarms like that and bigger around the coast, does anyone know exactly how many there is? They must shut off hundreds of square miles off our fishing grounds...
Paul Beresford
At the last meeting with the MMO the scientific evidence showed that.in the last ten years the spoon worm had increased from 800 per sq meter to 1400 per sq meter. Every one at the meeting agreed that fishing was obviously not affecting these burrowing creatures in any way. They then said they wanted to use this area as a point off interest to see what might grow there if left alone.This area gets changed by wind and tide regular and being so shallow its doubtful nothing will grow.
Why are these people using our bay and our lively hoods as an experiment? We all agreed on several small areas which we would be interested in seeing what would happen. But as usual they want the whole area. Also we offered them from Dover to Folkestone to three miles out.
But it seems they only want our best fishing areas!
Wednesday 27 February 2013
Julie Girling, MEP fisheries representative for the South West
Latest tweet from Julie Girling on fishing in Brussels:
Julie is a member of the EU Fisheries Council - here is her stance on the industry. If you have any thoughts or comments, let her know!
Save Our Seas
As a member of the Fisheries Committee, I am fully aware of the dreadful situation regarding discards and am working to make sure the new Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) brings to an end fisheries management rules which force fisherman to discard immature or out-of-quota fish or else face prosecution, which in many cases in unavoidable.
Of course, with the reform of the CFP due to take place one of the most important issues for our fisherman is to end the current discards debacle. This process results in 750,000 tonnes of healthy fish being dumped back into the sea annually in EU waters. The European Commission has recognised that fish discards must be brought to an end and the European Fisheries Commissioner, Maria Damanaki, has expressed her desire to end this preposterous activity.
However, the Commission has admitted it may take more than a decade to implement this policy. This is simply not good enough and we will work closely with skippers, fisheries managers, scientists, environmentalists and fellow members of the European Parliament to bring forward plans to replace the ludicrous rules.
In the South West we have a number of innovative practices amongst fisherman such as the Brixham Beam Trawlers where discards have been reduced by 50%. Commissioner Damanaki is very impressed with these results and has committed to review the CFP with small fisheries in mind
Watch Julie talking about 'The Big Fish Fight' HERE
Watch Julie discussing fisheries issues HERE
Fisheries and the ECR
Our manifesto commitments for Fisheries. We will:
Julie Girling @juliegirling
News Fisheries Council sounds good but the devil is in the detail. watering down of discard ban will be vigorously opposed by EP in trilogue.
See Julie's web site for more information and contact details - as your regional MEP, let her know how you feel - she is their to represent the fishing industry in the region - make use of her contacts and position!
As a member of the Fisheries Committee, I am fully aware of the dreadful situation regarding discards and am working to make sure the new Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) brings to an end fisheries management rules which force fisherman to discard immature or out-of-quota fish or else face prosecution, which in many cases in unavoidable.
Of course, with the reform of the CFP due to take place one of the most important issues for our fisherman is to end the current discards debacle. This process results in 750,000 tonnes of healthy fish being dumped back into the sea annually in EU waters. The European Commission has recognised that fish discards must be brought to an end and the European Fisheries Commissioner, Maria Damanaki, has expressed her desire to end this preposterous activity.
However, the Commission has admitted it may take more than a decade to implement this policy. This is simply not good enough and we will work closely with skippers, fisheries managers, scientists, environmentalists and fellow members of the European Parliament to bring forward plans to replace the ludicrous rules.
In the South West we have a number of innovative practices amongst fisherman such as the Brixham Beam Trawlers where discards have been reduced by 50%. Commissioner Damanaki is very impressed with these results and has committed to review the CFP with small fisheries in mind
Watch Julie talking about 'The Big Fish Fight' HERE
Watch Julie discussing fisheries issues HERE
Fisheries and the ECR
Our manifesto commitments for Fisheries. We will:
- Fight for wholesale reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) to make it more efficient, and address the failings of the current policy.
- Encourage sustainable practices so that they benefit both the environment and those whose livelihood depends upon the industry.
- Give communities a greater say over the future of their fishing industries, enabling those with specific knowledge of the local fisheries sector to provide input into fisheries policy and take charge of their own local resources.
- Bring an end to the scandal of fish discards. Take forward the marine and Coastal access act and ensure that its conservation measures are implemented effectively, including the creation of marine conservation zones. Firmly oppose any resumption of commercial whaling and do all we can to ensure that the international moratorium stays in place.
Bugaled Breizh - the Silent Killer - a film at The Centre, Newlyn
A film about the loss of the Breton trawler Bugaled Breizh that sank in inknown circumstances south of the Lizard just over nine years ago.
The film is bing shown at the following ports:
- Newquay 3rd March
- Newlyn 4th March
- Porthleven 6th March
- Looe 7th March
Tuesday 26 February 2013
The facts Hugh got wrong on his programme about fishing
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
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
Never a truer word....................
Winners and losers - there are always consequences - take fish farming.....
Fish farming, a problem solved, the salvation of fishing and championing the fight against over-fishing and reduced stocks - the way forward?
This is how it unfortunately looks underneath a fish farm. We filmed this on the 20.01.2011. Is this how we want the sea floor in Norway to look? Something needs to be done quickly to remedy this situation.
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