Big boats = big hauls = big bucks

Now back under her old name, the Margiris (ex Abel Tasman) is now busy towing north east and south west off the coast of Donegal - she is rumoured to be targeting blue whiting. Keeping her company is another Dutch owned freeze trawler the Alida.

High seas need international police force, says former UK foreign secretary

David Miliband says bringing order to the high seas is critical to managing fish stocks and safeguarding food supply
The former UK foreign secretary and president of the New York-based International Rescue Committee, David Miliband, is urging the creation of a seagoing police force to bring order to the "wild west" free-for-all on the high seas that is damaging the health of the world's oceans.

Miliband and the former Costa Rican president, José María Figueres, who together serve as co-chairs of the Global Oceans Commission, will formally unveil their ideas for ocean reform in a report next June. But the two leaders have begun to sound out international reaction to a set of proposals for protecting oceans, from a crackdown on illegal fishing to a clean-up of the vast churn of plastic particles in the Pacific and expanding marine protection zones. The two men will preview their ideas at a high-level gathering in California on Tuesday organised by the Economist and National Geographic. Bringing order to the high seas is critical to managing existing fish stocks and safeguarding the world's food supply, Miliband said.

"The high seas are seriously undergoverned," Miliband, said in an interview. "There are parts of the high seas that are certainly anarchic. There are parts of the high seas that look too much like the wild west." The commission is understood to be in discussions with Interpol about the deployment of an international ocean-police force. Miliband said his vision of an ocean protection force would lean heavily on the deployment of new surveillance technologies to identify and track fishing vessels operating on the high seas, as well as their catch. "If you are to have an enforcement regime, it needs to be policed," Miliband said. But he cautioned: "It is not about having people in boats necessarily." Illegal fishing on the high seas is stripping oceans of fish stocks, and threatening a major food source for 1 billion people, mostly in the developing world.

Two-thirds of the fish taken on the high seas are from stocks that are already dangerous depleted – far more so than in those parts of the ocean that lie within 200 miles of the shore and are under direct national control. Estimates of the unreported and illegal catch on the high seas range between $10bn-$24bn a year, overwhelming government efforts to track or apprehend the illegal fishing boats. The illegal fishing makes it impossible for countries to manage sustainable fisheries and hurts responsible fishing crews.

Miliband said the commission was talking to the International Maritime Organisation about adopting new regulations to require all fishing vessels to be fitted with transponders.

The tracking devices would enable police forces to identify and track all vessels operating on the high seas, including those that venture illegally into marine protected zones or areas of depleted fish stocks. "We are talking about relatively small number of vessels doing a large amount of damage. In a situation where those vessels are not marked you are obviously inviting trouble," Miliband said. "Every fishing vessel should be identified." He said the enforcement effort, to be effective, must also extend to ports where fishing vessels land their catches. "The ultimate thing is that you track the individual fish from where it is caught to where it sold … The middle men, the retailers who buy from fishermen and sell to supermarkets are obviously key to this," Miliband said.

The coming years are expected to see growing competition for ocean resources – from offshore oil to seabed mining and prospecting for the global pharmaceutical industry. The laws governing the high seas – which make up 45% of the Earth's surface – have not kept pace with those economic developments, or with the new reality of climate change.

The authority over oceans is divided up between nearly 50 separate international and regional organisations – including about a dozen under the United Nations. UN agencies have pushed for years for a voluntary registry for high seas fishing boats as well as tougher sanctions for those that break the rules. But those efforts have failed to gain much traction.

Meanwhile, the threats facing oceans are being multiplied by climate change. Sea water sucks up the carbon dioxide emissions that are driving climate change, throwing the entire ocean chemistry off balance.

Up to 40% of the Arctic is now open water in the summer months, opening up potential new shipping lanes, offshore oil drilling, and commercial fishing – increasing the urgency for more effective governance of the oceans. "You could do everything that is necessary within the high seas but if you don't tackle climate change then you are still taking huge risk with the future of the oceans," Miliband said.

Courtesy of the Guardian.

Senegal's firebrand fisheries minister turns his ire on foreign factory ships

This straight talking Fisheries Minister does not mince his words!

Activist turned politician Haïdar el Ali derides countries that deplete stocks of local food staples and then donate aid.

Senegalese fishermen visited Newlyn on a fact-finding tour a few years ago. 

Donor countries are acting at cross purposes by tolerating, and in some cases registering, giant trawlers whose fishing techniques undermine west African food security, according to Senegal's fisheries minister.

"The giant ships, like the Kiyevska Rus that we are currently pursuing for illegal fishing, trawl small pelagic fish and grind it into animal feed," Haïdar el Ali said. "Small pelagics [fish that swim near the surface] are a food staple in the entire Sahel region. In a single day those ships can trawl what an artisanal crew takes in a year. Countries like Russia, Ukraine, Korea but also Spain are depleting one of our staples and at the same time some of them are giving us aid. It does not make sense."

The loquacious activist turned minister has just been greeted like a pop star in the bustling fishing port of Mbour, south of the capital, Dakar. He turned his back on his furniture-trading Lebanese family to become an environmental campaigner in the 1980s, and is the fishermen's David to the trawler industry's Goliath. In January, in a first for a Senegalese fisheries minister, El Ali brought ashore the 120-metre Russian trawler Oleg Naydenov and kept it in Dakar for three weeks. "The ship was carrying 1,000 tonnes of fish and it all rotted," he said with a giggle.

The 120-metre Russian trawler Oleg Naydenov is still in west African waters

El Ali's passion leads to un-ministerial outbursts. He catches himself sounding more like the passionate diver and global militant he is than the minister he has become. "Small pelagics are a food resource from Sierra Leone to Morocco. They desperately need protecting all along the west African coast." He thinks neighbouring Mauritania should not tolerate huge ships that literally suck fish out of the water but "Mauritania is a sovereign country and the ships are there under a European Union agreement", he said.

Some people say complaints from the timber industry led to El Ali being moved to fisheries last September from the environment portfolio, which he had held since April 2012. But, if anything, the shift was a promotion in a country with a 435-mile (700km) coastline and an estimated 2 million people dependent on the sea for income.

After 20 years running his environmental charity, Oceanium, El Ali says he went into politics as a result of his frustration with the fisheries ministry. "The political will was lacking to stand up to the industry, which has considerable power to corrupt. I will stay in politics for as long as it takes to put the environment on to the African political agenda."

He chews on a seed from a moringa tree. "This is like a miracle energy tablet. We are planting it all over Senegal," he said, dropping in a plug for Oceanium and its 300 community bushfire-fighting units, bamboo-growing schemes and a mangrove-planting programme that he claims is the biggest in the world.

He is full of praise for militants of the waves, such as the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and scornful of mainstream environment charities. "The World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature are just seminar organisers. It's a disgrace that they stuff their faces while our firefighters have to beat back flames with tree branches."

Even in his day job, El Ali has plenty on his plate. He wants radar stations all along the coast. The Senegalese navy has only two frigates, and it depends on weekly French air force flights for photographic evidence of fishing incursions by "a good 50 ships".

He wants harsher fines that are a real deterrent. "The Ukrainian Kiyevska Rus is in and out of our waters. It can hold 3,000 tonnes of fish. In one trawl it can board fish worth 50m CFA francs [$100,000]. It can trawl 10 times in a day. Yet the maximum fine we can impose at the moment is 200m CFA francs. I have written to the Ukrainian foreign ministry, but it is difficult to arrest a vessel. I'm working on a new fisheries code that will give us the power to jail the captains and make the vessels Senegalese property. We will sink them. We need a few artificial reefs to combat coastal erosion."

Earlier in Mbour, El Ali had been greeted with drumming and dancing, but he was not moved by it. In a short speech he managed to wipe the smiles off every face in the crowd. He told them: "On the shore this morning I saw 15kg sea bass alongside 500g sea bass. That 500g bass hasn't finished breeding. He should be thrown back in the water. How do you expect me, as a minister, to be the guardian of your resource if you are fishing like amateurs?"

In interview, however, he makes it clear that the industrial ships are by far the biggest villains. But, he says: "We are all responsible. You can look at the sea and think it is eternal. Regrettably it is not. It is a living thing, just as was the tropical forest we today call the Sahara desert. The sea must not become a desert."

Full story courtesy of the Guardian

Happy St Piran's Day #stpiransday #openforbusiness

Make the 5th of March Black and White!

Gold in the flag and gold in the sky on St Piran's Day

A couple of planes obliged for the benefit of St Piran's Day with a giant Cornish flag in the sky...

the prom was quiet enough... 

as was the fish market this morning...

with just a handful of boxes to show...

more red stripes than anything...

Just a glimpse of the harbour from the fish market...

with the netters like the Sparkling Line waiting for the Spring tide to pass so they can get back to sea again...

a solitary gull patrols the harbour...

the Lousia N's, skipper Michael Nowell, father of England No14 rugby star Jack #Nowellsy15 will no doubt be at the next game when the English take on the Taffs with a little Cornish help...

first signs that Spring is sprung...

with even the wind giving all hands a break at the moment...

the harbour was given the benefit of a warming glow this morning...

as the sun broke the dawn...

so far a quiet start to the year for the lifeboats...

tons more sheet steel going aboard the AA as she undergoes a huge refit...

progress on the new ice works...

looking down the quay...

high water outside the Mission without the heavy seas pounding the building this morning...

Tom peeps over the safety fencing at a glorious golden sky...

on St Piran's Day celebrated by the black and gold flags down the high street in Penzance.

World’s second largest super-trawler enters Irish waters - AIS from VesselTracker keeping an eye on her whereabouts

Follow the vessel's movements by VesselTracker here

IRISH fishermen have expressed alarm at the arrival of the world’s second largest super-trawler in Irish waters for the annual blue whiting campaign. 

The ‘MFV Margiris’ drags a net bigger than a football field and, if stood on its end, would be almost twice as high as Ireland’s tallest building. The super-trawler ceased operations off Australian after bitter protests by Government, fishing industry and conservation groups. The vessel even changed its name to the ‘Abel Tasman’ in a bid to side-step protests off Australia and New Zealand. But it ultimately quit Australian waters after being repeatedly targeted for protests by Greenpeace who feared its operations could devastate regional fish stocks.

The vessel – which is 143m long (429ft) and displaces 9,500 tonnes – is the second biggest trawler/factory shop afloat and her processing capacity is enormous. Irish fishing industry and conservation groups warned about the potential impact of such vast fishing potential in vulnerable Atlantic areas. They claimed the giant vessel shouldn’t have sufficient quota to justify operations in Irish waters.

Industry groups, led by ‘The Skipper’ editor Niall Duffy, have now demanded clarification of the super-trawler’s purpose off Ireland. They have also demanded clarification by the EU as to how a super-trawler that was removed and reflagged in Australia could suddenly be registered back in the Lithuanian fleet.

The Sea Fish Protection Authority (SFPA) and the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) have both been asked to check on the super-trawler’s fishing entitlements. The Naval Service is also monitoring the situation. The super-trawler is owned by a Dutch consortium but is registered in Lithuania. Under complex EU Common Fisheries agreements, the vessel can fish both inside and outside the 200 mile limit once quotas are in place. Its crew of 50 normally conducts round-the-clock fishing operations in a region for six to eight weeks before landing its processed catch.

“This is a matter of concern for all Irish fishing industry groups given the difficult operating conditions currently facing Irish vessels,” Mr Duffy warned.

Story courtesy of the Independent.ie

Fisheries Dependant Information conference in Rome, Italy this week - What's it all about?

The conference will explore the role of fishers in collecting data, the incorporation of fisher-collected data and knowledge in science, management and policy-making, and the broader role of stakeholders in this process.

•  Data Requirements - data required for evolving policy and management frameworks, such as the ecosystems approach to fisheries (EAF), results-based management, and risk management; requirements for self-evaluation of fisheries governance 



•  Data Collection – observer programs; cooperative research with industry; innovative data collection strategies such as self sampling and reference fleets; Electronic Monitoring systems; ancillary data collection during fishing operations in support of the EAF 



•  Data Integration – integration of multiple and/or increasing sources of data; open-source data repositories and metadata catalogues to support fishery dependent analyses 



•  Data Analysis – evaluation of fishery dependent data, including impacts of fishing on target and bycatch species, on fish communities and habitats, and as indicators for stock condition and distribution; impacts of uncertainty and bias on stock assessments and inclusion of this uncertainty in policy development; selection of appropriate metrics to define fishing effort; evaluation of the effectiveness and impact of increased (or full) catch retention requirements - are essential to the achievement of affordable and sustainable fishing practices”