Friday 18 July 2014
Thursday 17 July 2014
Both Penlee lifeboats out on service this evening
While the IRB was called out to assist a windsurfer in trouble off LongRock beach the Ivan Ellen went to assist two yachts in trouble off the south pier in Penzance. Strong, gusty easterly winds and very short, steep uncomfortable seas made the operation difficult - a job well done guys!
Seafish questions the robustness of last week's report given so much room by the Telegraph and Western Morning News
Bill Lart, Sustainability Advisor for industry authority on seafood, Seafish, comments on the recent report on fisheries impact on the English Channel's ecosystem during the past 90 years…
Ensuring a sustainable future for the UK fishing industry, while managing fish stocks responsibly are our key objectives at Seafish, so we were pleased to see this recent report on the effect of fishing the English Channel bring this important issue to the public's attention.
However, we believe the report's sole reliance on landed catches data paints an incomplete picture of the current situation in the Channel, and risks taking away from the significant efforts already undertaken to address the issue.
In failing to take into account additional factors - such as changes to fishing strategies over time in response to market demand and new management measures, and the impact of natural changes in temperature and climactic effects - the report leaves itself open to questions around its robustness.
Claims that cod and haddock are 'fast running out', for example, directly contradict established data from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), which shows the status of these stocks has improved during the past few years.
Moreover, the EU's Common Fisheries Policy is set to bring stocks to Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) in the near future, and has already significantly reduced overfishing in European Atlantic Waters, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.
Among stocks measured against their Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY), just 41% are now considered to be overfished which is a sizeable improvement on the 94% we saw just a decade ago in 2003. Meanwhile, the number of stocks estimated to be fished at MSY levels had increased from just two in 2003, to 27 by 2012, and with further improvements to the policy on discards under the new landing obligation, we expect this trend to continue in the years to come.
Analysis of the practice of scallop dredging has also found that contrary to being an indiscriminately, and over used method of fishing, most of it is targeted on specific core areas based on analysis of echo sounder observations and knowledge of previous catches. Although we do recognise that scallop dredging can have an effect on seabed ecosystems, and have published a good practice guide for scallop dredging.
Along with the EU Habitat Directive and commitments under OSPAR aimed at protecting vulnerable habitats in the North East Atlantic, the EU's Marine Strategy Framework Directive is an important stimulus towards improving sustainability. As well as using data on fish catches, it collects independent information on demersal fisheries using research vessel surveys to determine the impact of these fisheries on the marine environment.
As a result fishing practices have already been adapted to ensure fish stock sustainability, while protection measures have been brought in to protect the most vulnerable. For example, significant efforts have been made by the EU, ICES, DEFRA and the UK Commercial fishing industry to address the issue of declining Common Skate populations, with the species and others in the elasmobranch family such as Spurdog now protected under Zero Allowable Catch regulations.
There is no doubt fisheries have the capacity to change marine biodiversity. The issue is to protect the more vulnerable ecosystems and examine to what extent management measures are required to ensure that effects on seabed habitats inside and outside the 'core areas' are sustainable. Just recently, we worked with Seafood Cornwall to develop a model to help fisheries in the South West become more sustainable by helping them to identify the areas with increased risk. The importance of collaboration should not be understated; fishers, government and scientists need to do more to work together to undertake research and address research. Seafish believes this will be the key to ensuring the sustainability of the UK's fishing industry, and safeguarding our fish stocks for generations to come.
Ensuring a sustainable future for the UK fishing industry, while managing fish stocks responsibly are our key objectives at Seafish, so we were pleased to see this recent report on the effect of fishing the English Channel bring this important issue to the public's attention.
However, we believe the report's sole reliance on landed catches data paints an incomplete picture of the current situation in the Channel, and risks taking away from the significant efforts already undertaken to address the issue.
In failing to take into account additional factors - such as changes to fishing strategies over time in response to market demand and new management measures, and the impact of natural changes in temperature and climactic effects - the report leaves itself open to questions around its robustness.
Claims that cod and haddock are 'fast running out', for example, directly contradict established data from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), which shows the status of these stocks has improved during the past few years.
Moreover, the EU's Common Fisheries Policy is set to bring stocks to Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) in the near future, and has already significantly reduced overfishing in European Atlantic Waters, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.
Among stocks measured against their Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY), just 41% are now considered to be overfished which is a sizeable improvement on the 94% we saw just a decade ago in 2003. Meanwhile, the number of stocks estimated to be fished at MSY levels had increased from just two in 2003, to 27 by 2012, and with further improvements to the policy on discards under the new landing obligation, we expect this trend to continue in the years to come.
Analysis of the practice of scallop dredging has also found that contrary to being an indiscriminately, and over used method of fishing, most of it is targeted on specific core areas based on analysis of echo sounder observations and knowledge of previous catches. Although we do recognise that scallop dredging can have an effect on seabed ecosystems, and have published a good practice guide for scallop dredging.
Along with the EU Habitat Directive and commitments under OSPAR aimed at protecting vulnerable habitats in the North East Atlantic, the EU's Marine Strategy Framework Directive is an important stimulus towards improving sustainability. As well as using data on fish catches, it collects independent information on demersal fisheries using research vessel surveys to determine the impact of these fisheries on the marine environment.
As a result fishing practices have already been adapted to ensure fish stock sustainability, while protection measures have been brought in to protect the most vulnerable. For example, significant efforts have been made by the EU, ICES, DEFRA and the UK Commercial fishing industry to address the issue of declining Common Skate populations, with the species and others in the elasmobranch family such as Spurdog now protected under Zero Allowable Catch regulations.
There is no doubt fisheries have the capacity to change marine biodiversity. The issue is to protect the more vulnerable ecosystems and examine to what extent management measures are required to ensure that effects on seabed habitats inside and outside the 'core areas' are sustainable. Just recently, we worked with Seafood Cornwall to develop a model to help fisheries in the South West become more sustainable by helping them to identify the areas with increased risk. The importance of collaboration should not be understated; fishers, government and scientists need to do more to work together to undertake research and address research. Seafish believes this will be the key to ensuring the sustainability of the UK's fishing industry, and safeguarding our fish stocks for generations to come.
Surprising number of haddocks on the market considering fishermen are "scraping the barrel"
Here's the thing, the biggest stock of fish by weight in the North East Atlantic is probably mackerel - yet boats from Newlyn all the way up the the Isle of Wight are reporting very low catches...
conversely, haddock - mentioned as one of the fish that fishermen are "scraping the barrel" for are in increasingly abundant catches in the south west...
yet even small inshore boats (historically recording low catches when day hauling until recent years) are finding them by far the greatest quantity by weight when they haul their trawls...
bound for the fish shops 'up country'...
de-rigeur transport for an engineers, nice one Tom...
about to take ice...
there's a day's work ahead for the Valhalla crew...
with one of her trawls to mend...
Ocean Pride bound up the harbour for ice...
part of the superb transport network that sees fish distributed around the UK within hours of being sold...
Cornish Sardine hero Nick Howell discusses the finer points of sardine life with Jay Rayner...
as they prepare a piece to camera for BBC's One Show to be transmitted later this summer...
loading an insulated tub of sardines aboard the transport...
some may even end up as the classic tinned version.
Wednesday 16 July 2014
Cornish Fishermen slam quality control at Plymouth University
In the wake of an apparently damning article (double -page spread no less) that appeared in the Western Morning News (and the Daily telegraph) last week - see previous coverage on this blog
Paul Trebilcock, Chief Executive of the Cornish Fish Producers has responded to the Plymouth University Report which claims that overfishing has led to the decline of Fish Stocks in the English Channel - this was the basis for the stories that appeared in the Telegraph and the Western Morning News.
 |
| Paul Trebilcok - Cornish Fish Producers leader |
"Normally, I would have nothing to say about the quality of academic research, which is subject to its own disciplines of internal and external peer review. It is quite right and proper that academic researchers have the freedom to examine and explore any theme which is of interest to them and which they have resources to pursue.
There comes a point however when, as with the recently released report from Plymouth University, where the research in the classroom seems to wholly contradict the experience in the real world that we can only wonder at the quality controls; or that the authors are pursuing a specific political agenda by being selective with the evidence. The emotive and sensationalist language used by the University to publicise its report suggests that it is the latter. In either case this raises questions which the authorities of Plymouth University will want to address.
At the very least it appears to us that environmental advocacy has clouded and corrupted this research to the extent that the result would be laughable if it was not so serious. Of particular concern is the abandonment of the scientific method in favour of an approach which seems to me to be a selection of facts which support a chosen narrative and ignores those which don't.
No reasonable reading of current ICES scientific advice could conclude that hake is in decline or that there is a problem with haddock stocks. On the contrary the management problems we face result from the exceptionally high abundance of these two species.
But hake and haddock are two stocks chosen by the study to make the case for a general decline in demersal fish stocks. The scientific evidence points in a very different direction.
Similarly with haddock. Haddock populations are prone to extreme fluctuations due to environmental factors. It just so happens that we are currently facing a large increase in abundance arising from a spike in recruitment. Fishermen are just incredulous when it is suggested they are in decline. Their main challenge is in how to avoid haddock, within the context of the forthcoming discard ban.
The abundance of Hake 1978 to 2013 (International Council for Exploration of the Seas)
And to suggest that Norway and Iceland have banned bottom trawling, as the University claims in its press comments is just factually incorrect. And whilst it is true that some species of skate are currently depleted, there are many other species skates and rays whose conservation status is sound.
The underlying difficulty seems to lie with a conflation and confusion of science and environmental advocacy. This should not be allowed to cloud the progress that the fishing industry has made in recent years in putting fishing on a sustainable footing.
This is the real point, which the study chooses to ignore. A turning point in European fisheries came in the year 2000 which has completely transformed the picture.
 |
| Trends in Fishing Mortality (Fishing Pressure) ICES |
Trends in Fishing Mortality (Fishing Pressure) ICES
The dramatic fall in fishing mortality from the year 2000 portrayed in this graph produced by the International Council for Exploration of the Seas, is by far the most significant development in our fisheries in the last 100 years and will be the most important factor shaping the industry’s future.
This pattern:
- covers all of the main species groupings
- refers to the whole of the North East Atlantic
- shows that after something like 70 years of incremental increases in fishing mortality, fishing pressure has been drastically reduced
There are multiple causes for this radical change. For the demersal fisheries, the painful measures taken to rebuild the cod stocks will have played a central part; but landing controls, better selectivity, industry mind-set, collaboration between scientists and fishermen, long term management plans and capacity reduction, along with twenty or thirty other factors, have all contributed. Probably the most significant has been the reduction in the size of the fleets.
The Plymouth study says nothing about this as it relentlessly pursues its catastrophe narrative. Unless it is corrected it will unfairly harm the reputation of the South West’s responsible fishing industry. More to the point it risks damage to the reputation of Plymouth University."
It might be an idea to establish more formal links between the industry and all universities likely to have fishing related research programmes undertaken by their students - this would benefit all parties in a far more positive way. (LH)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)