Coveney and Irish industry oppose cuts of up to 64 per cent in fish quotas

As EU fisheries meet, first phase of discard ban also described as a “legal mess”

Minister for the Marine Simon Coveney says he is facing the “most difficult” EU fish quota council yet, with cuts of 64 per cent proposed in key whitefish stocks for the Irish fleet.

“Alice in Wonderland fisheries management” is how a commentator has described the European Commission’s proposals for 2015, which appear to have targeted some of the healthiest whitefish stocks for the most severe cuts . The New Year’s Day introduction of the first phase of a fish discard ban for the pelagic (mackerel/herring) fleet is also in disarray. Federation of Irish Fishermen (FIF) chairman Sean O’Donoghue said the Irish industry faces up to 600 possible job losses if the proposals are implemented by fisheries ministers meeting this week.

Proposed cuts

The European Commission is proposing cuts of 64 per cent for cod, 41 per cent for haddock, 20 per cent for pollack, skate and ray, 14 per cent for whiting and prawns, 12 per cent for monkfish and 4 per cent for hake. However, Ireland’s most lucrative fishery, mackerel, is set to receive an 89,000 tonne allocation next year. This is its largest proportionate quota allocation since 1983, says Mr O’Donoghue. The FIF says the whitefish cuts are “neither justified nor warranted and will, if adopted...result in 500 to 600 full-time and part-time jobs losses in the fisheries sector and ancillaries services”.

Reductions

Mr Coveney warned that if the proposals remained unchanged Ireland faced an overall 20 per cent cut to whitefish and prawn quotas for 2015. “I can accept reductions to quotas to protect the long-term sustainability of our stocks, but I will not accept scientifically unnecessary cuts that would undermine the sustainability of our fishing communities.” Commentator and former Fishing New editor Tim Oliver has said the European Commission appears to be trying to reduce catches of the healthiest stocks as this might then reduce discards of over-quota or undersized fish. “But if there are high discards of two of the most marketable species that fishermen can catch it must mean that they do not have enough quota to land them,”he says, saying “logic” would dictate that quotas should be larger. Environmental organisations have expressed concern about what they have described as an attempted dilution by the European Parliament last week of the ban on discards, with a vote on weaker penalties for breaches.

Mr O’Donoghue said the situation is a “legal mess” as the legislation which dictates that fishermen dump over-quota or undersized fish is still in place.

Full story courtesy of the Irish Times:

"Sense of place, identity and tourism" just one aspect of the GIFS Project

"For the development of sustainable coastal communities through an explanation and a sharing of the social, the economic and the cultural impacts of inshore fishing"

Perhaps the M(Mis)MO would do well to have work closely with the GIFS team - maybe then they would begin to appreciate just how important concepts like "a sense of place" are to the very fabric of rural Britain - and maybe some might begin to appreciate that far from being a threat to a way of life the EU (for all its faults and imperfections) is far better placed to help preserve fishing communities through projects like GIFS and Gap2 and funding sources like Convergence - would sources of finding like FLAGS exist if conceived and funded from central government in the UK - maybe in Scotland?

Listen to an overview of the GIFS Project here...

and one of the presentations outlining their work in providing a toolkit for further research...

The toolkit could be used in many situations to help create better research and support for the industry.

Newlyn Harbour lights grand switch on!

 

 

Harbour offices all set for the Christmas lights switch on tonight...

while the remainder of the fleet get ready...

to take ice....

familyand friends wave them off for their their final trips of the year...

as the light fades...

the AA is the last to leave the port...
 

then it's all eyes on the programme of events for the night... 

with local school choirs and Penzance Silver Band...

providing the entertainment hundreds of visitors...

as the lifeboat uniquely delivers Father Christmas safely ashore...

and everybody waits for the big switch on...

and the fun to begin...

with a grand firework display...

to entertain...

and thrill the crowds...

ona calm and thankfully dry evening...

with the harbour lit up...

it's business as usual for some of the fleet as the Asthore makes the first landing of Cornish sardines for the night...

under the warm glow...

of the harbour lights...which will stay on until twelth night...

right around the harbour...

don't forget it is Mousehole's turn to on Saturday night!

PhD studentship: Sustaining inshore fisheries in the context of changing governance arrangements

Great opportunity for fisheries related research in the South West:


Studentships will be awarded on the basis of merit and will commence in September 2015. For eligible students the award will cover UK/EU tuition fees and an annual stipend (in 2014/15 this was £13,863 for full-time students, pro rata for part-time students) for three and a half years.

Project description:

Globally, many fisheries have experienced decline due to historical overexploitation and anthropogenic impacts to marine ecosystems. In response to a decline in finfish stocks there has been a shift to lower trophic level species, including shellfish such as lobster and crab. In UK fisheries, where over three-quarters of the fleet comprise vessels of 10m and under, trends have shown a dramatic increase in the importance of shellfish in national fisheries landings. UK fisheries research has historically focused predominantly on finfish, and knowledge of the temporal patterns of fishing effort and stock distribution and their spatial distribution is limited for many shellfisheries1. Threats to the sustainability of these fisheries exist, yet management measures are currently limited and often rely on self-regulation within fishing communities. Furthermore, during the past decade there have been substantial shifts in governance arrangements for inshore marine environments. New Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities (IFCAs) have greater responsibilities with respect to marine conservation, as well as powers for inshore fisheries management, creating challenges in balancing social and ecological objectives for sustainability 2. However, with limited capacity for enforcement and monitoring of inshore fisheries, fishers’ perceptions of the legitimacy of new governance arrangements may be central to achieving support for fishery management measures, voluntary compliance, and positive environmental outcomes. The aim of this project is to advance the knowledge base for management of these socially and economically important fisheries, and explore how governance arrangements can help support a balance of multiple objectives. This will be achieved by employing an interdisciplinary approach and mixed methodology to address the following objectives: (1) Characterise the spatial and temporal dynamics of fishing effort and shellfish landings in the southwest UK using a combination of primary and secondary data. (2) Investigate the impacts of recent shifts in governance arrangements on fishers’ attitudes towards natural resource management measures. (3) Consider the implications of the findings for future developments in fisheries management and conservation of inshore marine environments, and explore the challenges of current governance arrangements for addressing threats to fishery sustainability. The empirical data generated will contribute to an improved knowledge base for UK inshore shellfisheries management, in the context of global challenges to natural resource management and sustainable food production. The findings will have potential to influence future developments in management, policy and governance arrangements seeking to achieve both environmental benefits and stakeholder support.

Training opportunities:

This research will take place in a dynamic research group in the Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI), which has an explicit remit to support interdisciplinary approaches to tackling complex environmental and societal issues. Through co-supervision by individuals affiliated with the departments of Geography (Dr Turner) and Biosciences (Dr Witt), the student will have access to interdisciplinary expertise in marine fisheries governance and marine ecology. The student will be able to take relevant MSc modules in social science and governance at the ESI, and will receive training in communication, knowledge exchange and developing impact. The student will benefit from established collaborations at the ESI with policy advisors (Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas)) and local stakeholders (National Lobster Hatchery, Cornwall Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority, South Devon Shell Fishermen's Association, Cornish fishing communities), which will inform the direction of the research and provide opportunities to ensure relevance to policy and to the local economy.

During the first month, the student will conduct a skills assessment in order to plan a tailored training programme. The student will also be encouraged to attend relevant NERC training courses, and will have opportunities to access expertise on analysis of fisheries statistical and spatial data through collaboration with advisors at Cefas. Access to computing clusters and statistical software, together with appropriate training, is available within the ESI. A wide range of training courses offer opportunities to gain transferable skills, including statistics, communication, engagement, grant writing and publishing scientific literature. The interdisciplinary nature of the training available will support the student in pursuing a wide range of career options in research, policy or natural resource management. The University of Exeter also provides mentoring and coaching to students independent of the supervisory team.

About the award

This project is one of a number that are in competition for funding from the NERC Great Western Four+ Doctoral Training Partnership (GW4+ DTP). The NERC GW4+ DTP involves the four research-intensive universities across the South West -Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter – and six Research Organisation partners. For further details about the programme please see www.bristol.ac.uk/gw4plusdtp.

For full details and how to apply click here:

Newlyn Harbour Lights Fireworks

Climate change and the fish head North

As the oceans warm, fish populations are on the move. A new online database that tracks their movements should help fishermen and fishery managers to adapt.

Few people see the effects of climate change as clearly as fishermen. As the climate changes and the oceans warm, fish are moving in search of cooler water, and this can have a big effect on fishermen’s livelihoods. For some, the evidence of climate change turns up in the net, such as when they catch longfin squid in the Gulf of Maine, far north of the usual range for that species. For others, the evidence is in what they’re not catching. Lobstermen in the Long Island Sound, for instance, have had little to catch since the valuable species that once supported them headed up the coast. Winter flounder, silver hake, and black sea bass have all shifted north as well.

These are just a few examples from the East Coast, but a study released last year that looked at more than 350 species from all over North America found that many are moving, and that their movements closely track changing ocean temperatures.

“We found that all over North America, marine fish and invertebrates are shifting their distributions quite rapidly,” said Malin Pinsky, a biologist at Rutgers University and the lead author of the study, which compiled data from more than 40 years of surveys conducted by scientists at NOAA Fisheries, Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and other organizations. Those surveys were designed to produce estimates of fish abundance that managers use when setting catch limits.

But even though few people were thinking about climate change when those surveys were originally designed, they turned out to be a treasure trove of data for tracking the effects of a changing climate. “These data show where marine fish and invertebrates have been, and where they’ve moved, over the last several decades,” Pinsky said.

In the year since that study was published, Pinsky, in collaboration with NOAA Fisheries, has built a website called OceanAdapt that makes that trove of data, which had been scattered and difficult to access, easily available to the public. Users can search and download data on the geographic and depth ranges of more than 650 species of fish and invertebrates and track how those distributions have changed over time. This will be a valuable tool for the fishermen, fishery managers, and scientists who are grappling with the challenge of adapting to a changing climate.

When Fish Cross State Boundaries

Black sea bass are important to both recreational and commercial fishermen on the East Coast, and each state gets a fixed share of the total catch. That catch was divvied up based on where black sea bass were in the late 1980s and early 1990s. At that time, the fish were most abundant off North Carolina, so that state got the largest share of the catch. Since then black sea bass have moved, but the regulations haven’t caught up. Today, New England fishermen are catching black sea bass as far north as the Gulf of Maine. Meanwhile, North Carolina fishermen often have to motor far north to fill their quota, with the extra fuel costs eating into their profits.

“Our fisheries regulations are built around the idea that fish distributions don’t change very much. When they do, that makes things complicated for fishermen and for managers trying to maintain a sustainable fishery,” Pinsky said.

But changing fishery regulations to reflect today’s conditions won’t be easy, in part because any redistribution will inevitably leave some states with less than their historical share. What’s more, fishery regulations exist to prevent overfishing, and in that respect they have worked—36 stocks have been rebuilt in U.S. waters since 2000. For that track record to continue, any changes to fishery regulations must be made with great care.

“How do you make the regulations effective and yet flexible?” asked Pinsky. “That’s one of the big challenges ahead.”

Basing Policies in Sound Science

To strike the right balance between effectiveness and flexibility, we need to base our policies in sound science. To do that, we need reliable, up-to-date information on changes in ocean conditions. Fish distributions are a key indicator of how climate is affecting the ocean, and the OceanAdapt website makes that information widely available. This will help scientists and fishery managers keep a finger on the pulse of the ocean.

In addition, we need to be able to predict how these changes will affect fisheries and ecosystems. For example, one key question that scientists are asking is how marine food webs reorganize as species distributions shift. Although many species are moving, they’re not moving in lock step, and as predators become separated from their prey, the effects will reverberate through the ecosystem in unpredictable ways. Researchers can use the OceanAdapt database to investigate these changes and develop early warning systems that can alert us to impending disruptions.

This database will also help scientists understand the cumulative impacts of fishing and climate change. These are two of the most significant ways that humans influence marine ecosystems, but scientists don’t have a good understanding of how these two effects interact and combine. “If we’re not careful, we might end up compounding the effects of climate change through overfishing,” Pinsky said.

But the effects won’t all be negative. As some species move out of their historical range, others may come in to take their place. The key to adapting will be to have flexible regulations that are grounded in sound science.

“We don’t foresee a catastrophic collapse,” Pinsky said. “But there will be fundamental and large-scale changes that we have to prepare for if our fisheries are to remain stable and healthy.”

With the OceanAdapt website, we’re one important step closer to that goal.

More info:

More on the OceanAdapt tool
OceanAdapt
The Pinsky Lab
NOAA Fisheries feature stories on climate change
A Message from the Chief Scientist of NOAA Fisheries on Climate Change

Fishing or not fishing?

The AIS track for the Morgenster shows her just off the coast - was she fishing or just dodging for weather?

Here's a comment from east coast fisherman Steve Barratt:

"Whilst I am being forced to dump fish due to the skate fishery being closed a 24m Belgian beamer is plundering the Thames Estuary. He is clearly visible on AIS, position 51.25.17N 001.28.06E the name of the vessel is MORGENSTER reg Z85. He is well inside the three mile limit. No answer on the phone from IFCA or the MMO so can't report it."