Monday morning in Newlyn.

Sardine netter Lyonesse heads back to her berth after a long night's fishing in the bay...

the bulk of fish landed this morning came from the netter, Silver Dawn

plenty of quality fish on the market this morning with red mullet...

turbot...

more reds...

a box of octopus...

plenty of bait from the Sapphire II...

some large ray...

end of season scallops...

and an unusually good haul of John Dory from none other than...

the port's number 1 Dory man, young Roger Nowell on the Imogen III...

not to be outdone, all the bass boys weighed in with good shots of bass, all caught with lines by hand...

along with plenty of mackerel from the boats working over in St Ives Bay...

a few of the handline boats picked up the odd pollack...

while Mr Nowell had the darkest of dark blue lobsters...

and a few plaice...

while the beam trawlers filled the centre auction hall with monk, megrims, lemons, Dover sole and more plaice...

the port recycles the frames of filleted fish for crab bait...

mackerel, available in Penzance's one and only wet fish shop at the bottom of town...

looks like it will be an uncomfortable week at sea for the netters with strong easterly winds forecast, which doesn't bode well for any of the boats working away, "when the wind is in the East, the fishing is least" as an old saying goes in these parts...

time to stack the fish...

 for delivery back to the processing units scattered around the port...

the future may be orange fr some but at the moment the Le Men Du is anything but bright with her undercoat coat of paint...

more shellfish boats having a makeover.

Scottish fishermen trial mobile real-time reporting app to avoid unwanted catches

Scottish fishermen trial mobile real-time reporting app to avoid unwanted catches
A pioneering collaboration between Scottish fishermen and scientists will allow state-of-the-art technology to be deployed to avoid unwanted catches of cod and whiting.

Between now and the end of 2020, fishermen on the west coast of Scotland will be trialling a bespoke software system to report hauls of these species in ‘real-time’.

If catches are too high, an automatic alert will be triggered to inform other participating vessels in the vicinity so they can avoid these areas.

The project is led by the Scottish Fishermen’s Organisation (SFO), the University of Aberdeen and Fisheries Innovation Scotland (FIS), with support from the other Scottish POs, the Scottish White Fish Producers’ Association, Seafish and Chordata LLC, a US-based IT company.

It follows the European Union’s zero-catch advice for cod and whiting on the west coast due to a decline in these stocks. To allow fishing for healthy stocks such as haddock and monkfish to continue in what is a mixed fishery, by-catch measures for cod and whiting have been introduced.

John Anderson, SFO Chief Executive, said: “Faced with zero catch advice for West of Scotland cod and whiting and a ban on discarding, this ground-breaking real-time reporting initiative demonstrates that Scottish fishermen are actively taking the lead in developing new and innovative ways of hot-spot avoidance that should ultimately improve both the sustainability and viability of their fishing operations.”

Paul Macdonald, SFO Fisheries Analyst, said: “We are working with fisheries experts from around the globe to develop a system that works for our fishermen and our fisheries. An essential element of this initiative has been getting the fishermen involved in the project from the offset – this innovative approach simply won’t work without their buy-in or expertise.”

Tara Marshall, Senior Lecturer at the University of Aberdeen said: “This project is a first for the UK, and indeed Europe. Sharing data for the common good is the real innovation here. The cooperative approach reflects the industry’s shared commitment to avoiding bycatch. The software is being co-designed by experienced IT specialists and Scottish fishermen to ensure that it meets requirements data security and confidentiality.”

Kara Brydson, Executive Director of Fisheries Innovation Scotland, said: “This project is a great example of innovative and trusted collaboration between industry and science. Reducing the catch of unwanted species is a major challenge for us all, so this partnership can lead to positive change on the water as well as to a better understanding of fishermen’s motivations for engaging with new technology.”

MMO's answer to the withdrawal of EU fishing industry funding

Marine Management Organisation (MMO) to administer new £15.4 million funding scheme for English fishing industry

The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) will administer a new fund to drive innovation and take up of new technology, improve port infrastructure and processing fisheries and aquaculture products, and support lifesaving vessel safety measures.

Environment Secretary Theresa Villiers, today delivered a boost for the English fishing and seafood industry ahead of Brexit by opening applications for £15.4 million from two UK fishing funds.

The £14.7 million share of a £37.2 million UK-wide fund announced last December, will encourage the take up of innovation and technology, supporting jobs in coastal communities. In addition, £700,000 from a £2 million UK-wide fund announced in the 2018 Budget is ring-fenced for fishing safety improvements on board English vessels and around ports and harbours.

English fishermen and those working in the seafood sector will today be able to apply for a share of the new Maritime Fisheries Fund (MFF) run by the MMO Grants team, which is designed to ensure the fishing and seafood industry continues to thrive once the UK leaves the EU on 31st October.

The three-year fund builds on the government’s commitment to secure a fairer share of fishing opportunities for UK fishermen as it takes back control of fishing waters and establishes the UK as an independent coastal state. The fund in England is open to applications that:

• deliver productive investment in the processing of fisheries and aquaculture products
• support innovation - in technologies to enhance economic growth, increase energy efficiency, reduce environmental impact and improve fishing safety
• improve port infrastructure - so more fish can be landed in UK ports, and help the sector take advantage of new export opportunities after Brexit
• boost coastal communities - by providing benefits to areas that depend on a vibrant and profitable industry
• help the sector adjust - to new arrangements on access and fishing opportunities by improving capacity and capability to exploit new export opportunities and markets, and
• improve safety on fishing vessels or on shore - funding safety measures that prevent accidents such as new handrails and ladders This fund is in addition to the existing European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) which is currently administered by the MMO Grants team. The government has already guaranteed that all EMFF projects approved before 31 December 2020 will continue to be fully funded.

This new fund is open for applications in England from today until March 2022.

Submissions are to be made through the Marine Management Organisation MFF E-system

Mallaig 49 years on.

It's been a while since Through the Gaps was in Mallaig, though some things never seem to change, like boats up on a slip...

or waiting for weather...

though there seems to be a bigger emphasis on scallops these days...

 fished with same class of converted trawlers that have worked the grounds for decades...

to newer, purpose built boats...

with their steel hulls and conveyors...

to the more familiar sight of all those prawn trawls that played such a prominent part in the growth of the fleet up and down the west coast from Whitehaven to the far north of the Western Isles...

though these guys who dive for scallops have found their grounds increasingly targeted by an ever-more resourceful fleet of small inshore scallopers...

who are capable of fishing round pinnacles and tiny patches of scallop-bearing grounds...

 

Mallaig, unlike like Newlyn has not one but two statues acknowledging the contribution fishermen play...

in the life of the community, though this one at the end of the 'new' ferry pier is out of bounds to the public...

the port is capable of handling bulk fish from the big pelagic boats that target mackerel during the winter season due to start shortly...

in addition to mackerel, it is the mighty herring that made many Scottish ports famous, Mallaig being no exception...

Jaffys is the sole surviving traditional smokehouse in the port and have been smoking the humble herring since George 'Jaffy' Lawrie's grandfather started the business in 1944 - lunch today included kippers from Jaffys courtesy of the Tea Garden two minutes walk from the boats and quays.

The future is bright orange for Stevensons.

Ocean Fish fleet vessels all sport orange hulls.

After months of uncertainty it is now clear that the future of Stevensons fishing fleet has been secured thanks to a huge injection of cash from centuries old Cornish company, Ocean Fish. Julie Skentlebery on Radio Cornwall's breakfast show with Ocean Fish's Leigh Genge explains the deal followed by an update from Newlyn harbourmaster Rob Parson's on how this hugely significant deal might take all those who work for Stevensons and the harbour into the future.

The accidental privatisation of fishing quota has hurt coastal communities

With a new Fisheries Bill we can change this.

Ever since the Brexit referendum we’ve heard a lot about ‘our fish’. No one truly owns the fish in the sea – fish eggs and fast swimmers prevent ear tags from working here – but for the purposes of management, fish are fundamentally a public resource owned by all of us. In the UK, neglect over marine resources has seen them accidentally privatised, but there is now an opportunity to change this.

Commercial fisheries in the UK are predominantly managed through quota limits – a cap on the amount of fish that can be harvested in a given year. These quota limits are agreed annually by EU fishing ministers, distributed to Member States in fixed shares, and then distributed by Member States to their fishing fleet according to national legislation. Brexit does not change this – the UK has always had this power over what happens with fishing quota.

Whether the UK has used this power is another story. The UK governments (fishing is a devolved matter) originally allocated quota based on historical catch records in the 1980s (a process that rewarded those overfishing the most and penalised the small-scale fleet which were not required to keep catch records at the time). Since this point these quota allocations became ‘fixed’ in the 1990s and continue today as ‘fixed quota allocations’ (FQAs).

UK fishing quota had, unbeknownst to the public, become accidentally privatised: as a court ruled in 2012 a “legitimate expectation” around FQAs had formed, despite this expectation being “built very much of sand” as “no one can own the fish of the sea”. With an estimated value of £1.1 billion, researchers cite this ownership claim as the largest “squatting claim” in UK history.

This transfer from public control into private hands is not just shocking for its value, but also for the significance for marine resources and the little scrutiny it has received. Successive governments have promised to do more for small fishing communities, but without quota reallocation the trend to centralise in large ports will continue. There are calls to allocate FQAs based on social and environmental criteria, but again, without reallocation, there is no opportunity for this.

Although managing fishing quota has always been up to UK governments, the fact that a UK Fisheries Bill is coming – we assume at some point – gives an opportunity to change policy and reclaim fishing quota as a public resource and allocate it for public good.

To much disappointment, the draft Fisheries Bill has not seized the opportunity and instead kept the FQAs in place. The government is now only consulting on what it terms ‘new quota’ from Brexit. This is problematic as the ‘new’ quota does not actually exist as there has been no Brexit and no agreement with the EU on a fair way to share the many species moving between UK and EU waters. If this quota does arrive, most of it will not be for the ‘right’ species for the small-scale fleet to benefit. The concept of new quota is misleading anyway as recovering fish populations increase the tonnage of quota from one year to the next, so there is more quota going around. This provides the opportunity to change the quota percentages (i.e. the FQAs) without anyone being worse off. But most importantly, if not now – when we are thinking about how our fishing industry should work after Brexit – then when?

The government’s timid approach which disadvantages the majority of stakeholders is likely explained by the powerful minority: the large-scale quota holders. The National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations (NFFO) wrote a briefing in defence of the security provided by FQAs to ward off any changes to the system and implicitly to their existing FQA holdings.

Next week fishers, policymakers, and interest groups will be meeting to plan the ‘future of the inshore fisheries’. This is a chance to consider proposals that would work for the whole industry and wider society. Fixed quota allocations could continue for the majority of allocations, but with a time limit of, for example, 10 years. Fishers would have security for the entire period of validity and all legal ambiguity would cease. This would start with a notice period.

There would also be a one-off reallocation (potentially combined with any additional quota received) to the small-scale fleet to correct for historical injustices. Further, there could be two quota reserves: one for new entrants and one for an incentive-based allocation based on social and environmental criteria.

This system would protect the security the current FQA system (and individual quota systems used elsewhere) while reforming the system enough to deliver low-impact fishing, economic viability, thriving coastal community, and the other diverse objectives we have. Whatever objective, the ability to pursue it depends on reclaiming ‘our fish’ in the fullest sense and ending the privatisation of fishing quota.

Griffin Carpenter October 4, 2019.

Fathom: getting below the surface of the UK fishing industry.

Getting below the surface of the UK fishing industry

A quick teaser on what you can expect from Fathom: real conversations with real fishermen and straight-talking experts on topics that include fishing regulation, safety, fish politics and stories from the sea.The first episode of Fathom will be coming soon. 

Your Fathom Hosts:
Harriet Yates-Smith, Mindfully Wired Communications
Chris Ranford, Fisheries Animateur Project
Paul Trebilcock, CFPO Chief Executive