Henrietta Graham - Artist to the fishing community.

When Mousehole based artist Henrietta Graham moved studio from Mousehole to Newlyn she didn't quite expect to become so closely involved with the fishing industry...

Like Newlyn School artists of 100 years ago Henrietta soon found herself drawn to capturing the sights, sounds and smells of the fishing industry at ever closer quarters...

though she's no stranger to taking inspiration from the food industry having painted captured over fifty of the country's well-known chefs...

subsequently, several works were created after early morning visits to the fish auction...

followed by a week-long trip to sea aboard the netter Karen of Ladram armed with borrowed oilskins, boots and sketchbook with skipper Sid Porter and crew for company...

where she was treated to some right royal sunsets...

and, in between stints on deck sorting and washing fish as one of the crew, she sketched life on board for future reference...

the following months saw the seeds of an idea grow from the initial fish auction work when Newlyn Harbour Commissioners commissioned her to create six huge works...

to adorn the rather dull, grey cement exterior of the newly re-furbished fish market...

each of the work depicts a different aspect of England's largest fishing port...

from the shoreside engineer, fabricators and welders...

to the guys at the heart of the business, the fishermen at work themselves.

Each canvas has been photographed and is then being printed on aluminium for permanent display. This week saw local photographer Steve Tanner checking the test prints with harbourmaster Rob Parsons before signing off the final prints. 

Covid restrictions permitting the grand unveiling is scheduled for just after the Christmas period. Henrietta and her work will feature on BBC news today (Saturday), just as the hugely significant negotiations between the UK and the EU and the fishing industry come to a head as Michel Barnier arrives in London for what is hoped are the final stages to end the Brexit deadlock.

Volunteer skippers needed to support fisheries data collection.

Volunteer skippers are needed to contribute to the scientific data usually collected through the Observer Programme. Current Covid-19 restrictions mean that Cefas observers are not able to join commercial fishing vessels. 

 

We are planning, in partnership with industry, to set up a temporary programme, so that individual vessels bring back samples for our observers to process ashore. We are currently piloting this approach, before extending the programme to the wider fleet. The quality of these data is crucial, if it is to replicate our observer data and be useful. We will work with the industry to ensure that what we ask is practical, reasonable, avoids disruption and, importantly, produces effective data.

Which fleets will we be sampling? We will focus this sampling on around 800 of our UK registered vessels that predominantly target, demersal finfish, Nephrops and shrimps with trawls and nets based on catch data for 2019. So that the data is representative of all the activity in the fleet, we will randomly select vessels to approach for these samples. For this to be a success we need to work with at least 100 vessels to address this data gap.

The Covid crisis has disturbed the way in which scientists collect the data that provides the raw material for fish stock assessments.

NFFO Chief Executive, Barrie Deas said:

"The Covid crisis has disturbed the way in which scientists collect the data that provides the raw material for fish stock assessments. Without good data we cannot expect good management decisions and the risk of tighter restrictions through the application of a precautionary approach is increased.

There is potential, however, to turn this problem into an opportunity by increasing the industry’s direct involvement in the provision of data. The result could be greater industry confidence that they have had a part in undertaking."

What are the benefits of taking part? 

You will be contributing to the important pool of data that will be used for assessments that inform catch options and advice on fisheries management. You can be reassured your data will be protected. Information obtained about the activities of fishermen, either from fishermen themselves, or by Cefas staff in the course of their duties, will be retained and used for scientific purposes only. 

A report on the data collected will be provided to each skipper sampled. Cefas will report on our achievements in early 2021. We hope to develop a consistent manageable programme by the end of this year to continue into next year.

An inconvenience payment of £25 per haul sampled capped at £200 per trip will be paid.

How do we contact you? We are dependent on our contact list that has developed from regular contact with skippers and fleet managers. The list of vessels we work to are based on the official catch returns of the previous year. We can’t sample everyone, but if we have your permission to hold your contact details, we may select you to take part.

We would be very interested to hear from anyone who has not been sampled in the last three years to broaden the data available to us. For more information contact afstcosampling@cefas.co.uk or download the leaflet.

Support tomorrow’s seafood industry, today

Fisheries Innovation Scotland (FIS) invites expressions of interest (EoI) from organisations across the world to take part in two new projects designed to help the Scottish seafood industry plan for a prosperous future.

FIS is the partnership between seafood experts, scientists and Scottish Government to champion practical innovation projects that add value to businesses and communities. Today, FIS announced it will commission two exciting new investigations into greenhouse gas emissions from Scottish fishing vessels, and the digitalisation of the Scottish fishing fleet. These studies will help FIS develop

innovations that have tangible benefits for the seafood sector. This request for EoIs begins a two- stage process whereby applicants will be shortlisted for the opportunity to submit a full proposal.

Executive Director Kara Brydson said “FIS projects have industry expertise built in from the very beginning, so we asked for views on the most pressing innovation needs for Scottish seafood. Our members, which include catchers, processors, and retailers, shortlisted these ‘critical questions’ and invited experts from outside of the seafood world to help us identify what projects could start supporting tomorrow’s industry today. Bringing these heads together led to us think about using digital tools to provide business and research intelligence, and increasing fishing efficiency while reducing emissions.

“FIS’ take on innovation is about shared opportunities and genuine collaboration to try new things. Who knows our industry better than the people driving it, but we also welcome specialists from beyond seafood to help us learn from other sectors and nations. FIS began speaking to stakeholders about their innovation priorities before the global pandemic and we will keep listening as our industry recovers and adapts.”

FIS will commission an inventory of the Scottish fleet to understand greenhouse gas (GHG) emission issues for each sector – for example, the elements in each fleet segment that are the greatest contributors, as well as the greatest contributors by fleet segment. The inventory will inform the development of a practical tool to measure and validate changes in carbon use at an individual vessel level. This knowledge will help promote industry action to reduce GHG emissions, safeguard sector and business reputation, and allow businesses to maintain and access new markets.

FIS will also commission a digitalisation roadmap for Scottish fisheries, including an audit of the fleet’s current and future digital capabilities to provide business and research intelligence to fishers, scientists and managers. The roadmap must reflect stakeholder priorities and consider all parts of the Scottish fishing fleet, from the in-shore sector through to the largest vessels.

FIS invites Expressions of Interest from all types of organisation capable of generating new knowledge relevant to Scottish fisheries, and ensuring this knowledge can be used to generate change ‘on the water’. The EoI period closes on Monday 14th December 2020.

A request for a full proposal will be sent to shortlisted partners by the end of December 2020. For more details on the new FIS projects, and to submit an Expression of Interest to lead this work, please go to our website.

Seafarers UK Supports Safety Folder for Fishers

 

Seafarers UK is supporting the Safety Folder, a unique safety aid for professional fishers, as it embarks on a campaign to increase its use by fishing boat owners, skippers and crew across the UK.

Created by Seafarers UK trustee Robert Greenwood, the Safety Folder is a free online resource that aims to support behavioural change to improve safety culture on board fishing vessels of all sizes.

It achieves this in part by making it easier to maintain records and provide evidence to Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) inspectors that risk assessments have been routinely carried out.

The MCA recommends the use of the Safety Folder on the grounds that its use can ‘assist you with preparing for your survey and inspection and may save you time and money by shortening the time MCA spends on your vessel and avoid return visits.’

Since its launch in 2012, the Safety Folder has been adopted by owners of 1,687 vessels with 4,239 crew. 50% of active fishing vessels in the UK are registered users, including 23% of the UK’s under-10m fleet.

The Safety Folder:

• supports conducting and recording risk assessments 
• supports compliance with ILO C188 regulations 
• keeps track of crew training and certification 
• provides automated reminders of expiry dates for equipment certification, servicing and vessel maintenance.

The Safety Folder’s use as a safety management system is endorsed by the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, Northern Ireland Fish Producers’ Organisation, Scottish Fishermen’s Federation and Welsh Fishermen’s Association - Cymdeithas Pysgotwyr Cymru.

Robert Greenwood explained: ‘The grant awarded by Seafarers UK, together with match funding from Trinity House, will support the incorporation, marketing and core costs for the Safety Folder, enabling a shift from a part-time volunteer endeavour to a more formal structuring of the governance and its operations, including the creation of a Community Interest Company.’

‘It will also enable a programmer's time to be given to website development in order to improve navigation and retrieval of information for users, as well as add a calendar of key dates and automated reminders about equipment safety checks.’

Seafarers UK CEO Catherine Spencer commented: ‘This grant award is the latest example of how our solution focused work in the fishing sector will help raise safety standards and practice for UK fishers. Seafarers UK is getting to the root of problems and working with a range of delivery organisations to improve life for fishers.’

Fishing vessel owners can register to use the Safety Folder at https://www.safetyfolder.co.uk

DEAL OR NO DEAL?

 

Are the scales now tipping back in favour of the status quo for UK fishing? 

As anyone who has been reading the NEF blog over the past few years will recognise, fisheries – while only making up a tiny part of the UK economy – has developed totemic status in the UK’s Brexit narrative and remains one of the major obstacles to a UK-EU deal. 

In the run-up to the Brexit referendum, it was impossible to avoid hearing about fisheries and Brexit and the oft-repeated soundbite of ​“taking back control” of our waters. This fits a portrayal of the UK as an island nation with a proud maritime heritage, so fishing has become the posterchild for a new chapter outside the EU. Brexit was sold to the public and fishing industry as a ​“sea of opportunity” by politicians and industry bodies alike. It wasn’t convenient for Brexit advocates to focus on the downsides of leaving the single market and customs union in any cost-benefit analysis.

Since the dim and distant days of the referendum, our research has shown a sea of risks for the majority of fishing fleet in the UK, with Brexit likely to create more losers than winners when it comes to fishing. The House of Lords European Union Committee was extremely clear in December 2016, that if the UK fishing industry as a whole is to thrive post-Brexit, it will need to continue to have access to EU markets. The majority of UK-caught fish and shellfish ends up in the EU. The total volume of the UK’s fish exports to the EU, including fish and shellfish, amounted to 342,000 metric tons in 2018 – so the impacts of tariffs and non-tariff barriers are extremely significant.

But due to the influence of money in politics and the media, the media coverage was skewed by powerful fishing lobbyists (as our analysis showed), who were quoted time and again, without any attention being paid to those who stood to lose out.

For this reason, we went to fishing ports around the UK to try to provide a voice for those who were most at risk, marginalised in the discussion, the politics and the media. We made a video in 2018 and took their voices straight to Westminster for a cross-party event.

Up until September of this year, lobbyists for the large-scale fishing fleet (representing mainly quota owners and those fishing for quota species, who are more likely to benefit from Brexit) were pushing the government to stand firm for fishermen, by refusing to compromise on EU fleets’ access to UK waters or status quo when it comes to quotas. Although by this point, international fishing industry commentators were already very clear about the risks of not having a fisheries agreement in place, both for the sustainable management of fisheries and for a sustainable industry.

Now, in November 2020, the tune is starting to change. The penny is clearly starting to drop.

The government guidance on exporting seafood to the EU is unworkable, and fishing industry leaders shared their concerns in a letter to the government, stating that the guidance places an unrealistic administrative burden on fishers who used to be able to sell their fish to the EU easily. The Financial Times has reported that there would need to be four times as many people involved in filling out the paperwork as there were working as fishermen. French fishing interests aren’t going to retreat without a fight and the narrative around who is to blame for the apparent plight of the UK fishing industry is also shifting away from ​‘them catching our fish’ to ​‘we sold them the rights to catch it’.

But with time running out and ​“project fear becoming project fact” we don’t have the luxury of time. If the government fails to get a deal with the EU, a no-deal Brexit will be the final nail in the coffin for the struggling fishing industry. It would cause immense problems for fishers who export to the EU, and those who fish for shellfish outside of the EU quota system. Suddenly, the bullish narrative of the Brexit referendum has shifted. The costs to fishers are finally being recognised and concerns all over the UK are coming to the fore.

A deal now looks more likely, as the consequences of not having access to the main market for seafood would be cataclysmic for an industry already heavily impacted by Covid-19 and its impacts on seafood markets, restaurants and pubs.

The most extreme Brexiteers are now clutching at straws as the reality of no deal can no longer be ignored, with suggestions that our coastal communities will be rebuilt on the strength of their ability to use ​‘fish guts’ in pharmaceuticals (despite the fact that the EU has already been working on this, and that the UK could do it far more effectively with international support).

So, many years down the line and approaching the final days of negotiation the only viable political option appears to be an agreement that sounds like ​‘taking back control’ but really doesn’t change the status quo all too much. This would mean the UK civil servants and large-scale fisheries lobby can both be happy and a tale can be spun to say that the deal was reached to protect the small-scale fleet from a disastrous no deal.

Taking back control, to change nothing, isn’t really that catchy – but looks like the least worse option.

Full story courtesy of the New Economics Foundation.

Deal or No Deal?

Are the scales now tipping back in favour of the status quo for UK fishing?

As anyone who has been reading the NEF blog over the past few years will recognise, fisheries — while only making up a tiny part of the UK economy — has developed totemic status in the UK’s Brexit narrative and remains one of the major obstacles to a UK-EU deal.

In the run-up to the Brexit referendum, it was impossible to avoid hearing about fisheries and Brexit and the oft-repeated soundbite of ​“taking back control” of our waters. This fits a portrayal of the UK as an island nation with a proud maritime heritage, so fishing has become the posterchild for a new chapter outside the EU. Brexit was sold to the public and fishing industry as a ​“sea of opportunity” by politicians and industry bodies alike. It wasn’t convenient for Brexit advocates to focus on the downsides of leaving the single market and customs union in any cost-benefit analysis.

Since the dim and distant days of the referendum, our research has shown a sea of risks for the majority of fishing fleet in the UK, with Brexit likely to create more losers than winners when it comes to fishing. The House of Lords European Union Committee was extremely clear in December 2016, that if the UK fishing industry as a whole is to thrive post-Brexit, it will need to continue to have access to EU markets. The majority of UK-caught fish and shellfish ends up in the EU. The total volume of the UK’s fish exports to the EU, including fish and shellfish, amounted to 342,000 metric tons in 2018 – so the impacts of tariffs and non-tariff barriers are extremely significant.

But due to the influence of money in politics and the media, the media coverage was skewed by powerful fishing lobbyists (as our analysis showed), who were quoted time and again, without any attention being paid to those who stood to lose out.

For this reason, we went to fishing ports around the UK to try to provide a voice for those who were most at risk, marginalised in the discussion, the politics and the media. We made a video in 2018 and took their voices straight to Westminster for a cross-party event.

Up until September of this year, lobbyists for the large-scale fishing fleet (representing mainly quota owners and those fishing for quota species, who are more likely to benefit from Brexit) were pushing the government to stand firm for fishermen, by refusing to compromise on EU fleets’ access to UK waters or status quo when it comes to quotas. Although by this point, international fishing industry commentators were already very clear about the risks of not having a fisheries agreement in place, both for the sustainable management of fisheries and for a sustainable industry.

Now, in November 2020, the tune is starting to change. The penny is clearly starting to drop.

The government guidance on exporting seafood to the EU is unworkable, and fishing industry leaders shared their concerns in a letter to the government, stating that the guidance places an unrealistic administrative burden on fishers who used to be able to sell their fish to the EU easily. The Financial Times has reported that there would need to be four times as many people involved in filling out the paperwork as there were working as fishermen. French fishing interests aren’t going to retreat without a fight and the narrative around who is to blame for the apparent plight of the UK fishing industry is also shifting away from ​‘them catching our fish’ to ​‘we sold them the rights to catch it’.

But with time running out and ​“project fear becoming project fact” we don’t have the luxury of time. If the government fails to get a deal with the EU, a no-deal Brexit will be the final nail in the coffin for the struggling fishing industry. It would cause immense problems for fishers who export to the EU, and those who fish for shellfish outside of the EU quota system. Suddenly, the bullish narrative of the Brexit referendum has shifted. The costs to fishers are finally being recognised and concerns all over the UK are coming to the fore.

A deal now looks more likely, as the consequences of not having access to the main market for seafood would be cataclysmic for an industry already heavily impacted by Covid-19 and its impacts on seafood markets, restaurants and pubs.

The most extreme Brexiteers are now clutching at straws as the reality of no deal can no longer be ignored, with suggestions that our coastal communities will be rebuilt on the strength of their ability to use ​‘fish guts’ in pharmaceuticals (despite the fact that the EU has already been working on this, and that the UK could do it far more effectively with international support).

So, many years down the line and approaching the final days of negotiation the only viable political option appears to be an agreement that sounds like ​‘taking back control’ but really doesn’t change the status quo all too much. This would mean the UK civil servants and large-scale fisheries lobby can both be happy and a tale can be spun to say that the deal was reached to protect the small-scale fleet from a disastrous no deal.

Taking back control, to change nothing, isn’t really that catchy – but looks like the least worse option.

Full story from the New Economics Foundation BY Chris Williams 

19 NOVEMBER 2020 

Best Practices to Prevent and Reduce abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear

 

 

It has been estimated that 640,000 tonnes of fishing gear is lost or abandoned in the oceans every year, which traps fish or other marine life and negatively impact marine ecosystems. FAO in collaboration with GGGI is running workshops on abandoned, lost, and discarded fishing gear around the world. Through these workshops, co-funded by the European Union and the Government of the Netherlands, they provide with instruments, such the Voluntary Guidelines for the Marking of Fishing Gear (VGMFG), to address ghost fishing and marine litter from fisheries activities. 

This video shows the workshop held in Panama and also the experience of the country to tackle this issue.