Phil Lockley is a small-scale, artisanal fisherman from Cornwall. He works from one of the most beautiful ‘rivers’ of Cornwall, the Helford River, as part of a small fleet of 18 vessels, each measuring under 10m in length.
Rarely do I need an alarm clock. My winter day begins without prompting at 05.00hrs GMT; a routine shared by countless other European artisanal fishermen who prepare for their day of work.
I willingly and lovingly hunt for fish and shellfish. It’s not just a job. To many it is a way of life.
Nature offers two main hurdles to small-boat fishermen – bad weather and bad luck. Yet the political uncertainty now wrapped around the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) delivers a third hurdle, far more damaging than the others. Here in Cornwall the future of artisanal small-boat fishermen is not “in the balance”, but is steadily heading toward extinction, because of the smothering effect of the CFP and the UK government’s slavish adherence to it. Across the EU, the naivety that politicians have toward such small fishing businesses that have survived for thousands of years – and are the mainstay in the infrastructure of outlying communities – is frightening.
You can run from bad weather, and bad luck doesn’t last forever, but unless the CFP reform addresses the future of such coastal communities it may spell the financial end to fishermen like myself.
With that in mind I recently joined several other UK small-boat fishermen to meet artisanal fishermen and woemn from eight other EU countries at a one-day congress held in Brussels.
Prompted by the UKs small-boat group – the New Under Ten Fishermen’s Association (NUTFA) – and facilitated by Greenpeace, the common declaration agreed by the Congress will hopefully pave the way for such industries to again thrive.
Together with several other small-boat fishermen, I walked into the Congress as a proud Eurosceptic. Yet after meeting so many fishermen who are in a similar situation to us, that experience became humbling.
Here in the UK big boats own 96% of the British quota yet small boats add up to over three quarters of the UK fleet.
I heard how Greek fishermen at present have no quota restrictions,yet they are still going broke. The coastline of Greece is awash with illegal fishing operations, unlicensed operators selling many of their 104 species of commercial fish through a black market and using grossly unsustainable gear and methods. In the UK we have non-licensed part timers and poachers too, but so few in comparison.
Dimitris Zannes, artisanal fisherman from Greece said: "Just imagine the damage to the marine environment all of that is bringing. Around our islands we have one of the most fragile marine environments in the world, but we have no measures to manage that."
When Breton bass line fisherman, Gwenael Pennarun took to the stage, my ears pricked-up. They have a bass tagging scheme, a method whereby any merchant and/or consumer can easily spot a bass caught using sustainable methods from one taken by the large French trawlers, where dead dolphins as a by-catch are commonplace.
In an equally emotive response, Luis Rodriguez, a small-boat fisherman from Galicia (North Spain) told how their hake line-fishermen, small-scale netters and others face ruin from the big boats, “they are just 20% of the fleet in tonnage but the owners have cornered over 90% of the quotas”, he explained.
“Our type of fishing and what goes with it is very important for coastal communities and it represents a great many jobs,” he added. “And we do not damage the marine environment, but we do not have either time or money to press our case within the EU, so we have been forgotten."
Each speaker gave in-depth details of their fishermen’s plight, and by midday it was clear how everyone was ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’.
After an exhausting ten hours, hearing so many cases of how the CFP is at present loaded toward big boats, I applauded the speaker, Jerry Percy, after he read out the Joint Declaration of European Artisanal Fishermen.
The following morning I stepped back onto the Eurostar to leave Brussels. My Eurosceptic feelings had gone; I had no idea that so many thousands of coastal fishermen face the same plight as we do. Politicians fail by using blinkered vision; hopefully our efforts through the Congress and the Declaration will lift the veil of their ignorance.
Article tagged as:Artisanal Fishing, CFP, Small Scale Fishing