Marine Management Organisation
Bass FMP in English & Welsh Waters
MMO are currently working on Goal 2 of the Bass FMP which is to review the bass authorisation system. The team have been in the East getting your views and will be heading to the Southeast, South and Southwest in over the next couple of months.
The goals & why they will help
Why an FMP for Bass?
Bass has been prioritised because of overfishing and because recruitment (the number of juveniles that join the adult stock in any given year) remains low. The fishery is important as it contributes culturally, socially, and economically to coastal communities.
Key Goals and Benefits:
1. Inclusive stakeholder engagement structures to inform management of the bass fishery.
- Working collaboratively to support improved, sustainable management of the marine environment.
- Better understanding of the scientific process.
- Builds relationships and trust between fishers, scientists, and government bodies.
- Develop transparent approaches for co-design of management across the fishing sector.
2. Maintain access to the bass fishery, while prioritising stock sustainability.
- Review of the authorisation system to ensure a balance between access to the bass fishery and protecting the stock.
- Consider an alternative system for managing commercial access to the fishery.
- Helps protect the sustainability of the stock.
- Ensuring fair and equitable access for all.
3. Minimise discarding of bass bycatch.
- Reduces bass bycatch and waste of dead fish.
- Improve knowledge and understanding of discards to support new scientific trials, potential gear developments, and projects such as the Celtic Sea REM programme.
4. Ensure full compliance with bass regulations.
- Improve collaboration, consistency, and clarity in how regulators enforce bass regulations, including Registered Buyers and Sellers legislation.
- Work towards sector equality to ensure current bass regulations apply to all those fishing for bass.
- Harmonising relevant IFCA and Welsh bye-laws within the FMP to support compliance with regulations.
5. Maximise the benefits of bass fishing for local coastal communities.
- Potential to generate substantial social and economic benefits.
- Increase research on the social, economic, and cultural importance of bass fisheries.
6. Sustainable harvesting of the bass stock in line with scientific advice.
- Fills evidence gaps required for improved stock assessments.
- Improve data collection on recreational catches.
- Review existing harvest strategies for bass and assess alternative strategies with a view to maximising the efficiency, profitability, and sustainability of bass harvesting.
7. Protecting juvenile and spawning bass.
- Gather evidence on the most suitable timing and duration of the closed seasons to optimise the protection of spawning bass stocks to promote stock recovery.
- Considers developing gear modifications to reduce bycatch of juvenile bass.
- Reviews the most appropriate size limits for the bass stock.
8. Minimise the impact of bass fishing on the wider marine ecosystem.
- Improve monitoring of sensitive species bycatch in bass fisheries.
- Aid reducing bycatch (through gear modifications, promotion bycatch self-reporting, and bycatch reduction trials etc).
- Minimises the impact of fishing gear on seabed disturbance associated with the bass fishery.
9. Mitigate against and adapt to the impact of climate change on bass fishing.
- Supports industry in adapting to the impact of climate change on bass stocks.
- Allows for further research on the impact of climate change on bass distribution, abundance, and recruitment.
What we have done so far:
Defra have set up a Bass Management Group (BMG) to facilitate stakeholder participation in management decisions. The group will meet quarterly and consist of commercial and recreational fishing representatives, Cefas, regulators, representatives from environmental groups, and policy makers from Defra and Welsh government.
