Trawling trials aim to cut fish wastage

A good-news story from the North Sea!

FISHING trials centred on addressing the issue of discards, involving five Grimsby-registered vessels, have produced positive results.

The throwing away of fish at sea – an issue highlighted by television cook Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall provoking widespread concern – has been virtually eliminated in the study.

Discards of sole, cod, plaice, megrim and angler fish were drastically reduced.

Operated on behalf of the Department For Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Marine Management Organisation report details how the practice could be an alternative method of managing fisheries, at a time when the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is undergoing reform.

The trials encourage fishermen to fish more selectively and land all of what they catch.

Participating vessels were provided with additional quota that amounted to three quarters of the typical discards.

As a result the average discard rate in the North Sea cod trawl dropped from 38 per cent to 0.2 per cent.

Vessels were not permitted to discard any of the species in the trials, including those below the minimum size.

Undersized fish catches were also low, suggesting more selective fishing.

James Cross, chief executive of the MMO, said: "This is really good news for all those interested in a long-term, sustainable future for our fishing industry.

"By working with fishermen to develop innovative solutions, we hope to reduce waste of our marine resources, while increasing healthy seas and fish stocks for the future."

Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon is keen for the trials to be rolled out to other fisheries in advance of CFP reform.

Full story courtesy of the Grimsby Telegraph.

Crystal Sea II - the biggest twin rigger in the West

Skipper David Stevens supervises loading a refurbished set of trawl doors aboard the twin rigging trawler, Crystal Sea II.  The using of two trawls together rather than one equivalent larger trawl has proved highly successful for white fish boats. As yet, there are still only a small number of boats rigged this way s in the South West despite the huge increase in catch rates seen by those practising the dark art of twin rigging!

The video below, commissioned by Notus, an electronics company that provides monitoring gear used by many of the bigger vessels gives an excellent overview of the work and setup involved.



Big Brother goes to sea!

In previous postings Mogen Shou and others have made reference to the use of CCTV aboard fishing vessels to monitor exactly what the boat catches and when. Danish trials using CCTV on a small number of selected vessels proved popular with some - but there are still a sizeable number of boats who feel this is a step too far with shades of an oppressive Orwellian regime looming ever larger.

Allowing for the law of unintended consequences, one potential positive outcome of the trials would be to provide concrete and irrefutablee evidence of the abundance of some species! - time will tell.  Fishermen and fisheries advisers in the EU are desperate for change to happen sooner rather than later in terms of responding to initiatives like these - especially as the annual generally fraught CFP talks take place later this month to set next year's TACs.


Danish fishermen recently ran a pilot study allowing CCTV to monitor there every move - a sort of nautical Big brother only this time the stars of the show ere mainly North Sea fish floundering on deck rather than wannabes floundering on some decking!


The trials were widely reported in Scotland where a similar pilot study has since been carried out.

This report fro STVs News web site:

Scientists placed cameras onboard seven boats like the Fru Middelboe in a pilot study - allowing them to monitor all the fish that were caught and thrown away.

Aqua Scientist Lotte Kindt-Larsen from Denmark Technical University said: "We normally don't have access to this kind of data except for having observers onboard, but now we are filming everything and we have data for every day they go out."

Each year one million tonnes of fish are dumped back dead into EU waters - either legally because legislation stops skippers landing what they have caught, or illegally when fishermen throw away small fish for larger, more profitable ones.

The Danes say their study has shown the quantity of discards decreases when cameras are installed.
Powerful environmental groups who warn of critically low fish stocks have given their backing to the scheme.

WWF Marine Policy Officer Louize Hill said: "The use of cameras onboard is fantastic. WWF has advocated the use of observers on fishing boats for a long time to record what is actually being caught because with the present system we can only record what's landed."
The discards row has left fishermen branded as environmental villains – one of the reasons why Fin Svendsen, the skipper of the Kingfisher was keen to sign up to the scheme.

Mr Svendsen said: "I think it's a good idea to have onboard because then we can show how much we catch without discards."
But clearing their name is not the fishermen’s’ only incentive.

The Danish Government want to allow boats with cameras to land and sell more fish - a move they say is achievable because existing quotas already deduct discards from the amount fishermen are allowed to catch.

If there are no discards then fishermen could catch the full amount.
To do this they need the European Commission's backing, which means they will have to persuade the rest of Europe that it is a good idea.

Ministerial Adviser Mogens Schou said: "It's of course crucial that other member states and the EU commission can see that there's an advantage and it's also crucial I think that we can see it can be a driver for fishermen to be more accountable for what they fish."
Scotland is already showing interest in the proposal with a pilot scheme launched last month.
Scottish Fisheries Secretary Richard Lochhead MSP said: "It will show the policy makers, particularly in Brussels who are often very heavy handed, what actually happens onboard the fishing vessels and the impact that their regulations can have."

However, not all Scots fishermen are convinced by the introduction of the cameras - seeing it as spying by Brussels.

Scots skipper David Milne said: "We have satellite monitoring, we are going to electronic log books in 2011 and we feel it's just an infringement of our human rights to have someone watching us day in day out at our work."

But for the Danes, cameras are a way of freeing fishermen from the bureaucracy of Brussels - with CCTV they say there is no need for the 2,600 rules which currently govern every aspect of fishing.
It remains to see if Denmark’s seafaring neighbours in Europe will be similarly convinced.

This video gives a guided tour of how the system was set up for the trials.

CCTV cameras on fishing vessels ensure that all fish caught are counted. Fishermen can have increased quotas, control can be reduced, and consumer be assured of sustainability.

CFP reform - what the industry needs to do in order to move forward in charge of its own destiny.

Mogens Schou has added a further comment to the ongoing debate being held on LinkedIn:


"The reformed CFP (at present council’s general approach) has a Janus face looking into the past with ongoing micro management and into the future with results based management. As a framework regulation the transition to the new policy requires a prudence and “understanding of the principles” implementation. A critical factor is the phasing in of industry responsibility and phasing out of public regulation – especially the risk of deregulation being too slow, thereby stalling the incentive effects of CQM. See http://www.blog.clientearth.org/reform/ “reaping the benefits of the CFP”.

Now, my point is that industry driven large scale trials may set the standard for the implementing regulations. Such trials are already done in CQM - Catch Quota Management trials conducted by Denmark, UK and Germany since 2008 and now covering about 30 % of cod catches in the North Sea (see www.fvm.dk/yieldoffish ). I see a number of opportunities to deal with the new CFP issues this way. A support from funders to the industry in designing, following and reporting such trials could be a very concrete way of moving the new management ahead - before the deadlines set in the CFP and in a way that ensure that regulations do not only protect the fish but also provide the food output and economy we want. How to deal with the discard ban and the necessary exemptions, how to tackle the choke species problem, how to establish community pooling ensuring the matching of quotas with catches – etc, how to establish comprehensive data from commercial vessels etc"

Mogens Schou

Advisor to the Minister of Fisheries

Slotsholmsgade 12 CPH

msc@fvm.dk; +45 22 61 05 75

Technical debate about MMO Trial to reduce Discard

Follow a new discussion on LnkedIn about the technical debate about MMO Trial to reduce Discards.

Latest study from MMO must be precisely discussed. This experiment is a great issue and a first attempt to solve the administrative cause of discarding through catch quota tool. The results shows a high drop of discard when fishermen have enough quota.

This also shows that main cause of North sea high rates of discard should be addressed with the 2 levels of administrative constraints regarding scarcity of quotas: 1°) low TAC which can be solved by catch quota at EU level and 2) national conditions of distributing quotas (see impact of UK FQA and especially leasing of quotas)

I propose here to have a technical discussion about the following issues: - what are the conditions surrounding this experiment and how this experiment could be used to solve the matter: fishery pre-existing rate of discard, type of fishing gear involved, multispecific species catches issues - quota availability: how this experiment succeed to find extraquota to be included in the catch-quota (through inclusion of discard estimation inside the catch quota? In the existing quota scheme, are we sure we can find enough extraquota for all fisheries?

Please, use a simple English in your writing to enable all not-at-ease English readers or writers to participate (such as me) 

Discards reduced through catch quota trial marinemanagement.org.uk 

News story about the publication of the final report from the catch quota trials in 2011 that show the trials are having success in reducing disards.

Braving troubled waters - a book by Rob van Ginkel

Rob van Ginkel spent two years living with a fishing community on the island of Texel in the Netherlands. He studied the evolution of the community over 300 years and analyzed its resilience in his book Braving Troubled Waters. We present here a translation last pages of his conclusion. 

Fishermen recognize that without no regulation of any kind, tragedy is imminent. However, they are struggling to grapple with uncertainties that external authorities fishing have created for the future. They are always adapted to the vicissitudes the ecosystem and markets but now much oppose fantastic powers that go beyond their capabilities adaptation. Usually fishermen have short horizons term. Because of the high levels of uncertainty, they prefer to schedule short term. Incentives to adopt a new mode of production are inextricably linked to opportunities change and the costs and benefits collected. first sight, the fishermen seem to be very conservative.

Often, they stubbornly oppose any change in the management system stocks, and over time, it they happened to let their discontent through strikes, demonstrations, blockades, refusal to obey and clashes with foreign competitors and authorities. From the point of view of fishermen themselves, they generally good reasons to do so. This book highlights some contradictions management systems and policies fishing and the ambivalence of answers  Fishermen try to do make, and the perverse results of process.

Between the aims by implementing policies, and the desired results, there seems to beyawning gap. New systems management often go against fishing strategies devoted through use of coping skills, flexibility and behaviors diversion. Claiming culturally  independence and individualism inherent in their profession, fishermen are often suspicious and not accept the interference of officials responsible for fisheries and regulations, especially when consider that the measures are inadequate and unfair. "The motivations of fisheries stakeholders and legitimacy moral management measures are closely related to the goals and values "(T. Veswtergaard). 

To better, they are divided against intervention outside. However, it would be wrong to say that fishermen that victims are fragile intervention of the state. They try to do the best in the world full of restrictions and structures and they sail on dangerous seas literally and Figuratively. Independently because we can not not mean that fishermen are autonomous actors - inserted as they are in social configurations wider - they are actors. They plan, combine, conspire and adapt their lives to the new realities management systems, on the lookout faults, breaking the rules if they believe that this is what should be to cooperate and if they find advantage. All fishermen are not satisfied not respond to the "rules of game ", there are also those who are innovators assets, trying to anticipate the constraints imposed by the State, to maintain control. In both cases, fishermen confront national governments and supranational to situations that authorities must respond later. 

This dynamic two-way has profoundly affected the nature of process of setting up a policy fisheries. For example, of state policy on the development and modernization of the fleet. Ironically, it was first used grants to fund development capacity and then used public moneyto reduCe this capacity, taxing doubly citizens. We and includes such a dialectic fails to fishers who initially received encouragement to invest and then were severely limited in their operations.

Adding insult to injury, they were accused of practicing overfishing, whereas early, they begged the state to cap the engine power. The dialectic is also evident in a higher degree integration.

The management system creates contradictions and unexpected results In the European Union, "the actors governmental and nongovernmental no longer have the monopoly on the political agenda. They define public policy through interactions, negotiations and permanent compromise "(Lequesne). Although fishermen accept not the countless regulations Brussels that imposes it is ironic to note that for much they were originally requests for exemptions from was that to ensure the rights best, each company land had the largest share possible national time as short as possible, regardless individual limits. With an application more severe, and in particular following the introduction of groups co-management, this type of behavior has changed. However, it took effort to ensure that fishermen bend to the fisheries policy.

Legitimacy and transparency were the basis of the relatively successful important governance systems Recent. The government has also encouraged shipowners to invest in buying more landing rights. The Most owners of Texel were eager to do, with precisely as economists neoclassical predicted that the fishermen strongest and most effective respond well, as there was in their own interests, they showed individualism constructive increasing their landing rights. 

The skippers of Texel now have at their disposal a significant portion of the national share TAC of sole and plaice. In Generally, they assimilate these rights to land a certain quantity of fish property of this quantity of always fish swimming in the sea Their fishing effort obviously tends to focus on the species they have "bought". They should refrain to do, spending to buy the quotas were and are therefore wasted costs highly unproductive - a real loss. "The rights to land" have therefore tend to become "Duty to capture," which can have ecological  consequences harmful. In addition to preventing the possibility to adapt to another type fishing and so the flexibility and resilience the quota system means that the absolute quantities of fish that rights holders can land fluctuate from year to year, and sometimes brutally. This fact, buying landing rights additional investment is precarious also lends itself to speculation considerable "right based on the percentage offering less security ...and marketability owners (Rose).

In addition, the regulations of the day Sea conflict with the interest increased quotas, which interfere with the transfer market because that if there is under-utilization of quotas, their market supply exceeds demand and prices fall. The worst fear is that shipowners pencil stroke replaces Brussels landing rights by days at sea regime Fishermen can adapt to a constantly mutation Many problems arise from the inclination of the for consistency  regulations applied all member states. These rules and regulations are not always meaning for some fisheries and they can cause "incentives perverse "and produce" effects harmful "(Acheson).

The  problem is that simplifications generic and homogenizing bystates (J. C. Scott) for a technocratic management environments fail the social and natural mostly because they are in contradiction with the knowledge local practices and expertise context that can not be  acquired in the field and experience. Situations discrete dynamic Composites are engineered to become standardized data aggregated into static and simplified to manage and control. However, such planning projects scale fail most time because they do not know what J. Scott calls "metis" whole range of skills and intelligence gained to adapt a natural human  environment constantly changing. " 

In this context, it could be a strategy reasonable goals  management, more attention supported the fishers 'knowledge' into extreme fluctuations account ecosystem, releasing the same modernist assumption that time of predictability associated with the project ecological sustainability (Palsson). These modes of knowledge must be reinstated in management structures and policy and ideally, users resource are closely associated in this process, because they are particularly affected by the outcome.

To adapt optimally these strategies should provide flexibility, given that Forces distant, capricious, contingent contributing to uncertainties and risk, affect local resources and their users. We should remind us that all structures governance "imply balance between stability and flexibility authority and representation, individual and society "(Hanna), while their results are difficult to predict and control. Thus, actors and communities continue to dependSocial Resilience: ability to cope with disturbances to environmental changes, political and social (Adger). 

At present, however, most economic concern fishermen Texel is how survive the current depression caused primarily by fuel prices n which are never reached such a level. If there are no signs the end of the crisis, owners will just what many their predecessors did in thepast to cope with difficult times for the love of their life.

Rob van Ginkel 

On a cold, dark, wet, sleet ridden morning.

Ryan shrugs off the sleet and rain as he guides another set of boxes packed with hake from the fishroom aboard the Gary M.