The EU Commisson's Blue Growth strategy for the maritime economy of Europe, adopted in September 2012. These areas are aquaculture, energy, tourism, blue biotechnology and seabed-mining.- stay tuned

Commissioner Maria Damanaki, will be in Paris tomorrow, Thursday 7 February, to participate in the first edition of the French maritime event, Euromaritime. Commissioner Damanaki will give a speech on the importance of Europe in the Global Maritime Economy. She will also update stakeholders on both progress made and developments foreseen in the five key areas set out in the Commisson's Blue Growth strategy for the maritime economy of Europe, adopted in September 2012. These areas are aquaculture, energy, tourism, blue biotechnology and seabed-mining.

Before leaving for Paris Ms Damanaki highlighted that "the benefits that we could derive from the maritime economy would be outstanding; we are talking about over one million new jobs and billions of euros by the end of this decade".

Euromaritime, a marine and maritime economy event, is hosting its first edition at Parc des Expositions, Porte de Versailles, Paris on 5th, 6th and 7th February. It will showcase 180 exhibitors in an area of 6,000m2. Euromaritime has received the patronage of the European Commission.

Victory as European Parliament votes for sustainable fisheries!

As reported on thew WWF web site earlier to day:

Strasbourg, France: After a committee vote in December that was praised by WWF as a milestone vote for sustainable fisheries, today all members of the European Parliament voted 502 to 137 in favour again of the draft report by Ulrike Rodust (S&D, DE) on the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) Basic Regulation, the cornerstone of the CFP reform package.

All of the five WWF key asks for the CFP reform were voted through.

“Today something truly exceptional has happened – the European Parliament voted for a strong fisheries reform to let our oceans recover and ensure the sustainability of fisheries in the EU. This is a triumph especially in these times of crisis and despite strong opposition from certain politicians with unsustainable industry interests”, Roberto Ferrigno, Common Fisheries Policy Project Coordinator, WWF European Policy Office.

“Everyone wants a strong reform: citizens, industry and fishermen. Members of the European Parliament listened to their constituents and used their newly acquired powers to act and make a difference. Now it’s clear after this vote that it is a political priority to shape up EU fisheries and provide long-term stability to fishing communities, fishermen and businesses and the marine environment they depend on”.

“The oceans, fish and those who fish sustainably have won one half of the battle today. Next it is up to fisheries ministers to vote their position on this basic regulation. It will be a tough battle but we hope national governments will listen to the strong message issued by the Parliament, and will sweep away vested interests to ensure a long term sustainable future for our oceans and Europe’s fisheries economy”.

Brian Sewell on Amongst Heroes: the artist in working Cornwall, Two Temple Place

Love him or hate him, art critic Brian Sewell never fails to deliver. This, bay far the most well informed review of the current Newlyn School show in London makes a visit to the temporary gallery in Tow Temple Place all the more compelling!

"this Marxist historical geography must seem to all sane men anomalous. It is — though the impoverished fishermen in the wooden boats of Newlyn would have appreciated the craftsmanship of the hammer beam roof over the panelled Great Hall" - and the same would be true tday - go see!

Charles Napier Hemy’s painting “Pilchards” was painted in 1897 and exhibited at the Royal Academy

Here is the review in full from the Evening Standard.

Towards the end of the 19th century two artists’ colonies were established in the far west of Cornwall, in St Ives on the north side of the peninsula, facing north, where the sun is always on the back of those who gaze across the Bristol Channel, and on the other side, in the warmer light of the south, in Newlyn, looking into the sun and across the sea to Brittany. They were the main English contributions to a phenomenon that Stanhope Forbes (1857-1947), perhaps the most important of the painters working in Cornwall (and certainly the longest-lived, dying at 90), described in 1900, not as representing a trend surprisingly new, but as “… one of the distinct waves of feeling which occasionally occur in Art …” It was a wave of feeling that, spreading across Europe and even to the north-east coast of America, resulted in the foundation of similar colonies in Scandinavia, the Low Countries, Germany, Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and, first and foremost, in France.

The earliest was in Barbizon and the Forest of Fontainebleau; the most extreme in their modernity were in Brittany, and the most literal in Skagen (the northern tip of Denmark) and Cornwall. Gauguin, Van Gogh and Munch were among their celebrated visitors, but most residents were diligent plodders, professionals earning a living with their abilities reinforced by the shared enthusiasms of the group and, inevitably, their amateur hangers-on. There was no unifying manifesto, only a common conviction among the painters that they must paint in the open air, be true to nature with as much intensity as they could muster, be affected by neither poetry nor philosophy, but be pure naturalists.

The last quarter of the 19th century was, indeed, the heyday of Naturalism as distinct from Realism, which decades earlier had developed democratic and even socialist sub-texts and the political aspirations to reform society. Naturalism was to be the vehicle of the artist who had no reforming zeal but merely wished to reproduce what he perceived to be a suitable subject. There was in France some theoretical argument about these terms (and there is still confusion), but, put very simply, what Munch had to say about miners and Meunier (a much underrated Belgian) about workers in all industries, is political Realism, and what Forbes and his associates had to say about the rural poor is rustic Naturalism, though it is often tinged with sentimentality and Ruskin’s notion of the Pathetic Fallacy (the attribution of human feelings to Nature).

There is scant evidence that the painters of Newlyn and St Ives ever felt any social or political sympathy for their subjects, though Henry Tuke’s paintings of the local adolescent boys seem often to express emotional longing. These were painters who observed poverty and squalor and thought them picturesque; they had no wish to remove the innards and heads of fish that, discarded below every kitchen window, rotted in heaps, and they ignored the stink; nor did they think to endow the inhabitants with such abstractions as nobility and sacrifice. Forbes described Newlyn as “a dirty hole” in which artists had struck gold, a perfect Klondyke for artistic purposes. He and his friends nevertheless complained that the fishermen (who, in Brittany, had been picturesque) wore no local costume but simply tired old clothes, and that the pigtailed local women were, as models, even less rewarding in their tawdry Victorian haberdashery. Perhaps most of all, the artists, bent on amorous adventures as much as art, on dinners, dances and amateur theatricals too, resented the prohibitive low church religion of the Cornish fisherfolk, their “primitive Methodist bigotry”, their Sunday-keeping and abstinence from alcohol, “a most disagreeable set of people, full of hypocrisy and cant”.

These Europe-wide colonies were united by two things — their determination to paint on the spot and in the open air, and their admiration for Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884), the French painter who was the high priest and proselytiser of plein-air painting, his peasant themes elevated to a highly personal form of Salon Naturalism that was astonishingly influential. Many of the painters working in Cornwall had been trained in Paris and knew well his technique of painting in subdued tones with square brushes and short strokes that left slivers of canvas visible and suggested something of the broken brushwork of the Impressionists, his immediate contemporaries (their exhibitions ran from 1874 to 1886). On his death from stomach cancer at the age of only 36 he had been far more immediately and widely influential than Picasso ever was to be, with adherents not only in Cornwall, but in Scotland, across all Scandinavia, in Russia, America and even Australia. Norman Garstin (1847-1926), who had trained in Antwerp and Paris, argued that Lepage had been the greatest artist of his day, “… almost all his contemporaries have felt his power; many imitated him, no one surpassed him”; and Forbes expressed much the same view with “… the greatest artist of our age is dead...his influence...already so great, will become more powerful than ever.” Perceived to be the master of the impartial presentation that was the aim of the Naturalists of Newlyn, Lepage was by unsubtle implication as much a teller of stories as any Pre-Raphaelite (see his Love in the Village), and for pure Naturalism we should look at the work of Léon Lhermitte (1844-1923), now ignored, but admired by Van Gogh as a second Millet (who also lurks in the background of Naturalism, though with a devout religious bent).

For pure Naturalism, sans political pleading, sans touching narrative, the presentation utterly impartial, we need only turn to A Fish Sale by Stanhope Forbes, dated 1885 but mostly the work of 1884, the year of his arrival in Newlyn. The idea, generated in February and developed in sketches, was to have been a canvas nine feet wide, but in June this was reduced to one five feet by four. In December it was still a work in progress — “I got blown about and rained upon, my model fainted …” Forbes wanted grey days and got them, seeing the sea and the wet sands as the mirror that could extend the flat undramatic light into every corner of the canvas, muting to mere tone what scraps of colour might be found in any detail.

For a painter aged 27, as yet of no reputation, A Fish Sale is an ambitious and complex painting, far beyond the technical ability of any painter of that age now. It is casually classical in composition, as though The School of Athens, painted by Raphael when he too was 27, lurks in suppressed memory. The auctioning of fish takes place in the distance, reduced to insignificant incident; it is counter-balanced by the play of sails against the horizon on the left, distance scrupulously indicated by smaller figures, a rowing-boat, and faint sails far out on the right. The prime subject is the non-narrative of the three figures in the foreground and the by no means casual still life of dead fish at their feet. Far from informal, this is a composition so carefully constructed that no detail is superfluous, a precocious example of Newlyn Naturalism.

Few of Forbes’s friends achieved or maintained such a level of detachment; some drifted into sentimental narratives with such titles as A Hopeless Dawn, For Men Must Work and Women Must Weep, and Never Morning Wore to Evening but Some Heart Did Break; a few painted pictures of record documenting the hardships of the fishermen and the prodigal richness of their catches; but the work of most was scarcely distinguishable in subject and sentiment from that of such other late Victorian celebrity painters as Fildes and Herkomer. By the end of the 19th century the first incarnation of both Newlyn and St Ives as important forces in English art had fizzled out with only Forbes, having established an art school in Newlyn in 1899, surviving longer as an influence; there was also a school in St Ives — it is perhaps not unkind to say that both were for the benefit of young ladies.

In the 20th century there were second incarnations. Newlyn became the haunt of another generation of comfortably off and roistering young artists — Harold Harvey, Lamorna Birch, Dod and Ernest Procter, Frank Dobson and Alfred Munnings, with Harold and Laura Knight swanning about in a big Belize the size of a Rolls-Royce and having new furniture sent from Harrods; most faded away from Newlyn and by the end of the Thirties it was no longer an artists’ community. St Ives, which in the 1890s had some small reputation with American and Scandinavian artists, Whistler and Zorn among them (and Sickert too), began to revive in the Twenties as Newlyn declined, and its long heyday dragged on from c1930, through several decades of English Modernism, until it fizzled out again. Fizzling out was, of course, the fate of all the other colonies that had been examples of this “wave of feeling”.

This exhibition is promoted as “re-approaching” (a word that I took to mean re-examining) “the work of pioneering Newlyn and St Ives artists widely regarded to be an English response to Impressionism … [and] the founding of artistic colonies …” This has been my approach too, for in reminding us of these artists’ communities it reveals their passion for painting in the open air, their reverence for Bastien-Lepage, their resistance to Impressionism and their concern for Realism and Naturalism. The exhibition’s title, however, is Amongst Heroes: The Artist in Working Cornwall, and its catalogue is all but entirely about the workers and their sweated industries, the paintings treated as mere illustrations to “an historical geography of work in Cornwall”. This is the long discredited between-the-wars Marxist art history of Frederick Antal — what-about-the-workers stuff and never mind the art — all the more ludicrous in that the artists cared not a fig for the plight of the workers who, they grumbled, asked twice as much to pose as models as their counterparts in Brittany, and whom they painted with an eye on the Royal Academy and the rich patronage it might bring them.

In the opulent setting of a contemporary London mansion completed for the American millionaire William Waldorf Astor in 1895 (a man of specifically literary bent), which has been in use as a public art gallery since 2011, this Marxist historical geography must seem to all sane men anomalous. It is — though the impoverished fishermen in the wooden boats of Newlyn would have appreciated the craftsmanship of the hammerbeam roof over the panelled Great Hall. Even Antal would have seen the joke.

Amongst Heroes: The Artist in Working Cornwall opens at Two Temple Place, WC2 (020 7836 3715, twotemple place.org) from January 26 to April 14. Open Mon, Thurs-Fri & Sat, 10am-4.30pm; Weds, 10am-9pm; Sun, 11am-4.30pm; closed Tues. Admission free

Last–ditch effort to save EU fisheries approved by Parliament - discards no more! - will this be enough save the fish stocks in Europe?

 

Today,the European Parliament voted for the largest overhaul of EU fisheries policy in decades, designed to cut fishing to sustainable levels and ending the practice of throwing away fish that is over quota.

Find more details in this press release @ http://eplinkedin.eu/CFP_Vote.

The new rules will set catch limits in line with maximum sustainable yields, meaning vessels won't harvest more fish than a stock can reproduce. They will also ban fishing discards and ensure better long–term planning based on reliable scientific data.

A major reform of the EU's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) which aims to cut fishing to sustainable stock levels, end dumping at sea, and base long-term planning on sound scientific data, was approved by Parliament on Wednesday. Overfishing is widely seen as the worst failure of the current CFP, dating from 2002. The new one is to take effect in 2014.

For a more in–depth look into the new EU Common Fisheries Policy, check the EP Library briefings @

http://eplinkedin.eu/cfpreform_1

http://eplinkedin.eu/cfpreform_2.

Parliament now has to negotiate with member states – this time as full co–legislator – before the changes can become EU law.

This is the fourth round of fishery reform since 1983, aiming to close the growing gap between fishing capacity and resources. Check out what Members say about it on the EP Newshub @ http://eplinkedin.eu/cfpreform :

will this be enough save the fish stocks in Europe?

Plenty more fish in the sea? MEPs to decide on best way to tackle...

europarl.europa.eu

 

All the latest news from the Press Service of the European Parliament: votes, resolutions, debates, parliamentary committees and the plenary.

Mackerel wars reminder - a fiver each way!

Yesterday's seemingly bizarre news that bookmaker Ladbroke's is taking bets on the long term viability of fish stocks like mackerel owe's its existence to a dispute going back nearly three years.

A look at how Iceland and the Faroe Islands have started a Mackerel fishing war by fishing more fish than what all their neighbours are, damaging the fish stocks in the north Atlantic region. 

 Recording courtesy of Channel 4 News, 26 August 2010.

Here's the latest exchange of views twixt the UK and Iceland as reported in the Sunday Herald, Scotland at the weekend:

Iceland was today accused of taking an excessively large share of mackerel from the sea, despite its decision to cut its quota for the year. The North Atlantic country has announced it will reduce the amount of mackerel it takes in 2013 by 15%, the Scottish Government said. But ministers and fishing industry bodies said the stock will continued to be damaged and they called for further action to manage it in a sustainable way.

The Faroe Islands and Iceland have both set themselves large quotas of mackerel in recent years, prompted by Atlantic populations of mackerel moving further north west into their waters. Their stance has provoked an ongoing dispute with other countries that target the fish. Responding to Iceland's decision to cut its quota, Fisheries Secretary Richard Lochhead said: "It is disappointing that Iceland remains intent on taking an excessively large share of the TAC (Total Allowable Catch), a greater share than Scotland, despite their short history in the fishery. "This will continue to damage our most valuable stock and an opportunity has been missed to show willingness to help bring this dispute to end. It is now clear that further steps have to be taken to manage this stock in a sustainable manner. "I believe that the best way this can be achieved is by the appointment of an independent mediator who can facilitate co-operation in an objective and neutral manner. I am also calling on the EU (European Union) to deliver on promised action. "We await the Faroes' announcement of their quota and I hope they will carefully consider their position, although the best outcome would be for them and Iceland to come back to the negotiating table with realistic proposals on which we can base an agreement."

Ian Gatt, chief executive of the Scottish Pelagic Fishermen's Association, said: "Whilst Iceland is following the lead of the EU and Norway who have already reduced their mackerel quota by 15%, it is an inescapable fact that Iceland is still taking an excessively large share that is fished unilaterally and outwith any international management plan. "It is important to highlight that while Iceland's share allocation demands are based on 15% of the total catch, the actual quota they have set themselves is close to 23%. "This is an issue that can only be resolved by negotiation and the onus is on both Iceland and the Faroes to table a realistic counter offer so as to get the negotiating process rolling again." Mackerel is worth millions each year to the Scottish economy and is the fleet's most valuable stock.

Last month, conservationists warned that mackerel is no longer a sustainable choice for a regular fish supper, in the face of overfishing of the stock. The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) said it had removed mackerel, an oily fish packed with omega 3, from its latest version of its "fish to eat" list and it should be eaten only occasionally.

Bernadette Clarke, fisheries officer at the MCS, said at the time: "The stock has moved into Icelandic and Faroese waters, probably following their prey of small fish, crustaceans and squid. "As a result, both countries have begun to fish more mackerel than was previously agreed. "The total catch is now far in excess of what has been scientifically recommended and previously agreed upon by all participating countries."

University of Exeter explore the impact of the Wave Hub off Hayle, Cormnwall

Video courtesy of Matthew Witt

The University of Exeter use baited remote underwater video systems to help describe mobile marine species diversity in Cornish waters. Here we show red gurnard in the cameras field of video. You will see other fish species including haddock and lesser spotted dogfish.

There are a number of other videos showing the range of fish swimming around the hub

Red Gurnards are now so popular that many are being sold for consumption at home - here's how to fillet these mega tasty fish - despite their rather vicious appearance! - courtesy of Sue and Duncan Lewis at Passionate About Fish!

The enemy within - Greenpeace poised to launch major attack on UK fishing organization

Greenpeace poised to launch major attack on U.K. fishing organization, writes Cormac Burke, Editor of Fishing News.

The attitude of the environmental group Greenpeace towards the international fishing industry has been well documented in recent years. What began as a respected challenge against illegal fishing, human rights abuses of crews and a general ideology in protecting the world's oceans has become an apparent direct assault on the commercial fishing industry in a bid to halt any and all developments.

In Europe for example, no matter how severe the quota reductions passed every December by the European Union's Council of Ministers, Greenpeace will release statements describing it as a 'cop out' by ministers and that the EU are guilty of continuing to encourage plundering of stocks.

While more forward thinking and progressive conservation groups, such as PEW and WWF, accept that quota reductions and voluntary technical fishing gear changes can eventually lead to a sustainable fishing industry, Greenpeace have repeatedly proven that they are not interested in such a future.

Next Monday (Feb. 4) Greenpeace are to launch the results of a study that they have undertaken into the operations of one of the United Kingdom's biggest and most respected fishing industry groups -- the National Federation of Fishing Organizations (NFFO).

This so called 'big story' is to be released to all of the UK's national news media and apparently reveals that the NFFO membership includes 57 percent foreign investment and also that the NFFO advised the EU Commission that non official inshore fishermen's groups should not have a voice on Europe's Regional Advisory Councils (RACs) -- an ongoing hot topic in the UK in relation to quota share-out between the inshore and larger sector fishing fleets.

Personally, I believe that if a member of the NFFO who is an owner of a large trawler, chooses to sell a portion of his business venture to someone outside of the UK, then that is neither the fault nor the responsibility of the NFFO.

Also, in relation to the RACs and unofficial inshore groups, the NFFO is only echoing the already stated policy of the EU Commission and this is not a 'leaked document' as Greenpeace are trying to dramatically claim. No, there is a much bigger picture here – one that presumably will not be included by Greenpeace in their press release next week. Early last year, Greenpeace made much noise about the fact that they were going to help the UK's inshore fishermen by forming by an alliance with the inshore group NUTFA (New Under Ten Fishermens Association). NUTFA and NFFO have been at odds for quite some time over quota allocations and UK Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon has intervened several times to attempt to calm the debate.

And now, surprise surprise, we see Greenpeace launching a very public attack on the NFFO.

The question arises “just who is using who here?” While NUTFA may, in their innocence, have thought that getting the weight of a major group such as Greenpeace behind them would help their cause, they have merely opened the door and given the world's most recognized anti fishing industry group a foothold inside the UK's industry where they can attempt to dismantle it from within.

NUTFA should be aware that Greenpeace would launch a similar attack on them in the morning if it suited their purpose.

Even if the NFFO is guilty in some way of a misdemeanor, which they aren't as far as this journalist can see, then this is a case for the UK fishing minister and his officials to deal with.

It has nothing to do with overfishing, abuse of quotas, breaking any regulation that the public needs to be urgently made aware of. In short, it is simply none of Greenpeace's business and one can only wonder if this is the first of many attacks planned against the industry for the coming year.

Article courtesy of Cormac Burke, Editor of Intrafish publications Fishing News and Fishing News International.


And here is the said article from GreenPeace:

At a time when we’re all concerned about what goes into our food, the phrase "it's not what it says on the tin,” has never been more appropriate. Our latest investigation into one of the most powerful and influential fishing industry bodies in the UK has exposed a clique of foreign fishing barons, including companies linked to illegal and destructive fishing.

It’s a classic case of smoke and mirrors, and at stake is one of our greatest national assets – fish.

This is likely to be the first time anyone has scrutinised the claims and membership of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations (NFFO) despite its role as one of the government’s main industry advisory bodies on fishing matters. I'm sure the government will be as surprised as I was at what we uncovered.

The NFFO claims to be "the representative body for fishermen in England, Wales and Northern Ireland," looking out for the interests of boats both small and large. An ambitious role we thought, so we decided to investigate how true this was.

Over many long months looking into the secret membership of the NFFO, by analysing complex company accounts and shipping registers, we were all astonished to discover that:

1. Over half of the NFFOs fleet is controlled by foreign fishing interests. This means that, whilst these boats sail under the Union Jack, they are ultimately controlled by companies or individuals from other countries. This means they use the UK's fishing quota, and will often fish in UK waters; however, they probably contribute next to nothing to the UK economy. The kicker here is that these boats are some of the largest and most powerful in the fleet.  
2. The NFFO is inflating its claims as to how many fishermen’s associations it actually represents. We were able to verify that 11 out of 20 listed on the NFFO's website are in fact not members. These include associations that are no longer members, have never been members or don’t even exist anymore.
3. The NFFO is working against the interests of small-scale fishermen. In a letter leaked to our investigators, we discovered that the NFFO is trying to deny small-scale fishermen wider representation on key political forums in Europe. This is really significant at a time when the overarching rules governing fishing in Europe are being reformed.
4. The NFFO represents vessels involved in illegal fishing on a large scale. For example, the O Genita and its Spanish Vidal family owners – who we exposed in another investigation last year – is an NFFO member and was central to the largest illegal fishing case in British maritime history with penalties of £1.62m.

What does this all mean?

Our investigation reveals that the more sustainable part of our fishing fleet is being shut out of the very system that dictates whether they prosper or go bust. The NFFO is giving the impression that it represents most of the fleet and that it's a friend of small scale boats, but this investigation shows that their membership is dominated by large powerful, often foreign controlled vessels, and they just pay lip service to the interests of the small scale fleet.

In a situation where about two-thirds of Europe’s fish stocks are overfished, it is crucial we defend the interests of those that fish in a more sustainable way and with a lower impact on the environment. Over three-quarters of the fishing boats in the UK fleet are considered small scale. They are vital to our fishing industry as they support more jobs – in England this fleet represents 65% of jobs at sea – and they help to maintain the social cultural and economic fabric of the coastal communities we all love so much.

This sector is desperately trying to forge itself better representation at a political level to try to match the might of the NFFO, so it's simply shocking that the NFFO is trying to prevent this.

Of course, fisheries minister Richard Benyon could reassure everyone that he isn't simply taking his cues from a one-sided lobby group. What he should be looking for from the NFFO is transparency: a public list of members, for instance, or corrections for the false claims it's made about various fishermen's associations it represents.

What’s in the tin really matters, and it seems we really have opened a can of worms with this one.

Help our small scale fishermen by emailing your MEP ahead of this week’s crucial vote on the future of Europe’s fishing laws.