Weather window of sorts

Bound away from The comfort and quiet of Shelter in Falmouth Docks the Newlyn netter Govenek of Ladram makes her way back out to sea this morning as the shipping forecast gives a decreasing wind...

though storm force 10 decreasing 4 or 5 is hardly going to be a comfortable ride as there will still be 'hills' of ground sea waiting to greet the boat as she heads for the gear...

as the weather station Sevenstones Lightship tells part of the story.

Full steam ahead!

Mass exodus from Killybegs, as all the big pelagic boats that we're sheltering in the port head back out to sea chasing mackerel...

despite there still being a huge weather system stretching almost across the entire North Atlantic Ocean.

Worsening weather off the coast of Cornwall - it's official! #ukstorms

We'll we now know the wind has arrived because even the hardest of the remaining French trawlers off the Cornish Coast has stopped fishing and started dodging under the land in Falmouth Bay.

Here it comes

Gone is the Spring-like sky of an hour ago as the next #ukstorm makes it's way towards England.

Wind enough and more to come tonight around Land's End

The Scillies recorded 72mph last night and the worst is yet to come this afternoon and evening...

not much in the way of traffic in the Western Approaches!

Exponential growth in the number of words used for the European Common Fisheries Policy (CFP): Does better management require more text?

Abstract

The European Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is a common policy that originates from 1983 and has been renewed every 10 years. The policy generally aims for sustainable fisheries in terms of living resources, economics and social aspects. The most recent version of the policy was agreed in co-decision by the European Parliament and the European Council of Ministers in 2013. The CFP has often been criticised for not delivering on the objectives and for developing into micro-management with very detailed regulations. In this paper, the evolution of the CFP has been analysed using a simple word-count indicator. The results show a strong increase in the number of words used to describe the basic regulation of the CFP from 3500 words in 1983 to 21,000 words in the agreed regulation in 2013. The expansion of words fits closely to an exponential growth curve. The co-decision process between the European Parliament and the Council showed a 55% increase in words and the article describing the new landing obligation showed a 360% increase in words. First reports on the new CFP have already shown that the complexity in the regulation could increase the likelihood of misunderstanding and suboptimal decisions. Word-counts are obviously a crude way to measure regulatory complexity but they are easy to generate and intuitive to understand to different audiences. The challenge is to create conceptual models that can link this intuitive indicator into an empirical framework that attempts to measure the relative regulatory complexity.

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Graphical abstract

The development of the number of words in the Common Fisheries Basic Regulation from 1993 to 2013, separated into the introductory text (white), the article text (grey) and the annex text (black). The increase in the word-count fits almost perfectly to an exponential growth curve (Fig. 2, r²=0.99). Word-counts are obviously a crude way to measure regulatory complexity but they are very easy to generate and intuitive to understand to different audiences. The challenge is to create conceptual models that can link this intuitive indicator into an empirical framework that attempts to measure the relative regulatory complexity.

Full article can be obtained here:

Today's NFFO/CFPO meeting in the Mission at Newlyn

Just a quick summary of today's meeting:

The problem is how to deal with the characteristic spike in haddock recruitment within the context of TACs set in relation to MSY.

The meeting agreed to work on this but in the meantime to undertake trials with scientists to reduce discards this year.

Thoughts from Andy at the CFPO?