Revealed: the millionaires hoarding UK fishing rights

A painstaking five-month long investigation shows that a small group of wealthy families control huge swathes of the country’s fishing quota

Small-scale fishers have long hoped for a greater share of UK fishing quota. 

More than a quarter of the United Kingdom’s fishing quota is in the hands of a tiny group of the country’s wealthiest families, an Unearthed investigation has found.

Just five families on the Sunday Times Rich List hold or control 29% of the UK’s fishing quota.

The finding comes from a new Unearthed investigation that traced the owners of more than 95% of UK quota holdings – including, for the first time, those of Scotland, the UK’s biggest fishing nation.

It reveals that more than two-thirds of the UK’s fishing quota is controlled by just 25 businesses – and more than half of those are linked to one of the biggest criminal overfishing scams ever to reach the British courts.

Meanwhile, in England nearly 80% of fishing quota is held by foreign owners or domestic Rich List families, and more than half of Northern Ireland’s quota is hoarded onto a single trawler.

The news comes as the government is preparing to publish a new fisheries bill, which will set the legal foundations for the UK’s fishing industry after Brexit. But while the government is hoping it can net access to more fishing rights in the Brexit negotiations, it has said the new bill will not see any redistribution of the UK’s existing quota rights.

As Unearthed’s investigation reveals, this would leave the bulk of UK fishing rights in the hands of a small domestic elite and a handful of foreign multinationals.

Responding to Unearthed’s findings, shadow environment secretary Sue Hayman said ministers needed to take “urgent action to use the powers that they have domestically to redistribute fishing quota to deliver a fairer deal for smaller boats”.

“Fishing was the poster child of the Leave campaign and [environment secretary Michael] Gove has already broken promises he made to the industry to secure full control of our waters during the transition,” she continued. “With all the talk of ‘take back control’, ministers have the power to distribute UK quota now and put the smaller-scale fleet first. So why wasn’t it mentioned in their white paper?

“This [Unearthed story] shows that, while it points the fingers at others, this government is to blame for a sector rigged in the interests of the super-rich. Any future fishing policy must consider how new and existing quota can be more fairly distributed and we will treat this as a priority in the upcoming fisheries bill.”

The investigation found:

• The five largest quota-holders control more than a third of UK fishing quota
• Four of the top five belong to families on the Sunday Times Rich List
• The fifth is a Dutch multinational whose UK subsidiary – North Atlantic Fishing Company – controls around a quarter of England’s fishing quota
• Around half of England’s quota is ultimately owned by Dutch, Icelandic, or Spanish interests
• More than half (13) of the top 25 quota holders have directors, shareholders, or vessel partners who were convicted of offences in Scotland’s £63m “black fish” scam – a huge, sophisticated fraud that saw trawlermen and fish processors working together to evade quota limits and land 170,000 tonnes of undeclared herring and mackerel
• One of the flagships of the “Brexit flotilla” – which sailed up the Thames in 2016 to demand the UK’s exit from the EU – is among the UK’s 10 biggest quota-holders
• Around 29% of UK fishing quota is directly controlled by Rich List families. Some of these families have investments in dozens of other fishing companies, meaning companies holding 37% of UK quota are wholly or partly owned by these Rich List families.

Who owns the UK's fishing quota? from Greenpeace Unearthed on Vimeo.

What is a fixed quota allocation?

Most fishing rights in the UK are distributed by fixed quota allocations (FQAs). An FQA gives the holder the right to land a certain share of the UK’s “total allowable catch” (TAC) of a particular stock. The TAC for each stock varies from year to year, based on scientific advice and negotiations in Brussels. There is an active market in the trading and leasing of FQAs.

The latest revelations follow Unearthed’s 2016 investigation into English quota holdings which revealed that a tiny fiberglass dinghy apparently “held” more than a fifth of the fishing quota for the entire South-West.

Now, Unearthed’s first UK-wide dive into the opaque world of fishing rights has uncovered further striking statistics.

Those with the biggest hoards of quota can earn millions leasing it to others without casting a net. In one recent case a company got rid of its boat and – while waiting for a new one – carried on earning millions from its quota alone.

That boat, the Voyager, holds more than half (55%) of Northern Ireland’s fishing quota. In late 2015 the owners disposed of their old, 76m trawler and ordered a replacement . Company accounts show that the new Voyager was not delivered until September 2017, and in the meantime, the company made money by leasing out the quota.

In 2016-17 the company made an income of nearly £7m from its quota – reporting an operating profit of £2.5m – despite having no vessel for the full financial year.

Despite holding more than half of the country’s quota, the new 86m-long Voyager has not landed its catches in Northern Ireland, because it is too big for Kilkeel Harbour. Instead the vessel operates out of the Republic of Ireland port of Killybegs.

Unearthed approached Voyager Fishing Company and its owners, but they were unavailable for comment.

The black fish millionaires

In Scotland – the biggest fishing nation in the UK, with two-thirds of the quota – the domination of the fishing industry by Rich List families is most pronounced.

Five Rich List families control a third of Scottish quota and have minority investments in companies that hold a further 11%. This means, in total, companies holding close to half (45%) of all Scottish fishing quotas are wholly or partly owned by five wealthy families.

But the investigation also reveals how many of those at the centre of one of Scottish fishing’s most infamous episodes – the black fish scandal – continue to dominate the industry.

Grimsby town was once home to the largest fleet of fishing trawlers in the UK. 

The scandal came to light in 2005, when Scottish officials raided fish factories to uncover “serious and organised” schemes to systematically evade quota restrictions for mackerel and herring, using underground pipes, secret weighing machines, and extra conveyor belts to land 170,000 tonnes of over-quota fish over several years.

A multi-year police investigation followed, resulting in a series of court cases over 2011 and 2012 in which three fish factories and more than two dozen skippers were hit with fines and confiscation orders for “black landings” of undeclared fish.

Unearthed’s investigation found that of the 20 biggest holders of Scottish quota, 13 have directors, shareholders, or vessel partners who were convicted of sea fishing offences in the black fish scandal.

Among those prosecuted were four members of the Tait family – worth £115m according to the Rich List – whose Klondyke Fishing Company is the second-largest quota holder in Scotland.

The four men – all skippers on its vessels – were hit with fines and confiscation orders of more than £800,000 for their part in the scam.

Two years later, one of those skippers, Peter Tait, 50, reportedly bought the most expensive house sold in Scotland that year. Over the past five years Klondyke has paid out shareholder dividends totalling £56m.

Unearthed has reached out to Klondyke but the company declined to comment.

The Scottish top 10 also includes the vessel partnership that runs the trawler Christina S. In 2012, two men involved in that partnership – Ernest Simpson, 71, and his son Allan Simpson, 49, both of Aberdeenshire – were handed fines and confiscation orders totalling more than £800,000 for their involvement in the black fish scam.

Four years later, the Christina S was among the flotilla of vessels that sailed up the Thames with Nigel Farage, to protest EU fisheries policy weeks before the Brexit referendum.

John Anderson is chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Organisation, a huge fish producer organisation which has several members – including the Christina S – that were involved in the black fish scandal.

He told Unearthed: “The pelagic fishermen and processors involved will be the first to acknowledge that, in the past, mistakes were made.”

As a result, he continued, the sector had founded the Scottish Pelagic Sustainability Group to oversee the certification of its main fisheries to Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) standards. Since that time, he added, “98% of the group’s stocks have been certified as sustainable and well managed by the MSC.”

Foreign flagships

In England, the UK’s second largest fishing nation, three Rich List families control around 30% of the quota.

A further 49% is ultimately held by Dutch, Spanish and Icelandic interests who have bought up English vessels and quota.

The most significant of these interests is Cornelis Vrolijk Holding, a Dutch multinational whose UK subsidiary alone holds 24% of English quota, making it the biggest quota-holder in England, and one of the five biggest in the UK.

Matthew Cox, chief executive of North Atlantic Fishing Company, Cornelis Vroljik’s UK subsidiary, said the company had been established in the UK since 1984, employed around 60 UK fishermen, had two UK offices, and had launched a UK apprenticeship scheme. He also suggested that the type of fishing his company does is not well suited for small-scale fishermen.

He added: “North Atlantic does not operate at the expense of small-scale fishermen. Pelagic [midwater fish such as mackerel and herring] and whitefish fishing are very different and a simple comparison/substitution between each is not possible.

“The deep sea nature of the environment make pelagic fishing difficult, dangerous and not very attractive for artisanal fishermen who tend to focus on low volume, high value fish such as cod or monkfish.”

The bulk of the company’s quota is for pelagic fish – which swim at midwater – and it has always emphasised the fact that its nets do not damage the sea bed.

However, after the Brexit vote in 2016 the company bought a beam trawler – with nets attached to a heavy beam designed to trawl for “demersal fish” that are found close to the sea bed – and bought up quotas for plaice and sole.

Mr Cox said: “Following the 2016 decision for the UK to leave the EU it was very clear early on, to the directors of North Atlantic Fishing, that there would be changes to the UK fishing industry. North Atlantic had always focused on pelagic fishing and it was therefore decided that the company should spread its risk in the interests of the company and its workforce and enter the demersal fishing industry in a very limited manner.”

Privatising a public resource

Small scale fishermen told Unearthed that successive governments had mismanaged fishing rights, allowing quota to be consolidated on a handful of supertrawlers while smaller, low impact fishermen had been progressively starved of access.

Jerry Percy, director of the New Under Ten Fishermen’s Association, told Unearthed this had resulted in a situation where the smaller inshore vessels that make up 77% of the fleet had ended up with “less than 4% of the quota”.

“This is privatisation of a public resource,” added Mr Percy, who campaigns on behalf of fishermen with smaller, under-10m long, vessels.

Large scale fishing interests contacted for this piece argued that their businesses generated hundreds of direct and indirect jobs, and that it was misleading to rank businesses by quota holdings alone, when the amount and value of fish that can be landed against those holdings varies between species, and area, and from year to year.

Several also pointed out that many of the biggest quota holders identified by Unearthed were trawlers focused on midwater pelagic stocks, like mackerel and herring.

These fisheries, they claimed, were environmentally friendly – with a low carbon footprint and no impact on the seabed – but the fish were too low-value and far from the coast to be attractive to small-scale fishermen.

John Anderson is chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Organisation – a huge fish producer organisation with several of the top 25 in its membership.

He told Unearthed: “While it is true that there has been considerable consolidation within the pelagic catching sector over the past 20 years, with a trend towards fewer, more efficient vessels each with a greater concentration of fishing opportunity, the economic reality is that small-scale, inshore fishermen, many of whom are also members of the SFO, do not have the necessary capacity or markets needed to fully utilise the pelagic quotas that are already available to them.”

Mr Percy retorted: “If you go back years ago, there was any number of smaller inshore boats that were reliant on mackerel and especially herring in the North Sea before the inshore herring fisheries were decimated by overfishing by larger-scale interests.”

Nick Underdown, of the Scottish campaign group Open Seas, said it was hard for smaller boats to take up mackerel quota without investment in onshore facilities to support them. “At the moment, the supply chain infrastructure favours bigger boats,” he told Unearthed.

“But if we invest in processing with the strategic intention to help the smaller-scale fleet, then inshore fishery could bounce back.

“This would be a lifeline for those harbours where fishing has declined due to consolidation.”

A spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “We are clear fishing communities and our wider economy should benefit as much as possible from those fishing the UK’s quota, and we are working closely with fishermen to review and reform the rules around the economic link condition.”

Who are the families on fishing's Rich List?

• Alexander Buchan and family are ranked 804 in the 2018 Sunday Times Rich List, with an estimated net worth of £147m. The family’s Peterhead-based Lunar Fishing Company owns or controls 8.9% of the UK’s quota holdings (739,153 FQAs), making it the biggest quota holder in the UK.

• Jan Colam and family are ranked 882 on the Rich List (estimated worth: £130m). The Colam family-owned company Interfish is the second largest quota holder, with 7.8% of the UK total (643,927 FQAs)

• Robert Tait and family are ranked 980 on the Rich List (estimated worth: £115m). The family’s Klondyke Fishing Company is the UK’s third-largest quota holder, with 6.1% of the UK total (506,953 FQAs).

• Andrew Marr and family are ranked 567 on the Rich List (estimated worth: £209m). The family’s Hull-based Andrew Marr International owns or controls 5.1% of UK quota holdings (419,937 FQAs), making it the UK’s 5th largest quota holder. It also has minority stakes in companies and vessel partnerships that hold a further 5.4% of UK quota (445,981 FQAS).

• Sir Ian Wood and family are ranked 77 on the Rich List, with an estimated worth of £1.7bn (a fortune built largely on oil and gas services). Sir Ian’s fishing business, JW Holdings, holds 1% of the UK’s fishing quota (83,463 FQAs) and has minority investments in businesses/partnerships that hold a further 2.3% (192,169 FQAs).

Full story courtesy of Crispin Dowler @CrispinDowler 



The extent of ownership was brought to the attention of MP Michael Gove at the end of last year in a previous Unearthed article:

Michael Gove criticised over ‘gross inequality’ of fishing quota system
Labour calls for an end to 'deeply unjust monopolies' in response to Unearthed investigation

Opposition parties have called for the government to take “urgent action” to redistribute UK fishing rights and end “deeply unjust monopolies” of fishing quota by a wealthy elite.

The calls came after an Unearthed investigation revealed this morning that five of the UK’s wealthiest families control more than a quarter of the country’s fishing quota.

Responding to the investigation, shadow environment secretary Sue Hayman told Unearthed: “The findings of this investigation highlight the hypocrisy and betrayal that this government continues to inflict upon British fishers in coastal communities right across the UK.

“We have known for years that ministers need to take urgent action to use the powers that they have domestically to redistribute fishing quota to deliver a fairer deal for smaller boats.

“But instead this government prefers to blame others and turn the other way as access to quota continues to be restricted for small boats and controlled by huge commercial boats and some of the wealthiest families in the UK.”

The government is poised to publish a new fisheries bill, which will set the legal framework for the UK fishing industry after Brexit. The government hopes to secure a greater share of the catch from British waters in the Brexit negotiations – but it has said it does not plan any changes to the way existing UK quotas are distributed.

As Unearthed’s investigation revealed today, that would leave 29% of the UK’s fishing quota in the hands of just five families on the Sunday Times Rich List – and around half of England’s quota in the hands of overseas interests.


Shadow environment secretary Sue Hayman called on ministers to "deliver a fairer deal for smaller boats".

Ms Hayman continued: “Labour is not surprised by this report that highlights the gross inequality of the fishing sector. We already know despite making up the majority of the British fishing fleet, smaller boats have just four per cent of the total quota.

“We know the Dutch-owned trawler, the Cornelis Vrolijk, controls more than a fifth of England’s entire quota allocation, and about two-thirds of England’s quota is awarded to three multi-national companies.

“But we are outraged at the lack of action from government to fix this. Fishing was the poster child of the Leave campaign and Gove has already broken promises he made to the industry to secure full control of our waters during the transition. With all the talk of ‘take back control’, Ministers have the power to distribute UK quota now and put the smaller-scale fleet first. So why wasn’t it mentioned in their white paper?

“This report shows while it points the fingers at others, this government is to blame for a sector rigged in the interests of the super-rich. Any future fishing policy must consider how new and existing quota can be more fairly distributed and we will treat this as a priority in the upcoming fisheries bill.”

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas told Unearthed: “This is a timely reminder that the health of our seas and oceans is being decimated to make profits for an already ultra-rich elite. If this government was serious about giving power back to local communities, they would act to end these deeply unjust monopolies right away.

“At the heart of our future fisheries policy needs to be a legally binding commitment to restoring our depleted seas, while at the same time providing secure jobs in sustainable fishing for coastal communities around the UK.”

A spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs told Unearthed the department was reviewing rules around the “economic link” that foreign-owned flagships must have with the UK in order to hold UK quota.

She said: “We are clear fishing communities and our wider economy should benefit as much as possible from those fishing the UK’s quota, and we are working closely with fishermen to review and reform the rules around the economic link condition.”

See the a previous article, "How Privatising the seas: how the UK turned fishing rights into a commodity"

Full story courtesy of Crispin Dowler @CrispinDowler

Consultation on U10 e-catch reporting

Due to start in England and Wales by summer 2019

Girl Pamela a typical Under10m multi-purpose vessel leaves Newlyn through the gaps.

Mandatory electronic catch recording for the under-10m sector has moved a step closer with the launch of a consultation on the scheme by DEFRA/MMO and the Welsh government, reports Tim Oliver

They say that existing under-10m catch recording restricts the ability of fisheries administrations to make informed, real-time decisions on fisheries management of the sector. Better catch recording will mean improved data gathering and a greater understanding of the activities of under-10m vessels. It will also enable catch traceability, which should lead to improved sales and marketing opportunities.

NUTFA leader Jerry Percy slammed the proposals, saying they were taking under-10m fishermen from no catch reporting to a ‘gold-plated’ impractical system that would ‘set them up to fail’, while the catches of big vessels fishing in the Channel were unmonitored and uncontrolled (see below).

The measures will also apply to Channel Islands and Isle of Man vessels when they are operating in English or Welsh waters, but not to EU or third-country vessels.

Scotland is not included because it has its own arrangements for recording under-10m catches, and Northern Ireland will be consulting at a later date.

Plans to introduce e-catch recording were announced at the end of 2018 (Fishing News, 13 December, 2018, ‘E-Catch recording for U10s’). Fishing administrations in England and Wales are planning to introduce the new system from summer 2019.

Consultations have also been held on introducing inshore vessel monitoring systems (iVMS) for under-12m vessels. DEFRA says that the two initiatives combined – iVMS and catch recording – will provide a more complete picture of fishing activity, and will help to inform future policy.

The majority of under-10s currently do not have to submit catch records. There are about 3,000 under-10s in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man – 82% of the entire UK fleet. In 2017, they landed at least 30,497t of fish worth £67m.

“It is vital that policy-makers, regulators, and the industry have access to up-to-date, accurate and comprehensive information on catches taken by this fleet, especially for those species which have quotas or catch limits,” says the consultation.

DEFRA and the Welsh government are proposing that under-10s catching quota species or species subject to catch limits or effort restrictions would record their catch via a mobile device – a smartphone or tablet – before the fish leaves the vessel. Those catching only non-quota species would have 24 hours to record their catch, via either a mobile device, a personal computer or a laptop.

For all catches – quota and non-quota – fishermen will have to submit a declaration of accurate weights of all species landed within 48 hours of fish leaving the vessel, using either a mobile device, a computer or a laptop.

The consultation says the costs will be ‘relatively low’ for those who already own relevant digital equipment, but there will be higher costs for those who need to buy a phone/tablet/laptop/PC and data package.

The consultation says that ‘simple, digital solutions are being developed, which will minimise the impact on fishermen and vessel owners’.

These are being tested by fishermen who have volunteered to help ensure that they meet industry requirements. A programme is planned to provide education and support to fishermen to ensure that everyone is able to use the system.

The consultation asks skippers/owners for their views on the proposals, and what challenges they will face. It closes on Tuesday, 2 April, 2019. A summary of the responses will be published on: gov.uk within six weeks of the closing date.

Responses to the consultation can be sent by email to: catchrecording@marinemanagement.org.uk or by post to: Marine Management Organisation, Lancaster House, Newcastle upon Tyne NE4 7YH. Responses must be sent by 5pm on Tuesday, 2 April, 2019.

NUTFA slams impractical ‘gold-plated’ catch reporting

NUTFA is calling on all affected under-10m fishermen and owners to respond to the consultation to highlight the practical difficulties they will face in implementing the measures, and to suggest practical alternatives.

NUTFA leader Jerry Percy said the e-catch recording plans take small-scale fishermen from the current simple system of receiving a sales note within 24 hours of landing showing exact weights of landings, to a ‘gold-plated’ reporting system that will require them to notify their catches electronically before the fish leaves the vessel, and make landing declarations within 48 hours of landing.

“The truth is that we (under-10s) are low-hanging fruit for enforcement effort. There are huge foreign trawlers in the Channel and elsewhere dumping hundreds of tonnes of fish on a regular basis. I’ve complained about the lack of monitoring and enforcement of these vessels to the MMO, but nothing appears to have been done – it’s completely unacceptable,” he told Fishing News.

“Yet they continually harass the under-10s – one under-10 skipper told me the other day that they had even searched his small engineroom looking for over-quota catch.

“By demanding that we report before landing, they are setting up tired fishermen on small boats, required to fill in an electronic report via a small screen, with small buttons, to fail. I have absolutely no problem with the enforcement of fisheries rules, but that enforcement needs to be both fair and proportionate. The current proposals appear to be neither.”

He said that the MMO claims in a video that the catch app can be filled in in three minutes, but a small-scale fisherman in Cornwall, catching a number of different species, quota and non-quota, using a number of different gears in different areas, and landing to a variety of different people, took the best part of an hour to fill it in.

He said that the under-10m sector had argued years ago for some sort of logbook system, so that they had a record of landings. But then the buyers’ and sellers’ regulation was introduced in 2005, which put the responsibility on the first-time buyers, some of whom had subsequently been prosecuted for non-reporting or misreporting, with obvious knock-on effects on the individual track records of under-10m skippers.

“The sector has had its landing records taken out of its hands for years, so they have no accurate track record. But now they want to move to a complicated electronic system that goes to the other extreme, of fishermen, tired after a day’s work, having to fill in a complicated app before they can land and haul their catches off a beach maybe – and then get up next day and do it all again.

“Where is the benefit of having to report your catch before it leaves the boat? It’s gold-plating, and unnecessary.”

Jerry Percy was due to meet MMO chief executive John Tuckett on Monday this week (4 March), and said he would take up all the issues involved forcibly, to highlight the problems under-10m fishermen will face.

Benefits of catch reporting

DEFRA says that information collected under ‘an enhanced system’ will help to verify catch traceability and ensure that fish has been caught in compliance with regulations. “These are vital requirements for the sale, export and marketing of UK fish, at home and abroad.”

The consultation says that catch recording will:

• Help to maximise fishing opportunities, such as zoned management within MPAs, creating a more responsive management system. This means that greater access may be allowed to certain types of fishing in areas where it was previously prohibited, as information on catches in those areas becomes clearer
• Provide consumers with comprehensive and accurate information on catch locations, which can improve consumer confidence when purchasing locally sourced fish and seafood
• Assist with the recovery of gear lost at sea and swifter settlement of insurance claims
• Demonstrate to the public and the wider food chain industry that the fishing industry is taking positive steps to fish more sustainably
• Enable the data captured to be used by fishermen to make better and more well-informed business decisions and develop their business plans
• Allow fishermen to demonstrate more easily that they have a track record in catching a certain species of fish
• Help fishermen to keep accurate records of their catches to ensure that they can fish to the catch limits set by fisheries administrations, adjust fishing patterns to accommodate uptake, and reduce regulatory interventions
• Provide fishermen with data, which can be used to engage in consultations on other uses of the UK marine area, such as offshore wind farms, MPAs and marine infrastructure developments.

Full story courtesy of the Fishing News.

Stunning Newlyn #FishyFriday morning.

Yet another stunning morning...

greets the lucky inhabitants of the UK's south western most fishing port on the edge of the North-East Atlantic ocean...

where the widest range of fish and shellfish are landed on a daily basis, from inky-black cuttlefish...

to members of the shark family like these blonde ray...

to the chunky turbot, the biggest flatfish in the deep waters off Lands End...

to pout or 'bothicks' as they are known locally, smallest of the round white fish...

or one of every restaurant's favourite and that most Mediterranean of fish,  red mullet...

and the ling, once caught in huge numbers when Newlyn supported a fleet of longliners that relied heavily on fresh or frozen mackerel to bait the 1000s of hooks they deployed...

ink from tubs of cuttlefish put the new market floor supplied by RPM during Project Link's fish market refurbishment to a severe test on an almost daily basis as the local beam trawl fleet land tons of 'black gold'...

in amongst the cuttles are a smattering of small octopuses...

grade 1 plaice...

and lemon soles complete the landings picture this morning...

as the last of the boxes are sold...

stacked on pallets...

or dragged away by the market porters...

as the year heads towards the first day of Spring on March the 20th mornings are now showing first signs of light just before 7am...

which should save the harbour some money not having to keep the quayside and pier lights on for so long...

night or day matters not a jot to fishermen, their working days are measured more by the height of the tide and the weather conditions...

scallops all set for the waiting...

heavy goods fleet that serve the industry so efficiently...

looks like someone has been busy with the paintbrush...

Sapphire II, ready to come down off the slip at the next high water...

Rowse's latest additions to their inshore crabbing fleet continues to undergo metalwork...

en-passant, Ellen Larsens, Barmouth's brand new Shannon class lifeboat has spent the night in Newlyn as part of her delivery voyage to her new station off the Welsh coast...

the rest of the netter fleet are due to sail today.

The harbour has provided shelter and food for a small number of Turnstones that make their long flight from the far north of Canada and Greenland every year, they provide an entertaining sight for any observant visitor who might catch a glimpse of them as they scuttle around the harbour quayside buildings - later PJ and crew set sail for another day aboard the Silvery Sea.

Gathering Fishery-Dependent Data in the Digital Age

There's plenty of initiatives both in the EU and across the pond in the US to further develop the integration of digital technology in order to collect, track and store catch data. Much of this work is being driven by the need for quota management accountability and stock assessment. Increasingly, fishermen are aware that the more data they have the more power and therefore potential control they have over the fisheries they target.  Arguing your case with nothing but anecdotal catch evidence together with landing data will not appease or meet the scrutiny of those who would have the industry held to account over over-fishing.




A guide for managers and scientists:

Why this guide?


Every day, more people are bringing digital data collection tools onboard fishing boats, from personal mobile phones to systems of integrated cameras and gear sensors. For managers, scientists, fishers, and anyone involved in ocean conservation, this presents opportunities to bring faster, more accurate data into management. This guide is to help you think through which tools might make sense for your fishery, and what questions to ask before adopting them.






Fisheries Innovation Fund

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), commercial and recreational fisheries had combined sales impacts of over $208 billion in the United States in 2015. However, some U.S. fisheries are struggling, both biologically and economically. As of 2017, NOAA reported that 35 stocks are categorized as overfished and 30 are categorized as subject to overfishing.

The Fisheries Innovation Fund releases two requests for proposals (RFPs) each year to work towards sustainable fisheries in the United States: a Fisheries Innovation Fund RFP and an Electronic Monitoring and Reporting Grant Program RFP.

Fisheries Innovation Fund RFP

NFWF launched the Fisheries Innovation Fund in 2010 to foster innovation in fisheries and seafood production in order to sustain livelihoods, working waterfronts and sustainable access to fisheries while rebuilding fish stocks. The fund supports the participation of fishermen and their communities in securing sustainable fisheries in the United States.

Fisheries Innovation Fund funding priorities include bycatch reduction, recreational fisheries and offshore aquaculture including activities to build community capacity and encourage sustainable use practices. Most projects have originated locally to address needs, challenges and opportunities at the community level.

Electronic Monitoring and Reporting RFP

The Electronic Monitoring and Reporting Grant Program was launched in 2015. The program seeks to advance NOAA’s sustainable fisheries goals to partner with fishermen, stakeholders, state agencies and Fishery Information Networks to systematically integrate technology into fisheries data collection and observations, and streamline data management and use for fisheries management. The program aims to improve the quality, quantity, and timeliness of fisheries-dependent data. Projects awarded under this opportunity catalyze the implementation of electronic technologies for catch and compliance monitoring, and improvements to fishery information systems.

To date, the Fisheries Innovation Fund has awarded grants totaling over $20.3 million to 127 projects across 26 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. These awards have been matched by over $22.5 million dollars from the grantees, for a total conservation impact of $42.8 million.

Major funding for the Fisheries Innovation Fund is provided by NOAA, the Walton Family Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Kingfisher Foundation. Mitigation funds received through NFWF's Recovered Oil Fund for Wildlife have also contributed to the program, with grantee organizations and additional public and private funders providing matching funds.



Monitoring

New Report Shows Ending EU Overfishing and Protection of Privacy Achievable With Remote Electronic MonitoringBrussels, March 7, 2019:- A report published today, Legal Opinion on Video Monitoring on Fishing Vessels with Special Focus on Other Comparable Cases, shows that the use of video monitoring, or Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM), can be used on board EU fishing vessels to ensure proper catch reporting, and to end illegal discarding of fish under the EU’s Landing Obligation, without impinging on privacy, or contradicting data protection rules.

The report, commissioned by Our Fish, demonstrates that while there are justifiable concerns around REM, these are not reason for inaction. Other sectors, such as the meat industry, are dealing with the same challenges, showing that it is possible to have effective monitoring while conforming to data protection requirements.

“Protecting privacy while ending the wasteful practice of discarding dead and dying fish at sea can be achieved by using video monitoring on board fishing vessels”, said Rebecca Hubbard, Program Director of Our Fish.

The EU’s ban on discarding dead or dying fish back into the sea, known as the Landing Obligation (LO), was part of the 2013 reform of the Common Fisheries Policy, and strongly supported by EU citizens. The aim of the Landing Obligation is to end discarding and drive change in fishing practices, e.g. avoid catching unwanted and non-valuable fish, incentivise improvements in selectivity, count everything that is caught, and promote ecosystem-based management.

However five years on, the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA) has assessed that a majority of fishing activities using active gears, e.g. trawling, are still at risk of discarding, along with increased illegal and unreported fishing. In response, the European Commission is proposing to use a review of its Control Regulation to introduce Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM) [1]; however concerns have been raised over privacy and data protection.

“This legal analysis demonstrates that privacy and data protection are not barriers to video monitoring of fishing. Programming and video technology can avoid impinging on privacy and personal data, vessel operators can own the footage, and governments and scientists can utilise the data to audit records allowing for greater knowledge of catches, fish stocks, and ultimately achieve better fisheries management”, continued Hubbard.

“It is essential that EU decision-makers take a solutions-based approach to implementing onboard video monitoring, so that we put an end to widespread illegal, unreported fishing, which undermines ocean health, consumer trust and the industry”, said Hubbard.

For video monitoring on board fishing vessels to comply with the Landing Obligation and to fully document fisheries, Legal Opinion on Video Monitoring on Fishing Vessels with Special Focus on Other Comparable Cases suggests that legislators and operators should consider:

CCTV surveillance of risk groups: When there is cause to suspect non-compliance with legal requirements, temporary monitoring of the fishing activities would be appropriate.

• Avoiding personal data: Monitoring only the technical process without making individuals identifiable. This would also mean the GDPR would not apply [2].
• Anonymisation: Monitoring the entire process and pixelating any recorded persons in such a way that identification is not possible.
• Data minimisation: Limit the video monitoring to a minimum time i.e during landing, sorting and processing the catch.
• Data ownership and review: Vessel operators may be the owners of the footage, the review conducted by a third party, and the resulting data provided to governments for auditing purposes of catches and landings. 

This audited data could also be shared with other interested or relevant parties such as scientists.


NOTES:

[1] Control Regulation: https://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/cfp/control_en

[2] Since May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) covers data protection and privacy for all individuals in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA), and covers the transfer of personal data outside the EU and EEA. It gives control of data to individuals while simplifying the legislative framework for data managers.

Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data. 

Contacts

Dave Walsh, Our Fish Communications Advisor, dave@our.fish +34 691826764

Rebecca Hubbard, Our Fish Program Director, rebecca@our.fish +34 657669425

About Our Fish

Our Fish works to ensure European member states implement the Common Fisheries Policy and achieve sustainable fish stocks in European waters.

Our Fish works with organisations and individuals across Europe to deliver a powerful and unwavering message: overfishing must be stopped, and solutions put in place that ensure Europe’s waters are fished sustainably. Our Fish demands that the Common Fisheries Policy be properly enforced, and Europe’s fisheries effectively governed.

Our Fish calls on all EU Member States to set annual fishing limits at sustainable limits based on scientific advice, and to ensure that their fishing fleets prove that they are fishing sustainably, through monitoring and full documentation of their catch.

Website: https://our.fish

Follow Our Fish on Twitter: @our_fish

Next up:

Adding to the mix on tech in the fishing industry - just yesterday at the World Congress Summit in Dubai EDF launched its Smart Boat Initiative:

New initiative to harness digital revolution to accelerate sustainable networked fisheries

(Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates – March 6, 2019) Today at the World Ocean Summit being held in Abu Dhabi, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) announced the launch of its Smart Boat Initiative designed to accelerate the exploration and adoption of powerful new technologies to greatly improve sustainability, efficiency and profitability in the fishing sector across the globe.

The new initiative focuses on leveraging the technological advances and plummeting costs in sensors, artificial intelligence, broadband communication and data analytics to equip and surround fishing vessels of all sizes with digital tools and infrastructure that can increase sustainability, accountability and transparency in fishing.

“Just as smart phones provided a platform for a wave of innovation, we believe there is an equally unprecedented opportunity to usher in a new era of sustainability in the global fishing sector led by digital transformation,” said Katie McGinty, Senior Vice President, EDF Oceans program.

The Smart Boat Initiative builds on important work being done by a variety of other NGOs, academic institutions, businesses and governments all focused on deploying technology in the service of sustainability. EDF’s goal is to work with these stakeholders and fishermen to demonstrate the transformative power of technology with on-the-water pilot projects, scientific inquiries and policy advances across a variety of fishery types and scales.

As part of the Smart Boat Initiative, EDF Oceans released a new report on the significant opportunities of using advanced technologies to help fisheries and fishing businesses, two new guides on how to implement electronic monitoring technology, as well as the results from recent pilot projects on the U.S. West Coast and in Mexico’s Gulf of California.

With this initiative, EDF aims to address the critical problem of fishing vessels and fleets remaining isolated and disconnected when at sea. This means accurate and timely data about what is being caught and discarded rarely reaches scientists and managers. Even on vessels with human observers or new electronic monitoring systems, data can take weeks or even months to reach the end user. Meanwhile, fishermen at sea lack access to oceanographic, market and other real-time data that could inform their choices about where and how to fish.

These problems can be addressed through a combination of existing technologies that can be deployed on fishing vessels – and around them – at a variety of scales. For example, cameras on fishing vessels can be linked to pneumatic sensors and triggered only when fishing activity occurs. These data can then be highly compressed and transmitted wirelessly through broadband satellite or near-shore wireless data services. Artificial intelligence can also recognize species and help track catch. Scientists can access these data in near real time and make far better decisions about fishery health than ever before. And fishermen will have better access to supply chains and better information out at sea.

“This new initiative seeks to deploy technology to help solve one of the most urgent challenges of our time, overfishing,” said McGinty. “A critical element of the initiative is that it aims to provide fishermen with the tools to play a leading role in solving that problem.”

Even in countries with advanced management like the U.S., fishery monitoring is conducted with outdated systems, often a human observer using pen and paper. In countries with a higher proportion of small-scale fisheries, the data information gap is even more acute. As a part of the Smart Boat Initiative, EDF is bringing together learnings from pilot programs in both commercial and artisanal fisheries that put cameras and telecommunications technology on vessels in order to track and record information to inform policy, science and management.

“In far too many fisheries, a lack of timely data frustrates even the best of intentions,” said Project Director Johanna Thomas. “But most fishermen want access to more powerful tools to take control of their futures and work together to deliver both business and conservation outcomes.”

EDF is also releasing two new guides on electronic monitoring focused on a wide variety of fishing scenarios from near-shore small-scale fisheries to larger fleets. These guides will provide insights to help develop best-in-class standards. They are designed to provide information on how best to use and scale these technologies in ways that can inform good science, work financially for fishermen and governments and produce positive conservation outcomes for fisheries.

“We believe this set of technologies represents widespread benefits, not only for future conservation, but also for fishermen today,” said McGinty. “But without more work to refine these technologies, build them with fishermen’s needs in mind, increase deployment and share best practices, fisheries will remain stuck in the digital dark ages. That’s why we’ve launched the Smart Boat Initiative and why we’re optimistic about the future health of the ocean and all those who depend on it.”