EU Brussels - Vote on cods

Vote on cods

 

On 23 April at 10.00, PECH Members will vote on the adoption of two draft reports by Diane Dodds (Ni) on Amendment of Council Regulation (EC) No 1342/2008 of 18 December 2008 establishing a long-term plan for cod stocks and the fisheries exploiting those stocks 2012/0013(COD) and 2012/0236(COD). One of the files is an alignment to the Lisbon Treaty, the other substantial changes to the management plan for the cod stocks. The substantial changes seek to adapt the current plan to developments regarding the sustainability of the stock since its adoption.

Further information

• OEIL dossier 2012/0013 (COD)
• OEIL dossier 2012/0236 (COD)
• Diane Dodds (Ni)

Antifouling time!

Dreckly fisherman Andrew Stevens takes advantage of a break in the weather to give the good ship Benediction a coat of anti-fouling before the tide makes. Once the weather breaks the boats in the scheme should enjoy good lobster fishing!

Sapphire II back in Newlyn after her maiden voyage from the port.

Report on the boat to follow.

The New England groundfish debacle (Part III): who or what is at fault?

This has been posted to to us from across the Atlantic. There are lessons to be learned from where other have trodden the path before - its no too late!

“We received a letter last month from 173 fishermen across New England who were pleading for help,” (Massachusetts Congressman Stephen Lynch, who is now running for Secretary John Kerry’s Senate seat) Lynch said. “These are hard-working people and their industry is being pushed to the brink by an overzealous environmental agenda that too often ignores the human cost of its actions.” (R. Gaines, Senate candidate Lynch backs fish law 'flexibility,' Gloucester Daily Times, 03/15/2013, http://tinyurl.com/cno4dn4) 

It took me a while to decide how to most accurately describe the situation that has been visited upon the New England fishing communities that are and since colonial times have been dependent on the groundfish fisheries. I finally settled on “debacle” because it means about the same thing as “fiasco” but with a heap more gravitas. And I can only think of what’s going on, and what has been allowed to go on, in that fishery as a fiasco on steroids. An awful lot has been written – and said – recently about New England groundfish but no one appears to have tied it all up into a neat and coherent package. Not being directly involved in the fishery or its management, and being at least twelve hundred miles removed from it, I’m going to try to do that from the position of semi-objectivity that separation allows. First off, no analysis would be complete without recognition of the role that now departed NOAA head Jane Lubchenco and her minions played in worsening an already dismal situation. Her self-congratulatory going away present to us all was a listing of the notable triumphs in her almost four year reign in which several fisheries “successes” were detailed yet the New England groundfish fishery got nary a mention. She was on the record numerous times stating that one of her goals was to reduce the size of the New England groundfish fleet. So far it appears as if she’s succeeding spectacularly. From her and her anti-fishing ENGO colleagues’ perspective that would seem to be a major success, but probably one that not even they would be willing to brag about.

Given this, what were the chances that her agency would have initiated any actions resulting in more fish for the fishermen, keeping more boats fishing and more fishermen employed? That surely didn’t and doesn’t fit into her master plan (see my 2009 Fishnet Chronic underfishing – the real New England groundfish crisis at http://tinyurl.com/a7t2grc). As demonstrated in her going away missive, faulty information seemed to be a mainstay of her tenure at NOAA. Below are excerpts from testimony she presented to a U.S. Senate Committee in Boston on October 3, 2011 on the New England groundfish fishery – see http://tinyurl.com/bo37hre. Bear in mind that she was speaking then of a fishery that at this point appears as if it will be virtually shut down less than two years later. Among her almost six thousand words were these gems:

· We are making gains across the country as individual fisheries have recovered, which will increase as we finally bring an end to overfishing.

· We are seeing benefits from the transition to sector management as catches do not exceed the annual catch limits, and fishing becomes more efficient and flexible, all of which contribute to the common goal of ecological and economic sustainability of groundfish stocks.

· Decades of overfishing, failing fish stocks and punishing regulations interacted to threaten the region’s most iconic industry. That system was not working for fishermen. It was driving them out of business and the stocks were not rebuilding to a point where they could sustain a profitable industry.

· The adoption of this new management system and the lower catch limits happened early in my tenure as Administrator. Indeed, sustaining the groundfish fishery and the economic health of the industry has been of paramount importance to me since my first day in office.

· Our goals are clear: to be a partner in the success of fishermen, to sustain fishing jobs, to create a profitable and healthy future for fishing communities, and to maintain marine fisheries.

· How are we doing after one year with new catch limits and with the expanded sector management program? We see both signs of progress and continued room for improvement.

Stocks are being rebuilt and therefore catch limits are up. Due to the rebuilding progress already underway, in the 2011 fishing year, catch levels have gone up for 12 of the 20 groundfish stocks, which is another indication the Magnuson-Stevens Act and associated management measures are working to improve the status of the stocks and the economics of the fishery.


But the full blame for the deplorable situation that now exists in New England’s fishing communities can’t be laid entirely at her feet, though she unnecessarily exacerbated it. The blame belongs to the engineered interplay of just about everything that’s wrong with the way our federal fisheries are managed. Take the above statements. Assuming that they accurately represented the “best available science” at the time, an understandable assumption considering that they were delivered to a Senate Committee by an Undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the people who ran the businesses that caught, processed, bought and sold those fish, and the people who ran the businesses that allowed them to do that, made plans based on what Ms. Lubchenco said – and what she didn’t say. She definitely didn’t say or intimate that the groundfish fishery would be closed down in a year and a half. She didn’t say or intimate that it might be closed down in a year and a half. She didn’t even say or intimate that it could be closed down in a year and a half. With businesses depending in whole or in part on the New England groundfish fishery, a lot of people planned accordingly.


 "This lack of adequate progress was not due to any failure on the part of the New England Fishery Management Council to take necessary action to meet the requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, nor was it due to any failure on the part of fishery participants to act in compliance with applicable regulatory measures. Rather, the lack of adequate progress is due to a new and significantly revised understanding of the condition of the stock since the 2008 assessment was completed." Sam Rauch, NOAA/NMFS Acting Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, in a January 26, 2012 letter to the New England Fisheries Management Council (http://tinyurl.com/brswkvz).


A year and a half later… oops! NOAA/NMFS now has “better” information, and your plans are all out the window. So are your customers, your income and a large part of your life. The NOAA/NMFS response has been that, in spite of the fact that the fishery, the businesses that depend on it and the traditional character of New England’s fishing communities are to be the victims of scientific shortcomings and bureaucratic ineptitude, nothing can be done about the pending closure of the fishery – or the reductions in harvest that will close most of the fishermen out of the fishery – because it is what the federal law demands. Ignoring the argument that NOAA/NMFS is interpreting the provisions of the Magnuson Act in far too restrictive a manner, how did this unacceptable situation develop, or more exactly, how was it made to develop? Like so many other fisheries issues, there isn’t one simple answer but rather a complex of overlapping legislative and bureaucratic factors that seem to have been designed to destroy our traditional domestic fisheries in general and the traditional New England groundfish fishery in particular.

How did we get here?

Have no doubts about where the blame for this unnecessary debacle lies. In 2006 a mostly clueless and misled U.S. Congress ignored the advice of large segments of the domestic recreational and commercial fishing industries and passed, and President Bush subsequently signed into law, the so-called Sustainable Fisheries Act. This package of amendments to the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act (MSFCMA) was designed by a handful of mega-foundation supported ENGOs (and a few “fishing” associations that appeared to have been co-opted with those foundation $millions) to remove the flexibility from the Act that was such an important part of the federal fisheries management process it established in 1976. What was the purpose of this flexibility? At the time, Members of Congress realized that the fisheries scientists didn’t have all of the answers, that fishermen had acquired a wealth of so-called anecdotal information about marine fish and the ocean environment that could and should supplement what the scientists understood, and that a truly effective fisheries management process would require input from both scientists and fishermen. What was considered one of the most significant portions of the Act, the role in management given to fishermen, was designed expressly to avoid situations such as the one that is now threatening New England’s fishing communities. Decades later, when a handful of mega-foundations led by the Pew Charitable Trusts decided that they were going to save the world’s – or at least the United States’ – oceans from the threats of fishing (and apparently decided to ignore, and convince the public and the pols to also ignore, any other impacts), the fishermen and their “subjective” input had to be removed from the process because collectively they were the only people who had a fairly accurate idea of what was going on in the waters they fished. Of course this would leave the scientists with their inadequate science in charge, and conveniently there was a concurrent drying up of government research money, making a bunch of marine scientists who were so predisposed that much easier for the ENGOs to buy.


The Sustainable Fisheries Act in 2006 was the culmination of this campaign. It established hard and fast requirements for fisheries management that relied on science, statistics and computer models – and on scientists, statisticians and computer modelers – that were in no ways equal to the task. It also made the precautionary principle (see NOAA Inaction in the Gulf of Mexico at http://www.fishnet-usa.com/NOAA_Inaction.htm) the bedrock of the fishery management process and at the same time established “rebuilding schedules” for fish stocks to reach a level where they weren’t overfished of definite duration regardless of the impacts of those schedules on the fishermen and on the businesses that depended on them. So, as a result of an extended campaign by these multi-billion dollar foundations and the ENGOs and fishing groups in their thrall, we now have a management system which is based entirely on what the science and the statistics, as imprecise as they are, dictate, where a wealth of fishermen’s hard earned on-the-water knowledge has been made completely irrelevant to the process, and where the supposed welfare of the fish counts for infinitely more than the welfare of the fishermen.

Needless to say we still have nowhere near the knowledge necessary for a rational decision making process (see http://tinyurl.com/bq6apcd).

In New England if the groundfish fleet were given another year or two of continued harvesting at levels low enough to allow for stock rebuilding – if that is even possible (this question will be explored in depth in the next FishNet) – the critical questions regarding the science underlying the assumed well-being of the groundfish stocks could be answered, the affected businesses could make whatever adjustments were possible, and the looming crisis could be either avoided or its impacts could be significantly lessened. That’s the upside. The downside? The time it took a few fish stocks to reach an arbitrarily determined population level would be extended by a year or two.

This is in fact what the New England Council recommended be done in requesting that a soon to expire Emergency Action declared by the Secretary of Commerce be extended for another year. On the advice of NOAA General Council Lois Schiffer, John Bullard, the NMFS Northeast Regional Administrator, refused, claiming that the Magnuson Act as amended in 2006 precluded doing that.

Because of this, because of overly rigid Magnuson requirements that are opposed by a large number of fishermen and other businessmen dependent on them and a growing number of Congressmen, Congresswomen and Senators from coastal states, and because of the lobbying ability and the PR expenditures of a handful of “charitable” foundations and the ENGOs they control, the New England groundfish fishery is teetering on the edge of disaster.

In summation, the fishing industry was fishing as it was told to fish by the New England Fishery Management Council and NOAA/NMFS. This was based on the “best scientific information” available at the time and according to that information the stocks were well on their way to recovery. All of the businesses dependent on the fishery planned accordingly. Subsequently NOAA/NMFS decided that what was at the time the best scientific information wasn’t the best any longer because there was better information available and that, according to that better information, fishing effort had to be reduced to such an extent that large parts of the groundfish industry would be put out of business. The Council sought to lessen the damage by extending “emergency” mitigation measures for a year. NOAA/NMFS, with the enthusiastic encouragement of the ENGOs, refused. Based on extensive analyses – easily “the best available” - the Council is also seeking to reopen areas which had been previously closed to fishing. This would also lessen the impacts somewhat. The ENGOs are mounting an all-out PR campaign to prevent this. Predictably, the ENGOs who are always willing to use the best available science when it advances their anti-fishing agenda, are more than willing to bypass it when it doesn’t, falling back on lobbying and misleading PR.*

The people in Washington knew what they were doing back in 1976 when the Magnuson Act became law. It’s unfortunate but understandable that back then they had no idea that so-called environmentalists with the backing of multi-billion dollar foundations would be more of a threat to domestic fishermen than the foreign fishing fleets ever were.

*In the latest display of their antipathy towards fishermen and fishing – which is unconvincingly camouflaged as concern for the long-term health of the fisheries and the oceans – the anti-fishing clique has also taken head-on the New England Fisheries Management Council’s proposal to open areas that it had closed to fishermen. Their opening would aid the beleaguered New England fishing industry. 

Rigorous analyses of these closures have demonstrated that they are no longer serving any “conservation” benefit, if the ever were, but a major public relations effort led by the Pew Trusts is ongoing in spite of this. (For more on this latest initiative in the campaign of these “caring” ENGOs to destroy the traditional groundfish fishery see the Saving Seafood (http.www://savingseafood.com/) analyses Pew Environment targets John Bullard in online petition drive against NEFMC proposed changes to closed areas at http://tinyurl.com/d5ef2bb and Pew Environment Group Misleads Public on Habitat Closed Area Changes at http://tinyurl.com/d4etqkt

Nils E. Stolpe/FishNet USA

March 22, 2012

Fish Fight shirts! - Order yours today!!

The landlord in the Seven Stars in Penzance (still referred to by many as The Smithy) has had these made.

EU fishermen ‘need flexibility, not micro-management’

Catch quota management and the ban on discards will be passed as part of the EU’s common fishery policy reform, but for it to work, fishermen need to be given the control and flexibility to implement it.

This is the view Mogens Schou, Danish ministers’ adviser for fisheries and aquaculture and chair of the EU Commission’s standing committee on agricultural research for fish, gave Undercurrent News shortly after his presentation at the North Atlantic Seafood Forum.

Schou is also a partner in Aquamind, a firm which advises on designs and implementation sustainable fishing practices in line with EU law. As part of this job Schou has worked with Danish fishermen to employ the catch quota management (CQM) system since 2008.

CQM is effectively the counting of all catches against quotas, which is in direct contrast to the current system in which the discarding of over-quota fish is standard. CQM should lead to selective fishing, as well as much better data on the stocks of fish. “The CQM scheme in Denmark has been used with full compliance and accountability for 140,000 fishing hours,” he said.

“Aquamind’s done some experiments with a few vessels fishing with a free choice of gear, and you can see, compared to selective gear provided by regulators, you can improve selectivity and improve fuel efficiency.”

Put simply, his belief is that when CQM is in place, it is in the fishermen’s interests financially to catch only what they should be – adult fish of the species they hold a quota for.

The most effective way to do that is to allow the fishermen the flexibility to choose gear, and fishing days, with which they can land the highest-value catch, as opposed to being micro-managed by strict regulations.

“My concern is that you do not remove micro-management once you introduce the CQM and the discard ban,” he said. “Failing to do so will entail a loss in wealth for society, and for the fisher who has to optimize within numerous rules instead of against the quota outtake alone.”

“There is no incentive among the legislators to remove this micro-management. The only chance I think to have it removed, is if the industry takes care of its own interests and demonstrates how it can be done.”

“It takes two hours to change fishing gear, but if you guys had to do it we would have to wait two years for Parliament and Council to act, and the situation would be quite different”

With that in mind, Schou is advocating large-scale trials of CQM in EU member states, where it can be judged by the relevant measures – value per catch unit, catch composition – and without the strict controls and regulations.

“Once the industry has demonstrated that this works it will be easier for the legislative powers to translate those terms of the trial into concrete EU legislation,” he said.

It is his hope that this trial can begin in early 2014, and align with the date of the discard ban entering into force in the pelagic fishery and in Skagerrak. Other areas will follow suit.

If the trial extends into the Baltic and the North Sea then the participating nations will have, in effect, established the discard ban prior to the date fixed by the EU, and without the micro-management, he said.

Aquamind and the Danish Technical University (DTU Aqua) are preparing for the large scale trial to begin Jan. 1 2014, and are waiting to find out if the European Fisheries Fund will be financing it, with a decision expected in August.

The best example of efficiency through flexibility is that of a fisherman Schou met during the CQM trial in Denmark.

A fisherman participating in the trial was altering his gear prior to a fishing trip, fixing a different mesh panel to it.

“The area I will fish in for the next two months has a lot of small cod,” he told Schou.

“Having to count all catches I will use the panel for that period to avoid the juveniles. It takes me two hours to change gear, but if you guys had to do it we would have to wait two years for parliament and council to act, and the situation would be quite different.”

“This is about optimizing the economy, optimizing the food output, and to do that it is necessary to be flexible and to adapt to circumstances, and you can not do that in the legislative system,” explained Schou.

Another part of Schou’s work with Aquamind is advising fishermen on what they can do with fish landed instead of discarded. There are some very interesting solutions for by-catch, he said.

“One would be converting the fish to silage aboard the vessel. By doing that it is easier to store more volume, and quicker,” he said. “We are working with DNA solutions to identify catch composition in silage.”

“There are some interesting markets for this silage product, and that way you can even use the offal. This counts for 15% of the material when cut at sea, so 15% of total catch can be added to valuable materials if it’s processed at sea.”

Schou is hoping that the EU Commission, Council and Parliament can be convinced by
successful trials to hand control over to the fishermen.

“I’m optimistic, and the fishermen see this as the way forward. It’s an opportunity they should take advantage of.”

Story courtesy of Undercurrent News

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall praised North Sea fishermen after The Real Fish Fight was launched

Celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall says he is listening to Peterhead skippers angered that his TV show misrepresented them and the UK fishing industry.

Hugh’s Fish Fight dumped the reality of discards right into the living rooms of the public; highlighting the merits of sustainable fishing and calling for action to be taken to ‘save our seas’.

His methods however, angered a group of trawlermen who fought back with The Real Fish Fight campaign.

The campaigners voiced concerns that the series did not differentiate between the healthy North East sector and troubled markets elsewhere in the country.

They also argued that "there are plenty of fish in the sea".

Now Hugh says he has been listening to the campaigners' arguments and says he recognises how healthy the north-east industry is.

And he has heaped praise on campaign leader Peter Bruce, calling him a "top skipper" and someone who could "lead the UK fishing industry".

Speaking to STV, Hugh said: "I know that Peter Bruce of the Real Fish Fight is one of the top skippers in Scotland and catches great quality fish. He is on the innovative catch-quota system and so doesn’t discard any cod and has an MSC certificate of sustainability for his haddock.

"He’s the sort of fisherman to lead the UK fishing industry in the right direction. I think we’ve got a lot in common and I am listening to what the Real Fish Fight has to say.

"I do acknowledge that cod stocks are doing well in the North Sea from their all-time low point in 2006 and applaud fishermen and fishery managers for their hard work to make that happen. But looking at all stocks, across the whole UK, it’s a complicated situation.

"Our latest series of Fish Fight focused on Marine Protected Areas, and did not discuss fish stocks in the North Sea. We filmed on the Isle of Man – in the Irish Sea – where cod stocks are still in dire straits, and scientists advise that we shouldn’t catch any cod if we can help it. It’s the same in coastal areas of West Scotland."

A recent haul of cod from Peter Bruce's boat - the Budding Rose

The fishing industry was dealt a heavily blow when, earlier this year, the Marine Conservation Society demoted mackerel on its list of ethical fish to eat, causing Hugh to ditch his campaign to get "mac baps" into Britain’s chippys.

North Sea fishermen met with green groups, WWF, Marine Scotland and fisheries scientists, to find a solution to the depleting stocks and have swapped their nets for different mesh sizes to allow younger fish to escape.

Campaign founder and skipper, Peter Bruce, said: "We’re not happy with the way that we have been portrayed. What the programme called facts were just lies. We thought there was such a misrepresentation of the situation; we had to set up on our own.

"There are plenty of fish in our seas. His campaign is all about scaremongering and I know that to be true because every time we take the boat out we can see for ourselves on our equipment just how many fish there are out there.

"Fishermen haven't been given any credit for their efforts, and there is no evidence to suggest that by banning fishing in certain areas that fish numbers will increase, or that this will be the best way to conserve."

The fishing fleet at Petehead has fallen from 120 vessels in the 1990s to only 30. Two weeks ago, Peter’s boat, The Budding Rose, hauled her largest ever catch of cod - 30 tonnes in a single net.

The Budding Rose recently landed 30 tonnes of of cod in a single net in Peterhead

Peter added: "I had never seen a catch like that in all my 30 years at sea. The boat’s ram was completely bent out of shape by the weight of the catch - so much so it has had to be removed for repairs to be carried out.

"It was taken around 20 miles from closed cod spawning grounds; I had been fishing for haddock. I was in contact with a fellow skipper who was 75 miles away and he was having a similar experience."

Peterhead is the UK’s largest white fish and pelagic (mackerel and herring) port and runs an on-site fish market from Monday to Friday.

The fishermen claim that cod stocks in the North Atlantic have reached their highest levels for almost 20 years and ships such as the Budding Rose require only a relatively short time at sea to fill their holds.

Peter Bruce shows off some of his prized cod to promote The Real Fish Fight

Peter added: "Some people want the North Sea left as an aquarium and we just can't have that. We would like the scientists to come out with us and see what we are seeing on the grounds.

"Hugh’s Fish Fight seems to be motivated by raising his profile and bank balance. In the first series, he did a great job of highlighting the issue and we were all for it but we are not happy at his more recent claims about fish stocks."

"The money spent on his campaign should have been spent on scientific research; his measures will not provide a solution, it will only flood the market with products from overseas which have a high carbon footprint."

Hugh’s Fish Fight production company, KEO Films, are currently reviewing their options for a follow-up episode of the series, but have not ruled out a meeting between the two fish crusaders.