Kingfisher launches fishing restrictions mapping website

 

New online service helps fishers navigate commercial fishing gear restrictions in UK waters.

The Kingfisher team at Seafish, the public body that supports the UK seafood industry, have launched a new Fishing Restrictions mapping service for fishers.

This free service allows fishers to view all UK fishing gear restrictions in one place, with complete coverage of all regulatory authorities. The service has been fully funded by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) and the Marine Management Organisation (MMO).

The Kingfisher team created this service following discussions with stakeholders in the fishing industry in relation to the difficulty they were experiencing in sourcing and understanding complex fishing legislation.

Information surrounding the protected areas has previously been spread across multiple websites and information sources, often missing positional data about restriction boundaries. Now, for the first time, they are available in one place and can be accessed (in port or at sea) via an interactive map, data plotters and information downloads. The restrictions can also be shared via WhatsApp, social media and email.

Eleanor Michie, GIS Analyst at Seafish and lead on the fishing gear restrictions mapping project said:

“We know that fishers are currently facing difficulty in finding, interpreting, and plotting the commercial fishing restrictions in UK waters. The new mapping system aims to improve understanding and create a platform which can be used with confidence. It provides fishers with an answer to the question ‘Am I allowed to fish here now?’

“In making this information easily available to fishers, we hope to increase awareness of prohibited and permissible fishing operations and promote compliance with regulations and sustainable fishing practices.

“In order to ensure the system meets industry standard and is kept up to date, all gear restrictions have been categorised according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) fishing gear naming system.”

Dale Rodmell, Assistant Chief Executive at National Federation of Fisherman’s Organisations (NFFO), said:

“This project brings transparency to the regulations, to know where they apply, and make what is a rapidly-growing and complex set of rules easier to follow.

“If you are going out in your car, you need to know what the rules of the road are at any point during the journey, and it’s the same with fishing. On the road, this is done with road signs but there is no equivalent for sea fishing, and this project helps to fill that gap.

“It will make it much easier, especially when at sea to know what rules apply in a particular place, and helps to ensure no one inadvertently breaks them, which can only be good for the industry. It also ensures that the purposes of regulations are realised, and that in turn is a sign of sound fisheries governance.”

The Kingfisher team will also distribute the data on USB sticks via Fishing Associations towards the end of the year so that fishers can easily add it to their plotters.

To find out more, visit the website www.kingfisherrestrictions.org or contact Eleanor Michie on Eleanor.Michie@seafish.co.uk.

Full story by Nial Duffy writing for The Skipper.

Brexit: French fishermen announce day of action - this coming Friday.

Note to diary:

Thursday, November 25, at 2:30 p.m. 

This is the date chosen by the National Fisheries Committee, the three regional committees and the departmental fisheries committees bordering the Channel (Hauts-de-France, Normandy and Brittany) to unveil, during a decentralised press conference, the blocking actions they intend to carry out, the next day, to show the British their determination to obtain the fishing licenses to which they believe they have the right in the waters of the Channel Islands and the UK 6 to 12 miles.

According to Olivier Leprêtre, president of the Hauts-de-France regional fisheries committee, these actions will target more flows to the United Kingdom than those coming from it.

The Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune, who had met his British counterpart David Frost on Sunday evening, followed on Monday 22 with the Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Brexit, Maros Sefcovic. He reminded him of the importance of this issue that the European Commission, obsessed with the Irish border issue, did not “take seriously enough at the start  If Europe is not able collectively to demand respect for it (the trade agreement), and to obtain it, we will have a long-term problem with its implementation ” .

Hilborn gutted over flawed report

 

Reflection on the Minderoo Foundation’s Global Fishing Index

by Ray Hilborn

This Monday, the Minderoo Foundation released their 2021 Global Fishing Index report meant to give a global picture of fisheries status. I have collaborated with the Minderoo Foundation in the past, but this report is highly flawed and should be viewed sceptically. The report claims over 50% of stocks are overfished and no country gets an “A” or a “B” grade for their management efforts—just six get a “C.” Countries that have essentially eliminated overfishing and are clearly delivering near maximum benefits to their countries are graded a “C.” Why is that not an A?

The report fails to acknowledge that over much of the world, fisheries management is working; overfishing has been greatly reduced and stocks are recovering. Many countries are sustainably producing near maximum benefits from their fish stock. The message that we need to bring fisheries management, including data collection, assessment, regulation, and enforcement to all the world is needed, but not new—agency scientists, academics and NGOs have been working towards this reality for decades and the conclusions and tone of this report dismiss the work of thousands of people.

The most critical flaw in the report’s methodology is their definition of overfished. The authors call any stock whose abundance is below a level thought to produce maximum long-term yield (called the biomass that produces maximum sustainable yield, BMSY) as overfished – and estimate that roughly 50% of stocks are below BMSY, and thus “overfished.” However, if fishing effort was perfectly managed to assure maximum long-term harvest (the typical objective), stocks would fluctuate around BMSY. As a result of natural fluctuations beyond management control, stocks would be above this level half the time, but also below this level half the time.

Thus, a country that was perfectly managing its fish stocks to generate food and employment for it’s people would have half of its stocks called “overfished” by this definition. So if the report estimates that half of fish stocks are “overfished” by their definition, perhaps all world’s fisheries are being well-managed?

The report claims to have assessments of the status of 1,465 individual stocks, but many of those assessments used catch-based estimates. Catch-based estimates are a totally unreliable method of stock assessment. A major scientific journal won’t even review papers submitted to their journal that use them.

The absurdity of their methods and definitions is illustrated by the estimate of the proportion of the assessed stocks in the country that are above the accepted target. In this regard they list Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Nigeria and Thailand as top ranked major fishing countries. This simply fails any test of veracity. These are largely countries with limited fisheries management systems and generally recognised to suffer from significant overfishing.

Their governance index comes to equally bizarre conclusions. Norway, Iceland and the U.S. score 8, but so does Indonesia and the Philippines. Chile scores even higher with a 9.

The report is full of contradictions and cherry-picking to create their overfishing narrative. For instance, they say in the introduction “there have been pockets of success where strong interventions have improved stock health.” Yet then: “globally the state of fish stocks is not improving.”

The first statement is backed by citations showing that across countries that represent half of the worlds’ fish catch (which they call mere pockets), stocks are increasing. The second statement quotes an FAO report showing that the number of overfished stocks is growing slightly. What the report misses is that fisheries management is working in fisheries encompassing half of the world’s catch, but largely unknown and likely poor in the other half. Making blanket statements about the state of global fisheries is not helpful.

Overfishing is not a global problem as the report argues, but rather a problem confined to parts of the world where fisheries management is weak. Certainly, even in the best managed places there remain some stocks that are below target levels, but in many cases these stocks are not fished at all or very slightly fished, and their poor status is due to environmental factors like climate change or terrestrial runoff.

Ray Hilborn 21 November 2021

Moody Monday morning start to the week in Newlyn.

 

The light changes dramatically...

within minutes as the sun comes up...

in this morning's market there are some boxes of top quality fish to tempt the buyers, like these superb bream from the trawls of the Spirited Lady III...

line caught bass...

and more from the Huers...

red mullet seem to be everywhere at the moment, these beauties came form the Irish boat Unity back landing in Newlyn after a short break fishing closer to home south of Dunmore...

while the beam trawler Twilight III also picked up some and landed them in excellent condition...

nothing quite beats the look of red mullet landed by an inshore boat though as these crackers testify...

monk in quantity at this time of year are the domain f the beam trawl fleet...

while fine weather meant that most of the inshore trawlers are making the most of this extended run of fine weather and returning with top quality fish like this big turbot...

though two boxes of bass is exceptional at any time of the year, could be down to the more finessed touch of a new female crew aboard Richard's Still Waters...

and yet more bream from the Millennia...

there was hake a-plenty from the Silver Dawn, the last netter to land at the end of this neap tide...

and a few boxes of big ling, once the mainstay of the long-lining fleet that made up the bulk of the port's larger vessels during the 60s and 70s until more efficient and effective gill-netting took over...

a dozen boxes of cuttles, a far cry from previous years when cuttlefish landings could be measured in tons...

the boys on the big Irish boat Unity keep their twin trawls in tip-top condition, the nets are run off down the quay for repairs between trips...

in years to come it is likely that there will be a number of wind farms around these shores and boats like this will be based here permanently - in which case the plans to double the size of the port by developing Sandy Cove to accommodate shore services and the possibility of extra freight traffic will be justified as the way to further expand, just like Newlyn's forebears did over 100 years ago...

work continues aboard the Voyager fitting out her net pounds and shelter...

a brace of crabbers...

get the once over from the harbour's resident seal standing to underwater attention...

before spending a few minutes resting on the bottom...

 and before surfacing again showing off a fine set of bristles.

UK-EU Trade Fisheries on Fisheries - what's to learn?

 

Below, is the UK-EU Trade Agreement for Fisheries published in March of this year:

Full on fish for #FishyFriday in Newlyn.

Not the brightest start to the day in Newlyn...

but there's plenty of top quality fish on the morning auction, even three large cod...

and a few boxes of those rock and wreck-loving congers...

at this time of year John Dory landings are just a trickle...

while young Tom on the Harvest Reaper always seems to pick up a few decent bass every trip...

to go with his ray...

reds and cuttles...

while Brackan's red mullet are absolutely top-notch quality as you would expect from a small trawler hauling after shorter tows - the Breton boats that work these waters reckon on hauling every two and a half hours, sometimes three during daylight in order to keep the quality as high as possible - fish swirling around in the cod-end begin to lose their scales after a while and while that doesn't affect earing quality it does affect how the fish appear...

just the one bream this morning...

while the big beam trawlers put ashore good landings of monk tails...

haddock...

big megrim soles...

and plaice...

leaving the Imogen to weigh in with a good shot of lemons...

in the fridge, the handline fish included a good few boxes of mullet...

and bass...

and you can tell from the glistening-golden skin of these pollack that they were all hooked aboard...

just a handful of silver darlings to end the week...

while mackerel continued to be landed in quantity...

it was the sardine fleet whose long night looking for fish eventually paid off with fish from the Charlotte Clare...

and the Pelagic Marksman

and the crabber Harriet Eve made for a busy scene alongside the fish market...

which kept the local gull population in something of a feeding frenzy for much of the time...

the netters are now waiting for the next neap tide...

it is just possible that this rudder became detached form a casualty of WW2 as there are many wrecks in the Western Approaches left oveer from the concentrated efforts of German submarines...

judging by the wear, this riveted rudder looks as though it was towed  for a full watch 

by the ports biggest beam trawler Enterprise...

unlike the beginning of the week the Mary Williams pier is now full of boats between tides...

including the two latest additions to the fleet, both drawing around 5m when laden with gear, ice and fuel...

the ex-Sapphire III looks smart as ever...

the stealthy lines of the St Piran,  IFCA's powerful patrol vessel...

the Cornishman's decks are ready for action again...

flowers surround a small plaque acknowledging...

young Conor who sadly lost his life doing what he loved best, servicing the same boats of...

Stevenson's beam trawl fleet that his father skippers.