Fishermen and processors join scientists in management review

What made it different was the nature of the different participants who included experts from the Anglo-North Irish Fish Producers Organization (ANIFPO), the N. Irish Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD), the Aquatic Systems Group, the Marine Fisheries Research Programme, Sea Fishery Policy, an Icelandic consulting fishery biologist, and a fisheries adviser from Israel.

It all started with the industry's misgivings about the Irish Sea fisheries management and regulation system. Having heard of the work of Jon Kristjansson with the Faroese and Scottish fisheries, and of his criticism of the EU's quota system and its scientific basis, ANIFPO members demanded a full review of their own system.

Members of ANIFPO want to be centrally involved in the management of their fisheries. They believe that closer co-operation with scientists would give both fishermen and scientists a better insight into what is actually going on in the sea. Their bottom line is that flawed science produces flawed quotas and effort restrictions, which harm fishery resources and fishing people and their communities.

Bridge speaking!

"From a fleet of 40+ whitefish vessels just over five years ago, we have less than 15 today," said Alan McCully, ANIPFO's secretary. "Since fish stocks and conditions in the Irish Sea are inadequately monitored, reduced effort and landings should not be interpreted as reflecting diminished abundance of cod but rather landings which are the result of an inflexible system that prevents multi-species and multi-gear fishery and hurts markets."

Alan Chambers, a veteran skipper, is now fishing for lobsters from F/V Endurance. "Single species come and go," he says. "In the 1960s haddock dominated. In the 1970s, before quotas were introduced, there was a fleet of vessels that moved seasonally from fishery to fishery. Haddock and whiting alternate. From 1997 to 2004 there was more haddock. Now haddock is declining while whiting is on the increase".

This was news to the scientists present at the meeting. Nobody questioned the observation that during the last decades the seal population has grown many times over.

"Up to the 1980s, we had a well-functioning multi-species fishery," said Trevor McKee, skipper of F/V Sparkling Sea, and Chairman of another Kilkeel fish processor organization, Northern Ireland Fish Producers' Organisation (NIFPO). "Now, because of managing by cod, we can't catch other species, however abundant."

Howard Forsythe, another veteran and now retired skipper recalled: "Fifty years ago we knew annual catch fluctuations". And Neil McKee, skipper of F/V Oceanus, blamed the quota system for distorting catch data that formerly displayed 11-year cycles. "The quota system just blurs fluctuations," McGee said.

And indeed, in the early 1980s, a multi-purpose and multi-species fishery used codends with 70 mm mesh - good for all fish and fishermen were changing gear, target species, and fishing grounds by season and availability.

History talks

Your correspondent told the meeting that managing multi-species fishery by the weakest species may enhance the domination of stronger competitors over the weaker ones. "Recovery would be possible only if conditions became particularly favourable to the weakest species. It would have little to do with TACs and closures. To understand the system's dynamics, the project should recall historical shifts and fluctuations, and detect environmental and inter-specific dependences".

"The project," he added "should review the effectiveness of the annual springtime closures on demersal fisheries, taking into account stock migration, interaction patterns and environmental changes, as well as the evolution of the fishing fleets operating in the Irish Sea. Also, feeding conditions and inter-relations between species will be studied in the new lab. It is now recognised that ground survey data collected over the past 15 years could not produce a true picture of the state of stocks in the Irish Sea. No wonder fishermen talk about 'alternative science' ", your correspondent said.

"There's only one science," said Dr Walter Cozier of DARD and added "We hope that the project would enhance both the science and fishermen's understanding of the need for management and of the need for true landings data."

But Ian Morris, a retired skipper who has participated in International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) surveys, said that they went to the wrong places using the wrong gear. "When fish swam several fathoms above the bottom, we took good catches of cod with midwater trawls. But the survey vessel used a low-opening bottom trawl and missed them. Thus skewed results floated into the ICES' conception".

This new initiative comes at the right time and while it was set into motion ANIFPO's Hubert Annett, chairman, Alan McCulla, secretary and Iceland-based consultant Jon Kristjansson the project now has the financial support of the EU's fishery guidance fund, and is operating in cooperation with DARD's Sea Fisheries Division and the Fleetwood Fish Producers Organization whose secretary is Tommy Watson. Another scientist involved in the project is Norman Graham, Chairman, ICES Working Group on Fishing Technology and Fish Behaviour. The new lab in Kilkeel is being set up under the supervision of Jon Kristjansson of Iceland.