A prominent Dutch fisheries scientist has accused environmentalists of waging a ‘holy war’ against the European fishing industry, reports Pieter Tesch.
Dr Ad Corten, one of Europe's leading specialists on herring, as well as pelagic fisheries off Mauritania and in the south Pacific, has accused western environmentalists of being driven by a kind of religious fanaticism rather than by rational considerations.
In particular Dr Corten slammed the WWF for insisting that the North Sea herring fishery carried out by the Pelagic Freezer trawler Association (PFA) should loose its Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certificate if the PFA did not reduce its Total Allowable Catch (TAC) by 35% next year.
He was equally scathing about a campaign by Dutch environmentalists who, after successfully campaigning for the banning of commercial cockling in the Dutch Waddenzee, now want to prevent the start of a commercial fishery of Venus shells (Venus rosalina) off the north Mauritanian coast.
The dispute over the MSC certificate of PFA's North Sea herring fishery began when the pelagic North Sea Regional Advisory Council (RAC) refused to endorse the proposal by ICES to reduce the TAC by 47% because of concerns about the biomass of young herring.
Neither did the RAC endorse a proposal, supported by the WWF, to reduce the TAC by 35% but instead supported the PFA proposal of 25% reduction.
Under the EU agreement with Norway TACs were only increased or decreased by no more than 15% per year, but the industry wanted to show its concern, said PFA chief executive Gerard van Balsfoort.
However, he added that industry wanted research in Dr Corten's hypothesis of cannibalism by older herring of younger year groups explaining the mortality among younger herring.
A WWF spokesperson said that the PFA should loose its MSC certificate “automatically” if it refused to accept the 35% reduction, but a MSC spokesperson said that this was not “automatic”.
Equally arrogant were those environmentalists campaigning against the new fishery of unexploited Venus shell stocks who basically accused the Mauritanian authorities of not being able to manage the stocks and protect the eco-system, while so far the Mauritanians were implementing policies more rigorous than the EU, said Corten.
