Netherlands

Some 70 applications have been put in to decommission vessels in the Dutch flatfish fleet of 250 beam trawlers and the Dutch demersal sector is facing its greatest crisis ever. High fuel prices get the most blame plus a belief that they will remain high because of growing fuel use by countries like China,

The future of Dutch pelagic, demersal and shell fishing depends on different challenges, not least ecological pressure on national and international regulation and doubts about the viability of traditional family firms which dominate the industry today.

The pelagic sector has become a lean, mean, fishing machine and there are now only 16 freezer trawlers in the hands of four firms. There could be just three if takeover moves are concluded. The Dutch flatfish, beam-trawler fleet, once regarded as the queen of the southern North Sea, will undergo the same severe contraction which earlier hit the pelagic sector. How many will survive may well depend on the success of the innovative new "pulse-beam" trawl.

Death of the family

The chairman of the Federation of Fisheries Organisations Ben Daalder, representing more than 70 per cent of the Dutch beamer fleet, fishing sole and plaice, says it has an annual TAC of 60,000 tonnes of plaice and 15,000t of sole. That represents about 90% of the total North Sea quota for the two species. This has been acquired through an aggressive policy of buying up quota and, for example, flagging ships in the UK, he said.

“And the irony is", said Mr Daalder, "that the price for sole was excellent, and remained highly in demand within the EU but the price for plaice was under pressure from frozen substitute fish imported from non-EU countries that are now cheaper than the freshly caught plaice due to the high diesel prices.” About 60 per cent of the cost of a fishing trip goes into fuel alone and, as a result, skipper-owners were running operations at a net loss, despite reasonable prices and stocks.

They could hang in there because a family firm was not focused on the issue of ultimate profitability. In theory, even if net profitability was zero, the people involved made a living of sorts and the economics of a public limited company and its shareholders could be ignored. But no longer, says economist Luc van Hoof, manager business development sustainable fisheries of the Dutch Institute for Fisheries Research (RIVO).

There is also the problem of succession, with rising costs making it increasingly more difficult for son to succeed father as skipper-owner.

Mr Daalder agreed and added that quota rights would remain with former fishermen after their vessel was scrapped. It was also difficult now for a young fisherman to follow the traditional route of working in different forms of fisheries. “I don't want a situation in which fishermen would be fishing for non-fishermen to pay for the hiring or leasing of the quota, as has happened in the EU dairy sector. Individual transferable quota (ITQs) are important within the EU fishing industry, but should remain with people still active in the industry, rather than those who have left, although I accept that property rights should be honoured,” said Mr Daalder.

However, he believes only some 35 of the 70 possible vessels will be scrapped because it was a “great step for a family to give up fishing for good”. What was needed was improvements in marketing, especially for plaice, a reform of the system of the 11 flatfish auctions in the main fishing ports and the development of more value-added products.

Boxed in

Mr van Hoof said fishermen believed that under the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) all flexibility had been lost in an industry, which “is after all one of the last remaining commercial hunter-gatherer activities”. Instead, demersal fishermen had been boxed into targeting one species by the quota and TAC system and recently such regulations as the 'one net rule' that did not allow a fishermen to switch between different types of fisheries on a trip.

The cod recovery plan for the North Sea seemed to ignore the effects of global warming on cod stocks and had complicated fisheries even further, he added. He welcomed the setting up of the North Sea Regional Advisory Council (RAC), but feared that the definition of 'stakeholder' was unclear. “What is a 'stakeholder'? A person who makes a living like a fisherman or in tourist business depending on the sea, or somebody who has merely an 'interest' in seabirds or seals, and should they have equal rights?”

Mr Daalder nevertheless believed that in the North Sea RAC a healthy balance between economy and ecology could be found. But he wants real power to be devolved from Brussels and the introduction of multi-annual quota and TACs. “The CFP is here to stay, but controls should be fairly and equally applied by all member states,” he said.

Electric Fish

The great hope for the Dutch beamer fleet is the Sidebar-Pulse-Beam Trawl. It uses low-voltage, electric pulses which are fed into the seabed by small rubber hoses attached to a rake rather than the traditional heavy chains mats. The current disturbs sole and plaice and guides them into the trawl.

Trials show that the ratio between one kilo of fish and diesel has been reduced from one to four and there are big benefits on the chain mats front too. The diesel cost saving is enormous said Ben Daalder.

Equally important is that the pulse-beam trawl does far less damage to the seabed ecology than the chain mat and that it allows for a much more selective fishery with a reduction of discards by 20% and a reduction of bye-catch of up to 80%. What is caught in the trawl has a higher chance of survival, and the crew spends up to 50 per cent less time processing the catch.

There are still fierce negotiations going on over long-term subsidies from the Dutch government for diesel costs. It has said it will allocate funds (in conjunction with the banks and the industry) to decommission 15% of the beam trawler fleet, which in practice could mean up to 30 vessels. It will allocate money to help the large-scale introduction of the pulse-beam trawl next year.

“This is the ideal marriage of ecology and economy, and while it is not the be all and end all for all our problems, we cannot afford to fail in the successful introduction and application of the pulse beam trawl,” said Mr Daalder.

Greenpeace has dismissed the introduction of the pulse beam trawl as only one small step in the right direction. It says it is certainly not the environmentally sound catch technique as it made out to be by its supporters and the government. Greenpeace says it still causes too much damage to the seabed and produces too many discards, adding that it is another short-term and superficial solution.

Pelagic empire

There are many fishermen around Europe who are not too happy with the way the Dutch pelagic fisheries have developed from a semi-artisanal fleet, targeting exclusively herring in the North Sea for human consumption, to one of the most efficient fleets in the world targeting a wide range of pelagic species in all the oceans. Yet such critics are the first to concede that the Dutch have worked hard and efficiently at producing their voracious, pelagic fishing machine.

First moves beyond herring were into mainly EU waters and from the 1990s into international waters, particularly off West Africa under third country agreements. They diversified into mackerel, horse mackerel, blue whiting, argentines and sardines (which can also be found in African waters) together with sardinella and Spanish mackerel.

In the 1960s, there were about 50 different owners and a fleet of several hundred vessels of different sizes. There are now only four firms, owning a total of 16 freezer trawlers, according to Rob Banning of the Nederlandse Redersvereniging (Dutch shipowners association). He says they catch about 400,000t of pelagic fish within EU waters and off Mauritania per annum.

These companies are P & P, based in Katwijk, and van der Zwan, Jaczon and Vrolijk all based in Scheveningen. Some have roots back into the 1880s and Jaczon may be bought out by Vrolijk. Some also have interests in reefer ships, cold stores and processing factories in the Netherlands and third countries.

It is this integration of catching, freezing at sea, with cold storage and processing plants onshore, which makes them so efficient and gives them a short route to and control of markets. Vrolijk also has its blue whiting processed, for human consumption, by labour in China. “Environmentalists attack us for being industrial fishermen with factory ships, but the Dutch pelagic firms only fish for human consumption, not for fishmeal and fish oil as other nations do,” said Mr Banning.

He pointed out that the average freezing capacity for a Dutch trawler was about 200 tonnes per day, while a Norwegian purse seiner could haul in five times as much in one day, but it was kept in a chilled tank on a long trip. “We don't see the point [of fishing] more than our capacity and having to downgrade the quality of the catch as a result,” said Mr Banning.

Rob Banning of the Nederlandse Redersvereniging (Dutch shipowners' association) also welcomed the fact that the EU was beginning to loosen its insistence on EU fishermen adhering strictly to EU rules while fishing in international waters in the North East Atlantic, such as waters between Norway and Iceland. This contrasted with Norwegians, Icelanders and Faeroese who do not have to abide by EU regulations.

“We have to build up aggressively our track records so [as] to force the Norwegians, Icelanders and Faeroese to the negotiating table. Maybe this will be bad for stocks in the short term, but in the longer term an agreed management regime will protect the stocks better if the rules are applied equally and fairly between all parties,” said Mr Banning.

As far as the CFP was concerned, in EU waters, the Dutch pelagic sector was not unhappy. “Probably TACs and quotas work better in the pelagic sector than in a mixed demersal fishery and we welcome the setting up of regional advisory councils …and the RAC that is specifically to be set up for the EU pelagic sector from the Spanish north coast to Spitsbergen,” said Mr Banning.

His optimism about the future of the pelagic sector is echoed by Arie van der Zwan, one of the 'patriarch' owners of the Dutch fishing industry. “Stocks and the price for herring will remain stable, while we expect those for mackerel and blue whiting to improve. The increased fuel price is affecting our margins but I am confident we [will] maintain a healthy profit margin,” said Mr van der Zwan.

Mauritania

Dutch pelagic interests have systematically build up a large presence and track record in Mauritanian waters with the active help of the Dutch government since 1996, according to fisheries scientist Ad Corten. He works as a consultant for the Dutch Foreign Office and private pelagic firms in Mauritania.

The Dutch have become the main agent for the EU in the implementation of the EU-Mauritania treaty. There has also been backing from Dutch development projects using public and private finance. An example is the Dutch Institute for Fisheries Research (RIVO) collaborating with its Mauritanian counterpart l'Institut Mauritanien de Recherche Océanographique et de Pêche (IMROP) (the National Mauritanian Institute for Oceanographic and Fisheries Research) in the training of Mauritanian officers and deckhands on Dutch trawlers,

Just as people complain about the Dutch, the Dutch also complain about others and say they feel that the EU Commission has been giving too much protection to Spanish interests in the Mauritanian small pelagic fishery on octopus, rather than protecting Dutch pelagic interests.

After various rows, about possible overfishing of octopus becoming a problem, a zoning system was put in place in 2004 under the EU treaty which, it is suggested, protects octopus stocks for the Spanish.

Dr Corten responds saying “There is absolutely no evidence that Dutch pelagic fishing was damaging octopus stocks". Rob Banning for the Dutch trawler owners explained that they would like to see the abolition of the zoning system. They want the 25 licences for EU ships divided permanently between the member states fishing in Mauritanian waters, rather than their having to apply for one per month under the new EU fishery treaty with Mauritania.

Dr Corten dismissed the conclusions of the 'Fish For All' conference in Abuja in August which said that foreign fishing interests were destroying African fish stocks and that only Africans should exploit these stocks.

“This is a hobby horse for some African politicians, but the fact is that most of the sardinella caught by the Dutch off Mauritania is sold to the populous countries of West Africa such as Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria. Otherwise these countries would have to import these sardinella for a much higher price from Europe, and the Mauritanians are not yet able to meet that demand without the presence of foreign trawlers,” said Dr Corten.

Mauritanian fish accounted for half of the tonnage and annual catch of the five-strong van der Zwan fleet, with up to three of its trawlers fishing in Mauritanian waters. On average, the Dutch would have between seven to eight ships operating off Mauritania, said Arie van der Zwan. He explained that while the smaller Dutch pelagic trawlers would mainly operate in EU waters, the possibility was there to rotate between the EU and Mauritanian waters and this kept the fleet fishing all year round and therefore profitable.

The Dutch would like to gain a presence in Moroccan waters under the new EU fisheries treaty with Morocco (See World Fishing September 2005) to track the shoals of sardines and sardinella. Dutch interests connected with Dutch shellfish merchant and processor Heiploeg is also looking at the possibility of starting shell fisheries off the Mauritanian coast.

King brown shrimp

Compared with the Dutch pelagic and demersal fisheries the shell fisheries seem to be small, However mussel and oyster beds in the province of Zeeland and the modest, little, brown shrimp of the southern North Sea contribute substantially to the Dutch trade balance.

Aquaculture is the dominant production method for mussel and oyster. Brown shrimp is caught by a relatively large fleet of more than 200 small shrimp beam trawlers. Processing and marketing is dominated by two firms, Heiploeg Shellfish International (HSI), based in Zoutkamp in the province of Groningen (brown shrimps) and Yerseke in the province of Zeeland (mussels, cockles etc), and Klaas Puul of Volendam, north of Amsterdam. Between them Heiploeg and Klaas Puul account for 90 per cent of the Dutch brown shrimp catch. Both firms have branched out into the processing and marketing of langoustines, tropical prawns of various sizes, crayfish and seafood products such as smoked salmon, trout halibut and eel. The latter is caught in the IJsselmeer, the former Zuiderzee, mainly farmed, but raised from stocks caught in the wild some of which are imported from Britain and Ireland.

Double whammy

Dutch shell fishermen have been hit recently by a double whammy of economic and ecological setbacks. They face not only fuel costs for shrimping but their organisations incurred very heavy fines from the Dutch economic authorities after they were found guilty of running a shrimp cartel. On the ecological front, mechanical cockling was banned in the Wadden Zee, the inshore sea off the Friesian coast, after pressure from ecologists.

“We were only trying to protect the interests of our members, but the irony is that, because there are no quotas and TACs for shrimps, we were not allowed to limit our catches to achieve a decent price,” said the chairman of the Nederlandse Vissers Bond (NVB - Dutch Fishermen's Association), Johan Nooitgedacht.

He explained that the brown shrimp fishery is ruled by a licence system, with the Dutch government granting 230 licences annually, another 200 are granted by Germany and 25 by Denmark. “We are now trying to form a transnational production organisation for the southern North Sea and to form our own cooperative for the processing and marketing of our shrimps,” said Mr Nooitgedacht.

He accepts that a number of shrimpers, who had agreed contracts with Klaas Puul and Heiploeg, were receiving decent prices after the shrimp price initially collapsed after the ant-cartel ruling and fines.

Swiss roll over?

However, he fiercely opposes turning the shrimp fishery in a sector dominated by contract fishermen. “We have seen such developments in the farming sector and contract farmers have lost all their freedom to the processors and supermarkets,” he said.

Hans Luit, of HSI's shrimp division, naturally does not agree and believes the contract system works satisfactorily for both the fishermen and two main merchants/processors. HSI also operates a fleet of 13 modern shrimpers but the majority of catch comes from independent fishermen who have to follow strict rules for on-board boiling and chilling of the shrimps.

The majority of the catch is peeled in large peeling stations in Morocco which get their supplies daily by road and send back the peeled shrimps in the same lorries by return. The whole process of catching, peeling and packaging takes only eight days, explained Mr Luit.

He also sought to reassure the fishermen that nothing was changing for the time being, despite the fact that the Swiss bank UBS, which has equity in Heiploeg, has put the 100-year-old company up for sale. “It is a pity that we cannot afford the asking price, rumoured to be around €250 million,” commented Mr Nooitgedacht.

He also lamented the strong political influence the green lobby has on the Dutch government over fishing interests. “It was in fact amazing how the government suddenly pulled the plug in the middle of negotiations with the cockle dredgers about changes in mechanical extraction techniques in the Wadden Zee. [This was] because it felt that it had no longer the political support for such changes from the environmentalists who demanded a ban, pure and simple,” explained economist Luc van Hoof, manager business development, sustainable fisheries at RIVO.

He said it was ironic that while only hand cockling was now allowed in the Dutch Wadden Zee, whereas off the coast of Schleswig-Holstein on the other hand the rules for cockling were applied more liberally. “Dutch fishermen feel that their government always want to be the 'teacher's pet' in the EU class at the expense of the interests of their fishing industry,” Mr van Hoof added.