The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) has published its latest statistical report The UK Fishing Industry in 2011: Structure and Activity.
The report includes detailed data about the size and composition of the UK fishing fleet, the number of fishermen and UK fishing activity during 2011.
Overall, the statistics show that there were 17% fewer vessels in the UK fleet in 2011 than in 2001, with fishermen numbers falling by around 2,600. The number of days spent at sea by over 10 metre vessels has fallen by 42% over the same period.
The statistics are being released in advance of the compendium publication UK Sea Fisheries Statistics 2011 in late September in a drive to provide data to the public as soon as statistics are available. A further report on UK catches and landings will also be issued in late August.
In 2011:
- The UK fishing fleet remained the sixth largest in the EU in terms of vessel numbers, with the second largest capacity and fourth largest power.
- 22% of the UK fleet was made up of vessels over 10m in length. In Scotland almost a third of vessels were over 10m, the same as in 2010.
- Just over 12,400 fishermen were reported as active in the UK. Of these, around 2,400 were part-time. This compares with 12,703 fishermen of whom 2,531 were part time in 2010.
- Effort controls can be applied to specific zones to aid recovery of stocks. Fishing effort using the most cod-intensive regulated gears has fallen by 38% since the implementation of the Cod Recovery Zone in 2003. Effort in the Sole Recovery Zone with regulated beam trawls has fallen by 27% since its creation in 2004.
- Effort on fishing trips targeting scallops in ICES sub-area VII under the Western Waters Regime has increased by 47% since 2001, while effort on similar trips in ICES sub-areas V and VI has more than halved.
