At this week''s Fish Council in Brussels, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF) will strongly oppose any move by the European Commission (EC) to impose further ‘blunt’ management restrictions on the number of days that boats are allowed to fish – arguing instead for a much more targeted approach.
The talks, which commence today, will decide upon quotas and effort restrictions for the Scottish fleet for 2008. The EC is proposing further cuts across the board in the number of days that prawn (langoustine) and whitefish fleets can put to sea.
But according to SFF chief executive Bertie Armstrong, the effort limitation proposals are totally unjustified, given that other much more effective and targeted management measures are available.
“The management objective is cod recovery,” he says. “The evidence strongly suggests that such recovery is now underway in the North Sea and the aim remains to protect and nurture cod while continuing to sustainably harvest from other healthy stocks.
“We have argued long and hard for a more intelligent approach than the blunt instrument of days-at-sea. We have proposed and support innovative measures such as area closures and technical alterations in fishing nets to let unwanted fish go. We strongly believe that this targeted and carefully managed approach to fish conservation will reduce discarding and prove a much more effective management tool than crude effort restrictions.”
Some North Sea quotas for next year have already been decided at negotiations between the EU, Norway and other states. These include an 11% increase in North Sea cod due to recovering stocks; a 15% cut for North Sea haddock; and a 41% decrease in North Sea herring - which the SFF believes is unjustifiably severe.
For the West coast, the EC is proposing a number of quota reductions.
On these, Mr Armstrong said: “There are several stocks on the West coast where the first proposals from the EC are out of kilter with the abundance in the sea, or are simply illogical. These include megrim, where an increase in quota would be entirely sustainable, and other stocks where any decrease in quota would simply lead to more discarding.”
He added: “The difficulty with this whole process is that it is political: parts of the package can be subject to horse-trading rather than cool and intelligent decision making. The SFF demands the best deal for Scotland and the best deal for fish stocks; realistic, sustainable catching opportunity and the days at sea to be able to bring the catch home.
“We have worked hard all year with the Scottish Government and with the fisheries scientists to influence as best we can the processing of delivering these objectives.”
