Small scale coastal fishermen are at risk of going out of business, the chairman of the Coastal PO and executive director of the Low Impact Fishers of Europe has warned.
Jeremy Percy said that the under 10m fleet in many parts of the UK is declining, along with the coastal communities it has previously been able to support, but this has been left unaddressed amidst discussion around Brexit.
He stated: “Unless something concrete and dramatic is done to help in the immediate future then the ever more seemingly ephemeral promises of a post Brexit windfall of quota and access will be meaningless to those small scale coastal fishermen who have gone out of business in the meantime.”
“Massive challenges”
The under 10m fleet faces “massive challenges” to their survival without the economic advantages held by the larger scale fleet in the UK, Mr Percy said.
He said that with what experts consider to be “an ever increasing transition period” and “in light of the clear weakness of the UK’s negotiating position” the under 10 fleet is “stuck in limbo, struggling, and often failing to survive with only a couple of per cent of the overall UK quota allocation.”
Referring to Seafish’s 2017 economic analysis, which said that the UK fleet had seen record annual profits, Mr Percy pointed out that the remaining three quarters of the UK fleet “are being starved of the means of production and survival.”
He said the entire unused element of the UK’s large-scale quota could be reallocated to the under 10m fleet immediately without having to provide compensation to the current holders. The process of reallocating other quota could also begin at the same time.
“Irrespective of the outcomes of Brexit, many of the under ten fleet will not be around to witness them unless swift action is taken by the government to underpin their survival in the meantime,” he added.
