It was fitting that one of the smallest nations should play host to a conference on one of the biggest issues in fisheries management today: "Does practice follow theory?" Our regular columnist Menakhem Ben-Yami observed and contributed to what he reports, in this first of a two-part report, was a very lively debate.
The David of this Goliath contest, in a kind of maritime preview of the soccer World Cup, was the host country, the Faroe Islands. Their small population has a giant fishery, producing about 500,000 tonnes of fish annually. It has recovered to this level from a state of crisis. The rationale for its success is that it abandoned the EU-promoted quota system and turned mainly to 'days-at-sea', effort-controlled management. It is something of champion, therefore, for those European fishermen who believe that the EU quota approach is counter-productive.
Fisheries management
The first line at the start of June, 3-4 June was thrown by Faroese Prime Minister, Jóannes Ejdesgaard. He told fisheries hands, businessmen and experts from 15, mainly north European countries that his country's management was tailor-made for its fishery and was adapting to changing conditions.
He emphasised that nothing is stable and fishery assessment is not an exact science.
As the sessions moved on the participants manoeuvred for the best position, with the quota and big business enthusiasts (mainly Icelandic economists) tussling with the quota sceptics and those critical of the underlying science. Alas, one could have done with more Icelandic skippers or their representatives, themselves staunch critics of the Icelandic fishery management system.
There were few good words for the EU's management approach and its Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). The jury was out on whether the EU's newly-established stakeholder Regional Advisory Councils (RACs) will have the powers to turn them into a step in the right direction.
People and profits
These contrasting positions were also exemplified on the one side by the 'big is beautiful and good for business' scenario of profits, quota consolidation and the highest financial efficiency. However, supporters on this side suggested that the social and human implications of such an approach and dislocated lives and unemployed workers and fishermen in waning coastal communities were not the business of business.
Taking a different track were those who said that the Faroese fishery and its solid economic and social profit, when compared with Iceland, was hard proof that quotas are not a panacea and that the CFP is hapless. This evidence was the best proof that management systems should be tailor-made for different fisheries and that effort control should be considered as a feasible option. Nor did they fail to point out that the spread of cheating and fiddling around the catch was due to unreasonable regulation under the quota system.
Quota or effort control?
Prof. Røgnvaldur Hannesson, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration said that quota systems promote optimum investment, while effort control promoted over-investment. Catch and fishing capacity should be limited simultaneously and excess fishermen trained for alternative occupations. An industry that has the full rights of use can run the fishery itself, without government intervention, he said.
Mr. Gubrandur Sigursson, an Icelandic business executive and another supporter of the quota system, said that fishing quotas acquired banking value. Iceland had reduced its trawling fleet from 120 vessels to 70 bigger and more powerful ones. On land, the processing industry had reduced manpower from 10,000 to 5,000. Sigursson said the industry could not be held responsible for loss of jobs in rural areas.
A broadside against the quota supporters came from Prof. Rasper J. Nielsen of Denmark. The EU's quota-based CFP was a total failure politically, economically and conservation-wise, he argued. He cited a UK study which showed that effort control in mixed fisheries reduced illegal activities. In summary, Nielsen preferred fleet capacity (balanced with stock reproduction) to quota systems.
Your WF correspondent (who also presented a paper: Ben-Yami: Fisheries Management: a Shift in the Making) suggested that management systems should be tailored to each separate fishery and that quotas may be suitable in some fisheries while counter-productive in others. Managing fisheries at regional and, even better at sub-regional levels, was the right approach.
But there were more fundamental issues at stake which go to the root of the stock assessment.It was not just illogical or inequitable regulations, but erroneous, underlying science which cause illegal activity. We will pick this science issue up in part II in World Fishing August.
