Sustainable Fishing and Best Practice
"Cornish fishermen are securing a sustainable future for Cornish fisheries by taking scientists on boats through the Government-led
Fisheries Science Partnership.”
Fish Quota News 2007
Mid to late December is the time when DEFRA scientists, politicians, European bureaucrats and fishery leaders congregate in Brussels to agree the amount fish and seafood that can be harvested from the seas around our coast. The product of these long and involved meetings is a “quota” or amount of each specie of fish that can be harvested in the coming year. These amounts or quotas are sub-divided, or linked to the various ICES areas (sectors of seas around UK). For instance, the amount of Hake that can be harvested from ICES area V11e (south Cornish coast) may differ from that allocated to the Straits of Dover; each amount being decided by scientific information gathered together by DEFRA scientists.
Boring you say!!!!! Well yes it is, but this process is designed to ensure that we have a sustainable fishery for future generations, and the good news is that we are achieving that goal with many species, and are very close with many others too!
Paul Trebilcock, Chief Executive of the Cornish Fish Producers Organisation said to me today:
“This is very good news for the industry and also for fish. The changes and increases in quotas that we have agreed with DEFRA scientists illustrates how the fisheries science partnership, and the investment that the industry within Cornwall has made in its future, is benefiting the industry as a whole in the longer term. I firmly believe that this takes Cornish fishing very close to having a well balanced and managed fishery”.
The other gratifying issue is that these new quotas do not take into account the decrease in fishing effort employed in the past year by some sectors of our fleet, and how that will benefit fish stocks in the coming year; neither do they take into account the potential benefits of operating for the third consecutive year, a closed area of sea (3600 sq/miles) off the north Cornish coast during February to April. My hope is that this news will translate into increased confidence in Cornish fish in the high street, both in fish mongers and national supermarkets across the country”.
I hope that this brief overview of this year’s fishery quota has been of interest and is offered as the view of the writer.
Robert Clifford-Wing
M.D.
Wing of St. Mawes Ltd
How Can You Help?
Buy "The Cornish Fishing and Seafood Book" from www.duchyfishquota.co.uk
Some interesting facts about Cornish fish and fishing
By sourcing your seafood from us you are buying fresh fish straight from Cornish waters. Here is some useful information on the Cornish fishing industry. We reccomend the book listed above as a "must" for fish lovers and cooks!
- We have a high percentage of day-boats landing up to 40 different species in top quality condition every day.
- We have dedicated handline fisheries for Bass, Pollack and Mackerel.
- The English Channel Dover Sole quota increased over 190% in 2 years.
- Our Monkfish quota increased every year for the last 4 years and, we are optimistic about future year-classes joining the fishery.
- Cornish fisherman (Sam Lambourn) is the chair of EU Regional Advisory Council for SW fisheries. This gives Cornish fishing a strong voice where it matters.
- The Cornish industry led the introduction of 3600 sq. mile 'Trevose Box' (near Padstow) to protect spawning Cod between February and April.
- 25 of the 40 species landed are non-pressure stock (i.e. non-quota species) species.
- Objective 1 funding from Europe has helped fund the creation of Seafood Cornwall, an industry led organisation. www.seafoodcornwall.org.uk
- The Newlyn based Fisheries Resourse Centre is a valuable facility. www.cfrc.org.uk
About Invest in Fish South West
The Government announced in January 2003 a package of funding for the industry, which included £1 million in 2003/2004 for fishermen and scientists to work in partnership. Following the announcement, the NFFO The National Federation of Fishermen's Organisation and Cefas cooperated intensively to develop a programme to improve knowledge of our fish stocks. A further £1m was provided for projects in 2004/2005. Cornish skippers were the first to participate in taking scientists to sea on commercial trips.
The Government agreed a further £1m each year for 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008. The management for the programme for 2005-2008 is given below.
To provide information from commercial fishing catches on key stocks to supplement data sources traditionally used in ICES International Council for the Exploration of the Sea assessments.
To investigate concerns raised by fishermen on scientific assessments or on stocks not currently assessed. To investigate innovative scientific methods and or more selective/environmentally friendly fishing methods.
To support the work of Regional Advisory Councils.
The three year project is the first within a wider initiative, led by WWF-UK, the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations and Marks & Spencer, which aims to calculate the measures needed to best sustain fish stocks within the region (Celtic Sea, English Channel and Western Approaches), considerate of the regional economy, local communities and the wider marine environment. Invest in Fish South West appreciates that in order for its strategy to work it must first be accepted at the grassroots level of each sector. The project, therefore, takes a bottom-up approach, meaning its final strategy will include options, which are embraced by and not imposed upon those it ultimately affects. It will draw £1.6 million of funding from public and private funds. It is hoped that the South West pilot project will provide an example for similar projects elsewhere in the UK and Europe.
New project manager on board - Invest in Fish South West welcomes new Project Manager Heather Squires to the team.
Heather comes to us from the Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada, where she managed international projects in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Having worked in community economic development for more than twelve years, Heather has been involved in projects exploring the socio-economic impacts of resource collapse, including the ground fish moratoria in eastern Canada, as well as projects related to new industry development, such as aquaculture and tertiary education development.
Heather holds degrees in sociology, geography and environmental studies. Her interest in the marine environment extends to processes of participatory planning and shared decision making and she, therefore, is excited to be involved in a project such as Invest in Fish South West www.investinfishsw.org.uk .
“Invest in Fish is a great opportunity to demonstrate a new way of working together with government and the many stakeholders who have an investment in South West fish. Already, we can see real benefits for many of the parties involved, providing a strong base for making the vision of a healthy marine environment alongside a prosperous South West a reality. It’s a real pleasure to be working alongside people with the enthusiasm and commitment to make things happen.”
Bio-economic Model – Huh?
Invest in Fish South West will use a bio-economic model to help evaluate the effectiveness of fisheries management options, but what does that actually mean?
Over the next year, Invest in Fish South West will assess the types of management measures needed to best sustain fisheries, taking into account the regional economy, local communities and the wider marine environment.
One of the main tools used within this process is a bio-economic model designed by scientists from The Centre for the Economics and Management of Aquatic Resources (CEMARE) at the University of Portsmouth and the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS). The model will show the potential costs and benefits of fisheries management options on the region over different time periods.
“The model will form a common framework over which the impacts of fisheries management options can be explicitly measured and, therefore, make it possible for a consensus to be formed on real information rather than supposition,” comments Sean Pascoe, director of CEMARE and professor of Natural Resource Economics at the University of Portsmouth.
How the model works
In simple terms, the model can be compared to the far less complex computer game ‘Sim City’ where players can design a city and then see the effects of realistic choices – such as building a sports centre rather than a processing plant – on their virtual economy. In the same way, the Invest in Fish South West model will allow stakeholders to see the long-term effects of how different fisheries management options will affect fish stocks, the environment, local earnings and the regional economy.
At the heart of the Invest in Fish South West model is a sophisticated computer program designed to simulate the existing SW fisheries and the economies that depend on them. Different management scenarios are run through the model using the most recent biological and socio-economic data. These scenarios will show the outcomes of different proposed fisheries management options and how they might affect the region’s fisheries, economies and local communities, as well as the physical marine environment, over the next five, ten and fifteen years.
The Invest in Fish South West multidisciplinary approach enables the project to be creative and to analyse options that may not have been considered before. For example, recreational sea anglers could propose that sea bass be excluded from commercial fisheries, allowing only recreational anglers to fish for this species. The scientists could input this option into the model and run it for different time periods to indicate the costs and benefits to the different stakeholder groups. Management options with less definite outcomes can also be explored, and the associated levels of uncertainty identified.
Professor Pascoe says, “This model is a first-of-a-kind, as no other scientific model previously developed has had the direct involvement of such a wide range of interest groups or the inclusion of so many different factors.”
If you are interested in sustainable fishing methods and would like to learn more, please telephone him on 01726-861666 or email Robert Clifford-Wing.
