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CHARLES Clover, author of the hard hitting End Of The Line book and film on the future of fish stocks, has hit out at Iceland over its plan to unilaterally allocate itself a 130,000 ton quota.
But the marine environmentalist has also criticised the Marine Stewardship Council for failing to act properly and tell the public about the dangers this growing international fishing dispute presents to the fishery.
Last week Scottish Euro MP Struan Stevenson complained to Maria Damanaki, the EU fisheries commissioner about Iceland's action. The Faroe Islands are also demanding an increase in quota.
Writing in the Sunday Times at the weekend, Clover warned that while there may seem to be plenty of mackerel in the northern hemisphere it didn't take a degree in mathematics to work out that if countries took substantially more than the internationally agreed 571,000 ton quota, stock would be put at risk. He adds that Scottish fishermen were right to be concerned.
But he says his column that what worries him more is that no-one has bothered to inform consumers just what is at stake. The MSC, he says, "has scarcely told a soul" the risks of failing to establish a proper agreement.
Clover says the EU has a number of cards to play to try to bring Iceland into line and he expected Maria Damanaki to play some of them when she visits Reykjavik this summer.
When this dispute erupted last year, Iceland claimed it had full rights to catch fish within its territorial fishing limits, adding the country had not broken any international deals as it was not party to any. Iceland also said had repeatedly requested to be a partner in the management of mackerel stocks in the Northeast Atlantic, but had deliberately been kept out.
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