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THE National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations has said that twelve words have rocked the foundations of the EU Cod Management Plan and have undermined the whole basis of the EU’s strategy for rebuilding the cod stocks in the North Sea, Irish Sea and West of Scotland.
Those words, expressed by the scientists charged with reviewing the EU Cod Management Plan are:Fishing morality should not be expected to follow trends in fishing effort. "
The NFFO said "those rather dry, measured, scientific words" carried huge significance because they challenge the attempt to rebuild the cod stocks through effort limitations (aka days -at-sea constraints) - one of the two main pillars of the current Cod Management Plan.
Although the NFFO, the fishing industry more generally, and the regional advisory councils, have repeatedly challenged the notion that reducing time at sea is an effective way of reducing fishing mortality, the significance of the statement lies in who is saying it and the context in which it is being said.
A joint ICES /STECF Working Group, which contains fisheries scientists from all of the member states affected by the cod plan, was charged with reviewing the Cod Management Plan agreed by the Council of Ministers in November 2008.
"The notion that constraining the time fishing vessels spend at sea could systematically reduce fishing mortality within a mixed, multi-species, multi-gear, multi-jurisdiction, fishery was a forlorn and misguided idea from the outset," the Federation said.
Its adoption owed more to Brussels’ belief that effort control could be a simple and straightforward conservation measure to administer; especially because at the time the quota system was demonstrably failing because of black fish landings. It had been anything but.
Listing other critcisms, the NFFO asks "What now?"
"The report will now form the basis for discussions within the Commission, Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. There is a presumption within the report that the Commission will want to move on to the next stage, which is the preparation of an impact assessment for a revised cod plan. STECF gives some strong indicators on the approach that should be considered as a replacement, notably:
"The immediate question is whether it is possible to turn Commission policy around in time to at least begin a new approach with more solid foundations next year. It is plain from the STECF report that further pre-programmed cuts in 2012 would:-
* Do little or nothing to reduce fishing mortality of cod in the North Sea, Irish Sea or West of Scotland
* Increase the scope for discards
* Increase already severe economic strains within the fleet
* Alienate the very people that STECF/ICES consider should be at the heart of the cod plan"
Should people be 'stimulated' to eat white fish alternatives to cod?
