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MARIA Damanaki European Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries spoke on the phasing out of discards at the conference "Renewal of the EU Fisheries Policy – minimised by-catch and ban on discards" at the Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences, in Stockholm on Wednesday.
“A ban on discards in Skagerrak marks a milestone in our efforts to ensure sustainable management of our joint marine resources,” says Norway’s Minister of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs Lisbeth Berg-Hansen.
“I hope this will also have a positive impact on other waters and that we are able to influence reforms in the right direction. We are now working on behalf of future fishermen and consumers of seafood.
“This is something that I have been particularly focused on, and I am delighted that we can now sign a joint political declaration firmly establishing that discarding of fish is incompatible with sustainable management of our common marine resources.
“We are seeing the issue of discards on the agenda both regionally and globally. In this context, Norway, Sweden and Denmark wish to be in the forefront by implementing a ban on discards in the waters of Skagerrak.
"While Skagerrak geographically speaking is a small ocean area, it is nevertheless important for those living around the coasts in the area and for fishermen from our three countries,” adds Lisbeth Berg-Hansen.
Following the meeting she also held a press conference with Swedish Minister for Rural Affairs Mr Eskil Erlandson and Norwegian Minister of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs Ms Lisbeth Berg-Hansen.
At the conference Commissioner Damanaki said they were discussing an issue that has made close to 770,000 citizens across Europe sign a petition to end discards as a top priority in the reform of our policy.
She continued: “If the failure of the Common Fisheries Policy can be seen somewhere then it is clearly in the hundreds of thousands tonnes of food we waste every year by throwing perfectly good fish overboard. Let's look at some figures. According to the FAO the North East Atlantic has the second highest discard rate in the world with 1.3 million tonnes of fish thrown overboard every year, and we are the major culprits here. In the North Sea they estimate that between 500,000 and 880,000 tonnes of fish are discarded every year.
“This means we could feed between 200,000 and 350,000 people each year on the food that we throw away. I don't have to explain to you how morally wrong we are in light of such figures in the current economic climate.
“Today I would like to explain to you why we need to end discarding and how I have proposed that we should achieve this.”
In the speech, Damanaki said that discarding is the brainchild of EU legislation, adding: “By and large I have come to see that fishermen are not the drivers of discards, but we – the policymakers - are.”
She praised bycatch reduction projects but said that the 70 projects already implemented are just a drop in the ocean when it comes to tackling this problem at the root.
She also emphasised the need to change consumer's perception that fishing is a wasteful practise.
She said: “Retailers are now responding to sustainability concerns. The campaign that started in the UK has already moved to the rest of Europe. I don't want to have a situation where fish is left on the shelves of supermarkets, because consumers switch to other sources of protein. This would be bad for our fishing industry and bad for the consumers.”
Damanaki said that technology to reduce discards exists, but fishermen are not using it on a wide scale, because they have to invest in new gear and put themselves at a competitive disadvantage relative to others engaged in same fishery.
She said: “The only way to have a level playing field here is to have a discard ban. This will benefit the fishermen that are already doing something against discards, because their competitors have to play by the same rules.”
She explained how a discard ban would work in practice for mixed fisheries: “First of all Member States have to make sure that fishermen have access to quotas for those fish, which they are likely to catch. Furthermore the fishing industry itself should propose the best selective gears to avoid unwanted by-catches in the first place, such as juvenile fish. These gears exist for many fisheries, but how do we help fisheries where such gear is not yet developed? Here we actually need the help of gear technicians and scientists to come up with new fishing techniques. Obviously this will not happen overnight.
“Then everything that is hauled up needs to be landed and counted against quotas. If it is undersized fish, it will go to fishmeal production so as not to create a market for juveniles. But what about the handling costs for fishermen? The cost for fishermen to handle less valuable fish will be supported by the new Maritime and Fisheries Fund, but obviously they are not going to make a huge profit here.
“All fish that is hauled up and is above the minimum size can be marketed freely. But what happens if a vessel owner runs out of quota for one of the species he is likely to catch or even worse, what happens if he is catching fish for which he never had a quota? Theoretically he would have to stop the fishery for this species or else he has to buy or lease quota from his producer organisation or from another fisherman. And what happens if it is November and all the cod quotas have already been sold or leased? Maybe to cover for those cases Member States should establish bycatch quotas and apportion them over the year.”
Damanaki continued: “We need the fishing industry to be part of the discard ban, to internalize the ban and accept it as the framework in which they do business. The commitment of the industry will be key to being successful. I am proposing to support them financially from the new Maritime and Fisheries Fund which I will present next week. Here I am foreseeing funding possibilities to buy more selective gear and to fund innovation. I am foreseeing a better co-operation between scientists and fishermen and gear technologists.
“Fishermen will also receive financial support for participating in trials to reduce discards and we will fund the building of storage mechanisms on shore and pay for marketing initiatives to interest consumers. In the UK sales of lesser known fish have gone up 45% after the TV shows on sustainable consumption. I believe that if it can work in the UK, it can work in Sweden and elsewhere.”
She concluded: “Let me here quote a famous Swede. Dag Hammerskjöld (Former UN Secretary General) said: ‘Never for the sake of peace and quiet give up your conviction’. The discard ban is my conviction and I sincerely hope that it is yours as well, because I need your help to reform the Common Fisheries Policy.
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