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THERE are growing demands from the fishing industry to simplify the Common Fisheries Policy when it comes up for reform next year.
The latest call is from the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations (NFFO) which has been working closely with regional advisory councils representing North Sea and the North West fishing grounds.
The NFFO says that one area of work which has been somewhat eclipsed by these more high profile issues, such as discards, is the importance of simplifying the CFP, including the removal of much of the red tape surrounding the policy.
The federation maintains: "Working fishermen cannot but be aware of the massive complexity of the CFP rules because they have to deal with them every day at sea. Likewise those who are charged with enforcing the rules regard them as a “nightmare”.
"Fisheries scientists in ICES and STECF have also repeatedly pointed to the complexity of the management regime as a fundamental reason why it consistently fails to achieve its objectives."
There are many examples where the complexity of the CFP means that one set of rules undermine or flatly contradict another set. So:
* The effort regime which allocates a higher number of days-at-sea to vessels using less selective gear has resulted in a the lowering of the average mesh size in use in the North Sea
* The catch composition rules in the Technical Conservation Regulation require fishing vessels to discard fish caught in the “wrong” percentages, contradicting a theoretical ban on high-grading
* TAC decisions in mixed fisheries made for cosmetic reasons increase discard rates without any positive effects on fishing mortality
The NFFO has, following positive experiences in Australia and Canada, advanced the idea of sustainable fishing plans as a way of delegation responsibilities from centralised command and control systems to the fishing industry itself, within a system of approvals and audits.
It adds: "There is little sign in the Commission’s package of proposals that this radical delivery mechanism for simplifying the CFP will be adopted during this reform, despite strong support from some of the more advanced thinkers within the Commission. Pessimists might say that it will take another decade for this idea to move centre stage, in the way that the NFFO and SFFs’ ideas on regionalisation (Zonal Management) have moved since they were advance prior to the last reform."
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