Promised Cod scheme not in place
Feb 2nd, 2009 | By ssacn | Category: Catching sectorThe effort reduction measures agreed at the December fisheries council aimed at cutting cod mortality was originally planned to take effect from 1 Feb 09.
However, interim arrangements now look inevitable as the SFF say they have not yet got a clear vision of how effort will be managed this year and at the moment there is no plan as to how it will be achieved.
The scheme is designed to reduce effort by 25% in the name of cod recovery although skippers will be able to buy back days at sea to offset the reduction through signing up to a number of cod avoidance measures.
According to the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation chief executive Bertie Armstrong “We know what we want for Scotland and we know what is in the tool box. But this is really all about the challenge of applying measures which are not going to wreck the place.
“We are now right up against it in time-scale terms and we need a plan which on the one hand gives us commercial viability without harming cod recovery and which does not result in us carrying the can because we have been pioneers in terms of reducing cod mortality.
“For arrangements must be coherent and equally tailored for everyone so that we do not end up disadvantaged and there must be no unintended consequences at our expense.”
Mr Armstrong added that February 1 had always been overly ambitious and questioned how much progress in adhering to cod mortality targets was being made by other EU states.
Mike Park, chairman of the Scottish White Fish Producers’ Association agreed with the view that it had been overly ambitious and felt that an interim regime was required to allow time for consultation on the basic question of whether a new effort regime should be based on historic performance or a flat rate in terms of days allocation.
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