Where did it all get lost ?
Dec 23rd, 2009 | By editor | Category: CommercialA memorandum submitted by The Highlands and Islands Fishermen’s Association to a Westminster Select Committee in 1999
It is our Association’s view that no finite resource can ever get too much research into its capability and productive capacity within it’s sustainable limitations. Money however, is not inexhaustible, and there is a perceived need to direct available resources where they can prove most beneficial to the capacity of the fishery over the longest possible overview.
Having identified the extent of any species within the whole resource, it must become one of the highest priorities to ensure that everything taken from the resource is landed in it’s best possible value state.
If it can not be profitably landed, the wit of man must arrive at some means of refraining from catching it. It must become possible, early in the new century, to devise methodology to avoid catching species where the permissible quota is exhausted, or undersized, of any species. It is our view that the one unknown, and vastly underestimated, factor within the entire UK fishing industry, is the wastage factor consigned to rot on the ocean floors.
The whole sad episode of the ‘Blackfish’ years arose from catching fish which could not be lawfully landed, almost always arising from inability to avoid catching them whilst in pursuit of species still within permissible quota levels. Once taken aboard it is hard to find support for a policy which requires dumping good quality fish to rot on the seafloor rather than bringing them ashore to market. This is the Achilles heel of the quota system and a solution to the problem must be found. A great deal of further research must go into gear design and methods found of taking only what is allowable for sustainability of the fishery and, thereby, the interests of the whole industry.
The sector of the industry which most greatly concerns this Association are the smaller vessels working coastal waters of which vast numbers now operate around the Scottish mainland and islands. Many of these vessels are under ten metres in length and have not been obliged to report landings (nor wastages) to the degree required of larger vessels. They are, though, vastly different catching tools as compared with previous years, with greatly increased power units and electronic assisters to turn them into formidable pursuers of fish and shellfish. To some extent their comparative freedom to catch without reporting has worked against their interests in that the contribution of their landings to the national economy, and to their local economies, has tended to be undervalued and unnoticed to the extent that unwise policy changes, arising from insufficient knowledge of the vital nature of their contribution, have been implemented, with extensive damage to the socio-economic fabric of the communities in which they are domiciled. One clearly retrograde policy was the removal of the three mile non-trawling zone arising as a result of the Cameron Report of 1985.
Due to a failure to recognise the economic contribution made to coastal communities, largely by lack of statistical evidence of landing values, community fisheries were merged into the whole national fisheries network which gave rise to massive large-vessel trawl efforts which, allied to new technological wonders, resulted in taking the demersal brood stocks out of the sea lochs of Scotland, leaving only a shellfishery to support indigenous communities.
Villages which formerly maintained three or four vessels, crewed by four or five persons each, simply ceased to remain viable, resulting in the loss of sound incomes to twenty or more households, weakening the community fabric in remote areas where little alternative means of income existed.
In the Minches area of Scotland the prawn animal (nephrop) is now the most valuable crustacean available; highly desirable in European city markets as air-freighted, fresh, live exports. Lobster stocks have declined heavily and much of the UK crab is of inferior quality. When allowed to grow to a size where the prawn is wholly usable of four to six animals per kilo, rewards of the order of £12 per kilo are offered by a discerning market to fill the space left by lobster scarcity. It becomes essential, however, to manage and husband quality prawn stocks carefully. We have established that properly constructed pots or creels can allow a vessel to take equal income from around ten per cent of the volume required to render similar income to a vessel taking prawns by trawl.
Prawn-trawling, as a non-selective method of prosecution of the fishery, takes vast numbers of tiny animals out, the tail is broken off and the remainder of the carcass discarded, being too tiny to be marketable. This results in a market value of less than two pence each and, in 1997 from the North Minch ports alone, one hundred and eighty five millions of these potential £2 animals in the markets of Europe were disposed of for less than two pence each.
Prawns are non-migratory, they breed, seed and feed in soft mud of a variety of viscosities, generally better qualities in deeper and softer muds and we always observe a rapid deterioration in the quality of the prawn on grounds subjected to heavy trawling. Our conclusions are that, either habitat or food supply or, most likely, both suffer damage by trawl towing particularly in deeper and softer substrates.
The prawn trap or creel is fitted with a tautly stretched mesh covering which at no time alters in size or shape and can be manufactured to ensure the escape of all animals of an unwanted size without subjection to the stress of even taking them to the sea surface. Additional apertures can be fitted to any device used to take prawns to ensure that unwanted undersized prawns are neither taken nor stressed. No fish bycatch is taken in creels or traps.
The prawn trawl, on the other hand, is a fine, diamond-meshed net which, under power of often a four hour tow, closes into a solid wall of material as any person can readily discover by taking a piece of mesh between ones hands and stretching it. All life swept into a prawn trawl is severely stressed during towage, and unwanted discards are dead if returned to the water. Because of the fine nature of the prawn trawl mesh large amounts of undersized demersal species are also taken and, being too small to land, are also dumped over the side of the vessel to rot on the sea floor.
There is urgent need to restore community fishing areas with regulated management powers to coastal and island communities and remove elements of wastage in both species and market values. Access to coastal waters for vessels with an ocean-going capability should be ended and management regimes put in place to ensure that species values are maximised.
Failure to operate properly should result in loss of entitlement to take fish or shellfish. It is too valuable a resource, getting scarcer year by year and, hence, of greater value with the passage of time, to continue to allow it’s misuse in any field.
Satellite monitoring and greater use of aircraft photography must be deployed as invaluable tools to achieve correct use of fisheries by entitled vessels. Higher returns for quality products will reflect in improved vessel quality and standards of upkeep and have an immediate and immense impact on safety factors at sea amongst the huge numbers of smaller craft.
Government assistance for new vessel building is, of course, of value but real progress in both vessel and gear quality will only come from an internally well-funded annual production cycle where sound and sufficient earnings will put a confidence in place for future years and a firm desire will arise to invest in correct tools for the job to be done and a high quality of maintenance will obtain on an annual basis.
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