There is no doubting the man’s energy, commitment and astute approach to publicity. But the answers to those questions are not at all clear. Having marched us up to the altar of eliminating discards, where do we go from here?
Of all people, the Guardian’s TV critic hit the nail on the head. The Fight for Fish brilliantly illuminated the problem but offered precious few – in fact no – concrete solutions.
Perhaps that is fair enough. Perhaps Hugh recognises the limits to his many competences and having highlighted the irrationality and obscenity of discarding mature cod and other valuable species in a hungry world, leaves it to others to develop the solutions.
What the week of TV programmes didn’t do was give any attention to the initiatives already in place that are already successfully reducing discards. None of these represents a panacea – there are none – but they do indicate practical, tailored, solutions to particular types of discards in specific fisheries. Perhaps they weren’t mentioned because they are rather technical and not easily explained on camera. Nothing was said of:
Real Time Closures and other types of cod avoidance
The Catch Quota initiative which eliminates cod discards completely for participating vessels
The 50% project in the South West
The success of gear selectivity measures in reducing discards of juveniles, not least the use of square mesh panels in the haddock and whiting fisheries
The many voluntary changes to fishing patterns applied by individual skippers to avoid cod and discards as far as possible.
The programme’s main attention and indignation focused on the dumping of mature fish discarded because of the rigidities of the Common Fisheries Policy. This is probably where the Fight for Fish Campaign will have its greatest impact, not least because it is well timed to coincide with the 2011 review of the EU Cod Management Plan, the main culprit in the cod discard story.#
