Further action to tackle the economic and environmental damage caused by the dumping of fish at sea will be taken by Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment Richard Lochhead in the week ahead.
Following a successful summit in Edinburgh last Thursday, when fishermen, scientists and conservationists united behind the Scottish Government in their condemnation of fish discards, Mr Lochhead will raise the issue on the international stage.
Tomorrow (Monday) he travels to Brussels where he will stress the need for the EU to adopt policies which do not force fishermen to throw healthy, marketable fish back into the sea dead.
And on Wednesday he will hold talks with Vidar Ulriksen, the Norwegian Deputy Fisheries Minister, in Edinburgh. Norway, which is not part of the EU and therefore not part of the Common Fisheries Policy, has banned discards of some stocks in their waters.
Mr Lochhead said:
“The dumping of marketable fish represents scandalous waste of a precious resource on a phenomenal scale. No wonder that our fishermen and others are saying that ‘enough is enough’. Crazy European rules mean that boats from across the continent are throwing almost a million tonnes of fish back into the North Sea every year.
“Scottish fishermen, already facing a challenging economic climate, are being forced to discard marketable fish worth up to £40 million. They are dispirited and demoralised; forced to go to work, use their skills and then destroy the fruits of their labour.
“Scottish consumers, already facing higher food prices, are being deprived of delicious, healthy fish from their own seas. And fisheries conservation is not being helped either.
“Scotland is taking a lead on this issue but we need Europe to help us find a way of radically reducing discards. I will be raising the issue in Brussels tomorrow and throughout the autumn as we enter the annual round of quota negotiations.
“Norway has already acted to ban discards. I look forward to hearing at first hand from my Norwegian counterparts about their experiences and seeing what lessons might be learned.”
Mr Lochhead hosted a Discards Summit last Thursday (September 25) to look at ways of radically reducing the dumping of marketable fish. Around 60 fishermen, fisheries managers, scientists, conservationists and policy-makers, including representatives came together at the event.
The Scottish Government is making the issue of discards a key part of this year’s autumn negotiations on fish stocks and quotas. As well as this week’s meetings, Mr Lochhead will meet European Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg when he visits Scotland in mid-October. Discards will also be high up the agenda during the EU-Norway negotiations in November and at the EU Fisheries Councils in November and December.
There are a number of reasons why fishermen are currently having to discard large amounts of marketable fish, particularly North Sea cod. One important reason is the mismatch between the quota available for North Sea cod and the increased abundance of the stock, particularly the abundance of marketable fish (ie fish above the minimum landing size). North Sea cod quotas are at historically very low levels and, despite last year’s modest increase in the North Sea cod quota, the increase in the quota available is not keeping pace with the increase in the abundance of the stock.
The Scottish Government believes that discards can be radically reduced. Potential solutions include: making fishing nets more selective so that only fish above the minimum landing sizes are caught; closing areas of the sea on a temporary basis where high abundances of certain species are found as has been happening under Scotland’s innovative voluntary real-time closures scheme; restricting the number of days which a boat is allowed to spend at sea.
Scotland has already shown a strong lead in identifying and adopting innovative conservation measures at sea. It introduced this year a voluntary real-time closures scheme, which sees fishermen avoiding areas where there is a high aggregation of cod, and secured historic agreement at last December’s Fisheries Council to run its own Conservation Credits scheme, which give boats more days at sea for taking part in conservation measures.
