Intense discussions between the NFFO and Defra over the shape of the days-at-sea regime for 2011/12 have yet to reach conclusion.
As talks continue, it has become increasingly clear that the elaborate superstructure that has been created to manage national fishing effort limits, required under the EU Cod Recovery Plan, often undermines the central purpose of achieving the reduction in fishing mortality – regarded as essential for the rebuilding the cod stocks.
As effort allocations to each member state have been reduced year-on-year, to meet the terms of the Cod Management Plan; and as vessel operators struggle to remain viable in any way that they can; the results are often the opposite of that required to rebuild the cod stocks. In other words, the bureaucracy surrounding the cod management plan is frequently an obstacle to achieving the plan’s objective.
Whilst some vessel operators have sought shelter within the Catch Quota projects, which provide additional cod quota and more relaxed effort constraints, others for which this is not an option, are trying to get by as best as they can. Some vessels opt to work outside the cod recovery zone for part of the year to ration their use of days; or move into fisheries where the effort limits are less severe; or spend the significant sums to obtain the days-at-sea that would allow them to remain viable in the main whitefish fisheries. The discard sampling statistics confirm however, that a large part of the fleet when these alternatives run out, fish on as best they can during the period that they are allowed to go to sea – and widespread discarding of cod non-cod demersal species is the result. In other words, the constraints imposed by the cod recovery plan – in terms of an ultra-low TAC backed by effort limits ratcheted down each year – generate divergent responses from the fishery. Some vessels are pushed towards the catch quota projects but others survive by following fishing behaviours that undermine the purpose of the cod recovery plan.
