The Malta SeaWeb Seafood Champions award, held at the end of the three-day seafood summit in Malta, has gone to Newlyn fishing company Crystal Sea Fishing.
The company, owned by the Stevens family who are all actively involved in running the trawler Crystal Sea, was nominated for one of the four award on the strength of its work in taking part in four years of the MMO CQT scheme. This involved working with remote electronic monitoring equipment on board to monitor the state of stocks and the impact on mixed fisheries.
‘The real prize here is for a fishery to be taken in the most efficient, economically advantageous way for our communities and for it to remain in continued constant good health,’ commented David Stevens, who alternates skippering the Crystal Sea with his brother Alec.
‘For us the most important part of what we have achieved has been proving that the fish stocks are in great health, far greater than the science ever predicted and that when fisherman are given the incentives, the right amount of quota and the flexible legislation to go about our work, we can deliver far better results.’
‘We have also been able to build a collaborative approach with the MMO and the scientists (to a point) to use the work we have undertaken to build a very accurate picture of the effects our technical measures have had on our catches and it has given a very in depth look at the mechanisms we use and how policy adoptions could make our fisheries more reactive and deliver far better outcomes for all involved, by joining fishing, science and policy together to balance the whole approach we take.’
He said that the family is extremely proud to have won the award and he is delighted that they have been recognised for our work.
‘All credit goes to the crew who have done a huge amount of work over the last four years in enabling this data to be collected,’ he added.
‘When I look back over the last four years I’m reflecting on how far we have travelled. We have achieved a lot, we have proved beyond doubt that fisherman can be trusted to run fisheries and that we are the ones who are best placed to deliver the results. I have to ask though where has it got us? Since we have been working with the CQT scheme, our choke species is and has always been haddock, and even though we have proved the sheer abundance of this stock in our area and that it is on a very strong upwards stock growth trend, we have faced year on year cuts of over 70% in the last four years.’
He commented that the work that the MMO has done with interpreting the data has been excellent, having produced some great reports with very convincing data.
‘They have proved how useful the REM equipment is and how it can deliver on many of the scientific challenges we face. But who is listening? As yet we have not seen much movement with the scientists, who like the work and the data but they say it doesn’t fit their data collection protocols.’
‘I can understand this, as one data set is not enough to give a full reflection of the impact of the fishery as a whole, however the data they are collecting is very small in comparison to what is needed to be done and most fisherman believe because of this, the picture the science has (from what they are seeing) does not reflect what the fisherman are experiencing on the grounds.’
‘They then take the data and the scientific principle, add in a landings obligation and the EU then applies all of this to an out-of-date overarching policy of the CFP and expects it all to work. Well it doesn’t and if we carry on like this it never will!’
