As the Christmas is approaching the Shetland Shellfish Management Organisation (SSMO) is continuing to look at innovative ways in which to manage these resources. The Board is currently considering options for stock management through limiting gear, landings or through the use of technical conservation measures, and will be consulting all of its members early in the New Year.
SSMO manager Jennifer Mouat said that the SSMO continues to review appropriate management measures to ensure the long term environmental and economic sustainability of the fishery. Management controls, such as the restriction of fishing effort, are being discussed at a national level and will inevitably translate into policy at some stage in the near future.
In order to make an effective way out SSMO has been consulting with the Head of Marine Science and Technology at the NAFC Marine Centre, Dr. Martin Robinson, who also happens to be recognised as a European expert in inshore shellfisheries research from his early career in Ireland. Martine said that a transparent and locally organised process will not only empower inshore fishermen to help define the future of the Shetland shellfisheries rather than have it dictated from elsewhere, but also help dissolve associated myths and reduce the ‘knee-jerk’ reactions that can sometime occur when
management is discussed.
Dr. Robinson added that effort limitation, which along with the number of vessels accessing the stocks can be defined as an ‘input control’, is not the only method of rationalising harvest strategies however. Placing limits on the amount of products taken from the sea ‘output control’ or enforcing more stringent criteria about the type of product that can be landed (e.g. bigger sizes only, only one sex), deemed ‘technical conservation measures’, can also be used as an alternative or in combination with other controls.
