FFA director general James Movick and Australia’s Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, Hon. Senator Anne Ruston, have signed a new 10-year partnership agreement at the annual Forum Fisheries Committee meeting at Rarotongain the Cook Islands.
Senegal and Mauritania have reached a new Memorandum of Understanding on fisheries agreement, providing Senegalse fishermen with a 50,000 tonne quota. Work is due to begin near Saint-Louis to construct facilities and an access road on the Mauritanian side of the border.
Negotiations have been in progress since 2016, but agreement has now been reached between Iceland, Greenland and Norway on capelin fisheries that take place in Icelandic waters. The previous agreement dated back to 2003.
The NFFO has welcomed the UK government’s white paper on fisheries, Sustainable Fisheries for Future Generations, outlining the vision for UK fisheries post-Brexit, stating that this is clear on the big issues and warning that the UK government is not in a position to sell out the fishing industry and survive.
Scotland’s Fisheries Secretary Fergus Ewing has blasted the government’s draft fisheries White Paper, Sustainable Fisheries for Future Generations, accusing the UK government of again failing to substantively engage with with Scotland while developing its future fisheries proposals.
A large ghost net has been removed from the Gulf of Carpentaria near Weipa in Queensland, in a joint operation between the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) and Parks Australia.
The UK government is gearing up for the Fisheries Bill to be introduced in Parliament with a White Paper setting out its stance on how it sees fisheries issues. The ‘Sustainable Fisheries for Future Generations’ is described as a blueprint for a sustainable and profitable industry in the future. The proposals outlined are now subject to a ten-week consultation period.
Organisers of the Biannual Scottish Fishing Conference, being held in St Andrews on the 9-10th July, have announces that they have secured top speakers, representing Governments of Scotland, The Faroes and Norway, to add to a programme of talks and demonstrations. These key speakers will address delegates on the second day of the conference.
A study of the North Atlantic’s mackerel stocks by independent scientist Jens Christian Holst asks some uncomfortable questions of the current methods fisheries management and research. He suggests that feeding by a mackerel stock that has outgrown its usual food sources is the reason for declining seabird and salmon stocks, and that the size of the spawning stock has been drastically underestimated.
New fisheries management arrangements to help ensure that coastal communities make the most of their waters are to be trialled in the Outer Hebrides, Mull and the east coast of Scotland. Of the seven proposals submitted last year at the Scottish government’s invitation, following selection and public consultation, three are to be taken forward.