A non-profit tuna producer organisation based on the island of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands has become the latest Member of the International Pole & Line Foundation (IPNLF). Organización de Productores de Túnidos y Pesca Fresca (Optuna No 42) represents the interests of the pole-and-line tuna fishery of the Canary Islands, and has been supporting local fishermen and coastal communities in the region for more than a hundred years.
The NFFO’s East Anglian Committee has highlighted the need for a concerted effort to protect fishing opportunities and the viability of the fleets in the region. Fishermen in the region are rapidly running out of options, according to the NFFO.
The decline of much of the UK under 10m fleet has escaped much attention in the furore of claim and counter-claim around Britain’s departure from the European Union, according to Jerry Percy of the Coastal PO and director of coastal fishing organisation LIFE Platform.
The Yorkshire town of Filey is battling to keep fishermen on the water as well as to protect fishing history and a local identity first recorded in the Middle Ages.
A two-year EU-funded project supporting small-scale fishermen across the Baltic and North Sea has celebrated its closure with well-attended gathering in Brussels as small-scale fishermen and their representative organisations from Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and Poland gathered to draw the conclusions of a project that over two years allowed them to drastically improve their representation within European and national decision-making process
Icelandic boatbuilder Trefjar has delivered a new Cleopatra Fisherman 36 to a customer in western Norway.
Arnar Atlason, chairman of Samtök fiskframleiðenda og útflytjenda (SFU, Iceland’s Federation of Processors and Exporters), which represents producers without their own fishing capacity, has stressed the importance of the coastal fishing scheme that has now been in place for ten years plays a key role in the supply of fresh fish.
Fishermen’s participation, community buy-in and empowerment found to be crucial to enacting science-based management. Together with fishermen and women, community members, managers and scientists, the Environmental Defense Fund has conducted research to identify major lessons that arise from fishery case studies in Belize, Cuba, Mexico and the Philippines.
At the first meeting of the Working Group on Small-Scale and Recreational Fisheries, organisations and stakeholders have taken concrete steps to support the sustainable development of small-scale fisheries.
Iceland’s small boat fishermen are less than satisfied with this year’s mackerel allocations, with 96% of quotas allocated to the pelagic fleet. The National Association of Small Boat Owners (NASBO) is lobbying for a 16% share of the mackerel quota.