UK Fisheries Minister stabs celebrity chef in the back By Andrew Tarrant
Written by Editor Saturday, 18 June 2011 18:07
The celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall?s ?Fish Fight? campaign has drummed up massive public support. 673,000 people have signed up to ban the dumping or ?discarding? of unwanted fish from trawlers. MPs of all parties, including constituencies far from the coast, report large and passionate mailbags on the issue. In response, Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon MP has told the House of Commons ?Discards are a clear waste of natural resources. To minimise discards by all types of vessels throughout UK seas we are working at a European level to radically reform the common fisheries policy (CFP)?.
In March, newspapers reported that the Minister?s efforts were succeeding. Encouraged by government press officers, the media reported said that the United Kingdom and several other member states of the European Union had signed up to a joint statement backing the European Commission?s published plans to end ?discarding.?
But a close look at the joint statement reveals that it is shot through with weasel words. Environmental lawyers working with Greenpeace say that the rules called for in the joint statement would allow countries to undermine the Commission?s aims. They would permit fishing fleets to carry on discarding.
Fishermen discard fish under the current quota systems because they can only legally land a certain quantity of the species subject to the quota each fisherman receives. When they catch too many, or net fish for which they do not have a quota, they discard the dying fish back into the sea. The Guardian has previously estimated that as many as two-thirds of the fish caught in some areas of the North Sea are discarded.
The European Commission has published a proposal to introduce a mandatory discard ban. This ban would apply to both target species and what is called ?bycatch? i.e. all other fish. The use of modern technology, including internet cameras on trawlers, would allow this to be policed effectively. This technology would be the fishing equivalent of the tacograph ? an EU requirement which forced lorry and coach drivers to obey safety rules regarding the number of hours which they could stay behind the wheel.
European rules are proposed by the European Commission but they are decided on by the member states, including the UK, collectively. The European Parliament also plays a role, but it is the countries which dominate the legislative process.
Some parts of the UK fishing industry are determined to retain the ability to discard. They have been lobbying the Minister against the Commission?s proposals. Bertie Armstrong, Chief Executive of the Scottish Fishermen?s Federation, says a ban ?amounts to a draconian step too far? and that it was ?a knee-jerk response to a populist TV show which has accurately described the problem, but which offers no solutions.?
The Joint Declaration on discards by Denmark, France, Germany and the United Kingdom calls for gradual discard bans but only where ?appropriate? ? a term in communiqués which is intended to mean the application will be limited. And it adds so many further specific exclusions that even a limited ban would become meaningless.
Examples of these exclusions include a limit on the ban to fish ?intended for human consumption?. However, 54% of discards in England and Wales are because markets have only been developed for a limited range of the fish which are caught.
Use of the term ?intended for human consumption? to assess whether discarding is acceptable or not would also make compliance unenforceable in practice. To work, it would require that each fish that was caught was individually photographed or video recorded. This would be an absurd and impossible imposition on fishermen but without it such a rule would never hold.
Under the Commission?s initial proposal ?all catches of the target species and all by-catches of non target species would have to be landed and counted against quotas?. However, the Joint Declaration undermines this too. According to the Declaration only certain ?regulated? fish would come under these rules.
That the Joint Declaration is not fit for purpose can be seen in its concluding statement which calls for the ?avoidance of discards?, something which falls a long way short of a ban.
The UK Fisheries Minister is presenting one message to the British media and public and agreeing something different with other Fisheries Ministers.
This is a deeply foolish policy. The British public are right to be outraged at current practices. British fishermen are currently and unnecessarily destroying their own industry by overfishing. Scientists have found that 93% of juvenile cod in the North Sea are caught and discarded. As a consequence the cod population is nearing extinction. The fishing community will inevitably follow suit if the fish go. This is not unprecedented in the western world. Canada allowed the largest cod fishery in the world to be fished to collapse. 40000 people lost their jobs.
Consumers in the UK currently only buy 12 of the 50 edible fish species which could be trawled commercially in our coastal waters. Environmental organisations are working with leading retailers to develop new markets for the other species.
Expanding the range of fish we consume would reduce the need for discards and reduce the pressure on the 12 species that are overfished. However, campaigners believe that developing these new tastes will be a long process.
The European Commission has now unofficially floated the idea that instead of a full discard ban that it be limited to the fish that are currently consumed. This is because it has to obtain the support of two-thirds of the Member States in order to get legislation passed. The so-called ?reforming? countries, including the UK, have already set out proposals which are designed to appear to respond to public pressure but wouldwhile allowing the fishing industry to carry on with business as usual. This would undermine any real ban in the way described above. It would also endanger the other fish species which environmentalists and retailers hope to see become new sustainably managed fish stocks . These would continue to be discarded as bycatch.
The allegation from the Scottish Fishermen?s Federation that the supporters of a ban do not have any solutions is far from the case. Channel 4, the makers of Hugh-Fearnley-Whittingstall?s programmes, Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund are working closely with Clientearth, a public interest law firm. Clientearth have a team of dedicated legal specialists working on the discard ban. They have produced a set of clear and comprehensive proposals. A Commission official working on the dossier said that these plans were more influential on their thinking than the TV programmes.
It is clearly time for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to make another programme. This time he needs to tell the public that there?s something fishy going on in government ministries, including in the UK. It?s also time for readers who have not done so to sign up at Hugh?s website www.fishfight.net. They should also write to their politicians saying they want real change.
