19 May 2009
The two national federations, the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations and the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, met in recently in Glasgow to confer on the case they are jointly building to address the industry’s serious misgivings about where the EU cod recovery plan is taking the fleet.
SFF Chief Executive, Bertie Armstrong said, “The two federations are working to prepare a comprehensive and persuasive document that will be submitted to our Ministers at the earliest possible opportunity. Time is of the essence but it is also essential that that we present a watertight case. That is why we are addressing scientific, economic and political aspects of the issue. It is important for us to document how the original rationale for effort control – overquota landings- has been superseded and that effort is no real answer to the secondary rational – discards”.
NFFO Chairman Davy Hill said, “It is because we are committed to the recovery of cod stocks that we must spell out how the Commission and the Council have taken a wrong turning and that viable alternatives are available. Effort control as it progressively bites has the perverse effect of intensifying fishing activity and can de-motivate fishermen from the kind of initiative that delivers real cod avoidance”.Concerns over the consequences of diversion of fleet effort including impact on adjacent fisheries and safety issues will also be addressed in the joint paper.
“Effort control was a straw clutched at by a failing system without any serious analysis of what it would mean in practice. It was the product of an over-centralised system that the Commission now acknowledges, in its Green Paper, is badly in need of reform. Albeit belatedly, the problems caused by the implementation of the effort regime for both cod recovery and the economics of the fleet must be addressed and our paper attempts to do just that”, said Davy Hill.