15 August 2014
As she approaches the end of her period of tenure as Fisheries Commissioner, Maria Damanaki is making extraordinary efforts to shore up her legacy. It is not unusual for politicians, as they approach the end of the most important job they will ever likely to hold, to worry how they will be judged by history. It is unusual however, for them to actively promote a one-sided and distorted view of their record as the soon-to-be-ex Commissioner. In the interests of objectivity, therefore it is important to examine her claims to have been the catalyst for change in the right direction.
“Ending
Overfishing”
Overfishing used to be understood as over-exploitation to
the extent that stocks became depleted to the point where there is a real risk
of stock collapse, if not species extinction. The definition during the 1990s
shifted to describe stocks which were fished outside precautionary reference
points (safe biological limits) set by scientists. Now the term is used to
describe stocks which have not yet reached maximum sustainable yield. Whatever
view is taken of MSY as a guide to high yield fisheries, a long, long, way has
been travelled from the original definition of overfishing. From below safe
minimum to not-yet-at-maximum. It is however exclusively in relation to the
latter that Maria Damanaki refers to “overfishing.”
But aside from the issue of changing definitions of what
constitutes overfishing, two facts
are important in judging the Commissioner’s legacy. The first is that in the
North East Atlantic the trend towards low mortality in all of the main species
groups was established well before the Commissioner was appointed.
In fact, the Commissioner was appointed in 2010 by which
time the measures that delivered falling levels of fishing mortality were
already well established. Quick to claim the credit, in fact the hard work was
done before her time ant the turning point was around the year 2000.
This ICES graph makes the point clearly: Here
The second fact is in relation to the Mediterranean,
where by her own calculation, 96% stocks are overfished. So, not much credit to
be harvested there.
Discard Ban
The other principal claim to posterity made by the
Commissioner’s self-promotion machine is that she is “the woman who ended
the scandal of discards in Europe.”
The facts point to a different conclusion.
In the North Sea roundfish fishery, discards had been
reduced by around 90% over the last 20 years. The progress may not have been so
dramatic in other fisheries, where technical and economic obstacles are
encountered but the trend is clear – large-scale discarding had been a major
side-effect of the way European fisheries had been managed but the problem was well on its way to resolution before a
self-promoting chef and opportunist Commissioner joined forces to deliver the EU
landings obligation.
This graph based on ICES data makes the point well: Here
Time will tell
what the landings obligation will deliver. Much depends on how it will be
implemented but one thing is clear: steady and substantial progress in reducing
discards had already been made and was continuing to be made before Maria
Damanaki, against the advice of many of her officials, thought a ban would be a
good idea.
Decentralisation
of the CFP
At heart the Commissioner is an instinctive top-down
authoritarian. However, the cracks in the CFP’s command-and-control approach to
fisheries management were so deep by the time she emerged on the scene, and the
momentum towards some kind of decentralisation of policy making so strong, that
change was irresistible. The shift towards regionalisation within the CFP is
potentially a radical development but NFFO and other likeminded organisations
had been pressing for its introduction for over a decade before it gradually
moved into mainstream thinking within the Commission. The jury remains out
whether the form of regionalisation permitted under the Treaties will be
successful. We certainly hope it will and will work for its success. But the
Commissioner’s subsequent ill-considered and peremptory proposal to ban
small-scale drift nets has inevitably raised concerns that top-down, blunt and
ultimately counter-productive EU measures have not been banished by the arrival
of regionalisation.
Science and
Fishermen
Over the last 15 years an important evolution has taken
place. Fishermen and scientists now work together throughout the year in
various kinds of fisheries science partnerships, and the ICES system is no
longer “an inaccessible black box which produces smoke.” Almost every
aspect of the ICES system is open to involvement and engagement by fishing
industry representatives – if they have the time and resource. Against this
background, the Commissioner’s perennial claim that ministers should follow the science when setting TACs
(irrespective of mixed fishery or discard generating consequences) has a hollow
ring. There will always be different opinions on this or that stock assessment
but is not the scientists we have a problem with; it is the political masters
which set the terms of reference to achieve maximum sustainable yield for all
stocks by an arbitrary date; or propose that “data poor stocks” face
an automatic 25% reduction irrespective of the state of the stock, trends or
other evidence. It is these kind of brutal interventions that have been the
hallmark of the Damanaki regime. It is exactly the bedrock of science: evidence,
rigour, impartiality – that are qualities absent from the Damanaki regime
Small-scale
fisheries
From the outset of her reign, the Commissioner has
presented herself as the champion of small-scale fisheries. That would have
been wonderful if it was not accompanied by an ignorant contempt for and
hostility to other forms of fishing. Unlike her predecessor, the decent Joe
Borg, Maria Damanaki made practically no attempt to engage with or talk to the
fishing industry. Invitations were spurned, public appearances generally
involved a brief hectoring speech from the Commissioner followed by an early
departure. There was no open and honest dialogue. The environmental NGOs
provided a much more natural territory for this Commissioner than fishermen who
have to cope with the realities of the real world.
But, and this is important, the small-scale fisheries
that she allegedly supported were of the photogenic romanticised variety, and
when push came to shove, actual small-scale fishermen trying to earn a real
living using drift-nets, were trampled underfoot in the rush for another
conservation feather in the Damanaki hat.
Mackerel
Negotiations
No one would doubt that Iceland and Faroese are tough
negotiators. But there is a general recognition that the Commissioner’s
handling of the negotiations, both delayed a resolution and delivered a less
than satisfactory outcome from an EU perspective.
Summer Blog: Bottom
Trawling and Drift nets
With her summer holiday blog urging consumers to avoid
buying and eating fish caught by a variety of legally sanctioned methods,
including drift netting and bottom trawling, for which there is quota set
within safe biological limits, the mask has finally slipped. This Commissioner has absolutely zero sense
of responsibility to the lives and livelihoods of real fishermen. This is a
quite outrageous departure from any sense of proportion, evidence or appreciation
for the damage done.
Legacy
So, we are not obliged to take Maria Damanaki’s
self-evaluation for fact. Her period of tenure has been marked by an unhealthy
obsession with the superficial and with media-oriented policies. This has led
to cause célèbres such as the discard ban, a theological approach to maximum
sustainable yield and bans on small-scale drift-nets and deep-sea fishing. Each
of these would have been better pursued by more measured, focused, evidence-based
approach. But that would have lost the cache associated with a more flamboyant
not to say grandiose political agenda.
Most of the really important ways of measuring success in
fisheries – the trend in fishing mortality and reductions in discards have not
been influenced by the Commissioner’s period of office, at least in so far as
the North East Atlantic fisheries are concerned. The Med is a different
story………