Fishing for Leave would like to commend the excellent intervention by the Rt. Hon. John Redwood in the Express.
Brexit automatically ends EU access to British waters & repatriates a £6-8bn industry under international law and the principle of Zonal Attachment – where a nation has a share of internationally agreed catch limits based on the predominance of species in its waters.
Should the government exercise exclusive sovereignty over our waters and resources then the British industry can boom under bespoke, discard free, independent UK management which Mr Redwood eludes to.
To end the reprehensible practice of discarding in mixed fisheries caused by arbitrary individual species quota limits – (without bankrupting the British fleet with early tie ups) – Britain can set limits on vessels fishing time at sea. Limiting fishermen to a sustainable level of hours fishing time needed to catch a particular sustainable biomass.
In exchange for a limit on fishing time fishermen would be allowed to keep & record all catches. This is in sharp contrast to having to either discard or stop fishing for the year on exhausting their smallest arbitrary quota.
Fishing time at sea in ‘soak’ hours would be combined with a system of time penalties to steer fishermen to aim for the right catch composition of species – based on the TACs set for species and the vessels track record of landings.
These penalties of valuable fishing time are to discourage any economic incentive to ‘race-to-fish’ for high value species. However, vessels can keep any ‘wrong’ species caught in exchange for a loss of valuable time at sea, an amount equivalent to the value of the ‘wrong’ species.
This ensures there is no economic incentive to race-to-fish nor to discard as the retention of ‘wrong’ species pays for the loss of time. This means these are Flexible Catch Composition (FCC) limits where fishermen can keep unintended catches of particular species – something entirely absent from the current arbitrary weight limits of the quota system.
This would allow all catches to be landed whilst having the safeguard of curbing overall effort and catches at sea should vessels not stick to a mix of species deemed sustainable.
Crucially, because all catches are landed scientist would have a huge amount of data they would know is accurate because there was a penalty of valuable time incurred to land all species.
This huge level of information provided by accurate catch data would allow science that is finally an accurate reflection of natural abundance. With fishing limits brought into line with nature. This means that after a few years fishermen would rarely incur time penalties as limits would begin to reflect stocks.
This dynamic system would allow real-time management that follows mother natures fluctuations based on the real-time data generated by this system of management.
This is the complete opposite of the current failed system where arbitrary quota targets based on limited data are imposed on nature and the fishing industry bludgeoned with rules to try to make catches match theoretical targets.
Additionally, with such a system converting larger vessels current FQA entitlement units from being entitlement for quota in kilos to these time penalties based on catch compositions it would preserve businesses significant investment in the current FQA system and the greater fishing potential for particular high value species these FQAs confer.
Conversely, in giving all vessels an equal time limit from a national pool all vessels large or small have a shot at making a living.
For those larger vessels without FQAs such a system would award them catch mixture limits they should aim for based on an average of species mix in their area. For example out of 200,000 tons of all species in the North Sea 20,000 tons may be Cod.
Therefore, vessels on the national average should aim for a catch composition of 10%. A vessel who invested heavily in FQA entitlement may traditionally be able to catch 20% Cod and therefore retains and reaps the benefit of his investment.
For small inshore vessels with much smaller catching capacity such time penalties would not need to apply given their catching capacity and range limiting their ability to race to fish. A vessel catching 300kg a day has the difference of a few percent equal a few kilos of ‘wrong’ species.
Brexit, and new management based on the above system, means not only a multi-billion pound boost of national resources.
It allows a final solution to the abhorrent discarding of fish as fishermen struggle to match mixed fishery catches to strict quotas.
This system won’t tie up and bankrupt the British fleet as an enforced discard ban will.
It’s a system which preserves the current investments in fishing entitlement the biggest interests in the industry are desperate to preserve by hanging onto the dysfunctional status quo.
It’s time to get out and get on with a brighter future and not hang onto dysfunctional EU systems for vested interests or political convenience.
1. Too complicated until everybodyunderstands.This must not be allowed.
2. WHAT DO WE NOT UNDERSTAND. Our zone is shallow water ( Drilling rigs sit on the bottom ), It is hundreds Maybe thousands of square miles of LAND. A world ‘s scarce commodity. ( Holland would already be growing veg. on it., Germans would be building on it, Aristocrats would have houses on it, Scandinavians would be beating each other with birch twigs, or whatever.And the EU just wants it.Because they are landgrabbers. And want to put N Africans on it ( Always have been ) and the French want it because we’ve got it
It is even a prospective Landfill site or Whatever..
Or even to grow fish.
As I’ve said elsewhere Posession is responsibility.. The EU don’t see that. Socialists never do ,until too late.
from PMB I don’t pretend to understand the article but the same thought crossed my mind – won’t they just throw the wrong fish back overboard dead of alive. Must admit my naive assumption was we’d keep all the foreign boats out of our waters and our ports. I suppose I’ll have to search out the John Redwood article because he usually talks sense. I seem to remember something from him about a canning industry being possible for some of the less popular fish caught. Let’s face it Everything is ‘up in the air’ until we are out of the ‘orrible monstrosity. Then we shall see what Westminster does with the UK. Afraid there is a hell of a lot needs putting right.
I do wish you would sort out this new posts button thingy. I really want to continue sensible discussions.
PMB Me again now I’ve struggled with the article in the Express. John Redwood I can understand and it looks good. Unfortunately I also read that SNP have decided to ruin the Scottish economy out of spite against the rest of the UK actually getting out of EU. Does anyone else remember Porridge? Will the SNP also give ‘Scottish Oil’ to the EU?
Everything about the EU is perniciously evil, corrupt and immoral and our own politicians must be held to account for facilitating the monstrous harm inflicted on this country by this political project. The annihilation of our once proud fishing industry is a classic example. Wine lakes, butter mountains and other absolutely obscene manifestations of a malign dictatorship which has effectively impoverished, terminally damaged and brought to its knees every country touched by its poisonous tentacles.
Go to BrexitFacts4eu.org for a daily expose of the nightmare from which we cannot wake, sourced from irrefutable sources such as the EU Commission data itself.
This bad dream MUST end on 31 October, 2019 to avoid being thrown into the abyss.
Exactly Barbara
As any politician with a measure of common sense might have expected from our traditional enemy across the Channel. The Fourth Reich by another name is their aim.
OK I will keep looking at brexit facts 4eu.org. It may be something I need. Coincedentaly John Redwoods diary today spells out how biased our media is. It does not report the abysmal failures across the EU, it hammers away at all criticisms of Brexit, talks up all news of the libdems and ignores pro brexit news. Similarly news from the US concentrates on criticism of Trump from the Democrats. I want to hear BOTH sides and make up my own mind.
Well Said Barbara. The fight is not over, even when we leave. Our future governments need to be held under permanent scrutiny until this country has its natural resources able to create a balanced economy and communities contributing to a fair society. The UK is not just the London stock exchange. It is a myriad of different talents, aspirations and entrepreneurs. All able and willing to contribute to their communities and their country.
Maybe I have not quite got it. If you catch the ‘wrong’ fish, you get a fishing time penalty – right?
So if you want to avoid this penalty, what’s to stop you discarding these wrong fish?
Then all the smug, we know exactly how much of each species is out there boffins, is (still) based on a false assumption.
It had better be a very small penalty to zero penalty to avoid such loss of income reaction.