Fishing News - Mogens Schou CFP article

29 March 2018

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NEWS

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How to make the discards ban work An influential Danish fisheries consultant says that fishermen are not complying with the landing obligation/discards ban and has called on EU institutions to take steps to ensure it works as intended, reports Tim Oliver.

He has produced a 20-page discussion paper ‘Barriers and solutions to full catch accountability in the Common Fisheries Policy’ setting out measures that could be taken to make the policy work, and has written to MEPs to highlight his concerns. He is calling for a coherent approach to implementing the discards ban, centring on results-based management.

Mogens Schou was a senior Danish fisheries official (Deputy Permanent Secretary) from 1983 until recently. He is now an independent consultant and has worked on landing obligation issues for a number of years.

He tells MEPs: “I am concerned that the landing obligation is not complied with, and that little effort beyond

guidance programmes are put in place to ensure that the obligation is met.

“I note that for a number of important stocks ICES expect an increased amount of ‘unwanted catches’ in 2018. This seems to be an untenable position, and I believe that the Commission, Parliament and Council must apply the necessary means to correct the situation.

“When I speak with fishermen, I’m concerned that we may not be in a period of phasing-in of the landing obligation, but in a situation of detachment from the decisions made with the reform.”

He makes two basic recommendations: ● Fishermen need incentives to comply with the landing obligation. He recommends that quota ‘top-ups’ that replace former discarded fish should be reserved for fishermen who account for all the fish they take and document it through Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM) or similar. Trials from

2009-2015 have shown the positive effect of this approach.

“These trials were conducted according to the Commission’s outline based on ‘additional quota… limited to vessels with 100% monitoring’,” he tells MEPs. “The Commission ought to prepare a solution to once again reserve top-ups for REM vessels in the TAC/quota regulations for 2019. This way, REM is voluntary, but fishermen not applying it will not be able to receive a share of the quota top-ups.” ● It is also necessary to remove or ease the barriers for fishermen’s uptake of full catch accountability. The primary obstacle is the choke problem, and the solution is a portfolio of coherent incentive-based tools.

“The overarching approach is a results-based management,” says Mogens Schou. He adds that his approach is based on scientific trials that have been carried out in the UK and Denmark on full catch accountability.

Ways forward

… has produced the 20-page discussion paper ‘Barriers and solutions to full catch accountability in the Common Fisheries Policy’

He says there are several ways forward if MEPs wish to take account of his approach. One would be to ask the Commission to have its Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee on Fisheries (STECF) assess the paper.

He told Fishing News: “The primary tool is full catch accountability. This will ensure there is an incentive to fish selectively and in accordance with the landing obligation.”

Catch accountability will offer opportunities and highlight some problems. Opportunities include:

● The removal of gear regulation, allowing fishermen to use whatever gear allows them to fish as selectively as possible according to their circumstances, and reduce unwanted catches to a minimum. ● More accurate landings information as everything that is caught is landed and recorded.

This will provide scientists with better real-time data and lead to more accurate stock assessments and TACs/quotas that more closely reflect the true state of the stocks. Better science and management will make it easier to achieve MSY targets. “I really think it is lack of due diligence on the part of EU institutions that a better tool to assess the resource is not looked into,” said Mogens Schou.

The central problem that catch accountability will highlight is that of choke species, which make it necessary to remove or reduce barriers that stand in the way of fishermen’s ability to adapt their fishing to circumstances.

They need freedom to choose their gear (see above); flexibility with regard to exemptions from the landing obligation, such as high-survival species; and interspecies quota transfers.

Brexit

Mogens Schou also points out that the UK government seems to have committed to continuing with some form of landing obligation after Brexit when the UK will become an independent coastal state.

He says that while Brexiteers refer to the ‘disastrous CFP’,

Danish fisheries consultant Mogens Schou…

the reformed CFP in fact reflects UK policy in terms of sustainability and realising MSY objectives. He points out that as long ago as 2009 the UK and Danish governments signed an agreement on a reform of the CFP that centred on fishermen being fully accountable for all the fish they caught, not just landed, but being able to choose their fishing method ‘according to the variability of the circumstances at sea’ to achieve ‘optimal utilisation of the resource’.

“My point is that the landing obligation – if implemented along the lines I suggest – would suit the UK. Furthermore, in the context of negotiating EU access to UK waters it would serve UK interests to commit to EU decisions on accountability, documentation, results-based management, etc and request the EU to do the same.

“It could hardly be called an EU negotiating concession to comply with its own rules – on the contrary, the UK can argue it is making a concession by applying the EU concept.”

Seafood industry statement urges UK government to take robust action ahead of upcoming Fisheries Bill A coalition of 17 supermarkets, processors and industry groups have signed a Seafood Industry Statement with conservation group WWF stating that robust fisheries regulations must be adopted and implemented effectively after the UK leaves the EU, as the government prepares new fisheries legislation.

The current regulations and new Fisheries Bill must deliver confidence that UK seafood is sustainably and legally sourced.

The group also called on the UK and devolved governments to include strong monitoring measures in the new Fisheries Bill to ensure that there is more visibility of what is happening on British fishing vessels, claiming that, currently, only around 1% of UK fishing activities are comprehensively monitored at sea.

Although the UK government has reasserted its commitment to the landing obligation that comes

into full effect from 1 January, 2018, the 17 signatories to the statement say UK governments can do more to ensure the fishing industry is prepared to properly implement this regulation.

Further efforts are required to achieve effective uptake of currently available technology and behaviour that can improve selectivity, which will allow fishing vessels to avoid species for which they have no or limited quota. In addition, improved measures are needed to provide better access to quota for such species. The alternative is to have vessels stop fishing when they exhaust their quota for so-called ‘choke’ species, and that is economically unacceptable.

The supermarkets, processors and industry groups call for: ● Changes in fishing methods and gear to ensure more selective targeting of commercial fish species ● Improved monitoring of fishing

boats, for example through technologies such as remote electronic monitoring, leading to fully-documented fisheries ● Reviewing how fishing quotas can be better managed to address the problem of discarding In October, WWF released a report that revealed the UK and devolved governments are not comprehensively monitoring UK fishing activities at sea. It outlined a far more cost-effective alternative – Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM) with cameras and sensors. REM could be adopted across UK fleets, building not only the confidence of the consumer in the UK fleet but providing vital information that will help improve the management of the fishery.

The Seafood Industry Alliance and British Retail Consortium will be asking for a meeting with the UK and devolved fisheries

ministers to discuss how their concerns can be addressed.

Peter Andrews, of British Retail Consortium, said: “The UK seafood industry has the potential to be worldleading in both quality and sustainability. However, if it cannot meet the terms of the landing obligation, and is unable to monitor what fish are being removed at sea, then we will be jeopardising that potential.”

Helen McLachlan, WWF fisheries programme manager, stated: “It’s vital that governments listen to the collective voice of some of the most influential businesses and organisations in the UK seafood industry. Without the landing obligation legislation being implemented and monitored effectively, the result could be overfishing of stocks that we have spent years trying to rebuild and manage sustainably.”

Nigel Edwards, the chair of

the Seafood Industry Alliance, said: “As responsible buyers of seafood, we work with fishermen and scientists to achieve sustainably managed fisheries.

Fully documenting fisheries is an essential step to demonstrate robust fishing management. Our government is determined to lead in sustainable fishing, and has the tools at its disposal to make this happen. We urge them to take a bold lead in documenting our fisheries to ensure the reputation of UK fisheries as both exceptionally high-quality and truly sustainable.” ● The 17 retailers, processors and organisations signed up to the statement are: Asda, Birds Eye, British Retail Consortium, Co-op, Direct Seafoods, Joseph Robertson, Lidl UK, Lyons Seafoods, New England Seafood, Marks and Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Seachill, Tesco, UK Seafood Industry Alliance, Waitrose and Young’s.

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NEWS EDITORIAL: FISHINGNEWS.ED@KELSEY.CO.UK £3.25 29 March 2018 Issue: 5405

24 MAY 2018

INDUSTRY BETRAYED GOVERNMENT BLASTED AS INDUSTRY LOCKED INTO CFP FOR THREE MORE YEARS

A torrent of outrage, anger and disappointment spilled out from across the UK industry last week after the announcement of the Brexit transition deal that will lock the UK fishing industry into the CFP with no change for another 20 months after Brexit, reports Tim Oliver.

Fishermen and their leaders from throughout the UK accused the government of caving in to EU demands for ‘no change’ despite the UK becoming an independent coastal state after 29 March, 2019.

The deal means the entire existing CFP regulations will remain in force for UK fishermen at least until the end of 2020. The UK government will have no official voice in setting TACs and quotas or other regulations, but may be ‘consulted’ and have the opportunity to ‘provide comments to the Commission’.

Hard-line Tory Brexiteers met the prime minister to express their anger, and MPs and MSPs representing coastal constituencies throughout the country slammed the deal.

Fishing for Leave organised a ‘flash’ demonstration, with a Thames fishing vessel sailing up the river to the Houses of Parliament. Former UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, was on board accompanied by mainstream media and TV reporters who

filmed him dumping fish to highlight the industry’s problems and the dangers the landing obligation will bring (see page 3).

The government was warned it will suffer at the ballot box as a result of the deal.

NFFO: ‘Capitulation’

NFFO chief executive Barrie Deas said the danger with agreeing to the EU’s terms was the UK would be a coastal state in name only. He said the prime minister had told them the UK would renegotiate the conditions of quotas and access but said: “That promise is on hold now,

“

the asymmetric and exploitative relationship that currently exists.”

He added that sticking to existing quota shares during the transition period will cause ‘serious difficulties’ when the EU landing obligation comes fully into force on 1 January, 2019.

SFF: ‘We do not trust them’

Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the SFF, said the deal was ‘far short of acceptable’ and called for a ‘written, cast-iron guarantee’ of genuine sovereignty after the implementation period.

He said: “We will leave the EU and leave the CFP, but hand back sovereignty over our seas a few seconds later. Our fishing communities’ fortunes will still be subject to the whim and largesse of the EU for another two years.

“Put simply, we do not trust them to look after us. So we issue this warning to the EU: be careful what you do, or the consequences later will be severe. To our politicians, we say this: some have tried to secure a better deal, but our governments have let us down.

“As a consequence, we expect a written, cast-iron guarantee that after the implementation period, sovereignty will mean sovereignty and we will not enter into any deal that gives any other nation,

Fishermen thrown under the Brexit bus

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and may never materialise.”

“This is being presented as a tactical concession that will not prejudice our longer-term aims.

But it has all the hallmarks of a capitulation,” said the federation chief.

“There is danger in making concessions as part of transitional arrangements because similar pressures will apply when it comes to negotiations, later this year, on the UK’s long-term relationship with the EU. The EU, not unnaturally, will want to maintain

N Ireland: ‘Second potential sell-out’

Northern Ireland’s Alan McCulla, of SeaSource and the Anglo North Irish FPO, said the draft was ‘a second potential sell-out of Northern Ireland’s and the UK’s fishing fleet’.

But he said ‘nobody should be gloating’, or be claiming ‘we told you so’.

“In June 2016, the vast majority of fishermen voted to leave the EU and CFP in the hope of reversing the sell-out they were subjected to in 1973. If what is contained in the transition period draft deal is replicated for the longer-term we will be sold out again.

“Nevertheless, those who

Editor Dave Linkie email: dave@linkie.co.uk 01434 607375

Assistant editor Rachel Graham email: rachel.graham@ kelseymedia.co.uk

are eager today to say ‘we told you so’ are effectively the same people who want to keep Northern Ireland’s fishermen in an unequal, biased and discriminatory CFP. It is precisely because of their lack of willingness to deal with the bias faced by Northern Ireland’s fishermen that, 19 months ago, the industry seized the opportunity to pursue a new start.”

He said that every year since 1991, Northern Ireland fishermen have had to surrender cod quota worth £1m to the Republic of Ireland, thanks to the CFP, as well

as the loss of other quota species.

“Even since the Brexit vote, it is the Republic of Ireland that has rescinded the Voisinage Agreement that has allowed mutual access by our respective fleets to one another’s inshore waters. In the meantime, Northern Ireland has continued to allow access by the Irish fishing fleet to Northern Ireland inshore waters.

“We have been continually reminded that there will be no deal until everything is agreed. The implementation period deal will represent the end of the second of a three-phase withdrawal negotiation.

UK and EU chief negotiators David Davis and Michel Barnier shake hands after agreeing the text of the draft legal agreement on the Brexit transition period that will end on 31 December 2020 (Photo: Alexandros Michailidis/ Shutterstock.com)

or the EU, continued rights of access or quota, other than those negotiated as part of the annual coastal states negotiations.”

NUTFA: ‘Inept and spineless’

Dave Cuthbert of the New Under Ten Fishermen’s Association (NUTFA) said: “We are all bitterly disappointed that we have once again been betrayed by an inept and spineless government that has capitulated to the EU at the first hurdle.”

He said NUTFA, NFFO, UKAFPO and the SFF had been

“Let’s see what happens between now and when the final package is delivered in October 2018.”

Harry Wick, chief executive of the Northern Ireland FPO, said Northern Ireland’s fishermen had been ‘thrown under the Brexit bus’ and were ‘angry and disappointed’.

“The danger of signing us up to the CFP for another few years, where we’ve no voice at the table and where we’re only consulted, is that Europe can set policies that detrimentally affect the UK,” he said. “This places many of our fishermen under undue and unfair

working on an external experts group for the last year and had been ‘unanimous’ in their Brexit views, despite their different views on domestic fisheries policy and internal quota shares.

He said: “We had endless discussions about day-one readiness, and were always assured that from 1 April, 2019, we would no longer be subject to the CFP, would be able to control access to our waters to 200 miles, and would be able to set our own autonomous quotas. continues on page 2

pressure.”

He said he supported Scottish Conservative MPs who were due to meet the government, and added that the Northern Ireland Democratic and Unionist Party (DUP), which is propping up the Conservative minority government, should ‘exert their influence’.

“The DUP has long been a good friend to the fishing industry, and I would call out to them now in this time of need – we also need their support in getting this very, very dangerous transition period shortened specifically for the fishing industry,” he said.

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News correspondent Tim Oliver email: t.oliver3@sky.com

DISCARDS BAN CHOKES THREATEN DISASTER Time running out to find solutions The NFFO spells out the state of play on the landing obligation/ discards ban that comes fully into force on 1 January, 2019 The full implementation of the landing obligation – the requirement to land all quota species – is less than nine months away, but there is no sign yet that the problem of choke stocks has been resolved.

This is the problem faced in mixed fisheries under the landing obligation when exhaustion of quota in one (possibly minor) species will lead to the closure of the fishery as a whole, with fleets tied up for the rest of the year.

The vessel, member state, or fleets concerned face a double bind: they are not allowed to retain on board the species concerned, but neither are they allowed to return it to the sea, unless a specific exemption has been permitted. Chokes could, in theory, halt some fisheries as early as February each year.

Selectivity and chokes

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The four-year phasing-in period after the landing obligation was adopted as part of the 2013 CFP reform has mainly been used in an increasingly frantic search for solutions to the choke problem. A lot of effort has gone into developing and trialling more selective gears, but the results are variable depending on the technical and economic problems confronted by each part of the fleet.

It is generally recognised, at least within the industry, member states and scientific community, that in many demersal mixed fisheries, gear selectivity is not currently at a level sufficient to solve the choke issue in all fisheries. Without political intervention, fleets will face tie-ups, possibly very early in the year, with extreme social and economic consequences for fishing businesses and crews.

Regional groups

Following regionalisation in the CFP, a heavy responsibility has been placed on member states, working cooperatively in regional groups, to find solutions. The joint recommendations, submitted each year by the regional groups to the Commission, specify the high survival and de minimis exemptions from the landing obligation that have kept the fleets fishing during the phase-in period.

A lot of effort has gone into working with the advisory councils in identifying in which fisheries chokes are likely to occur, and the design of such exemptions.

Phasing has also been used to avoid applying the landing obligation to the trickier species and fisheries, so that something like a big bang is anticipated in 2019.

The member states have already made it clear to the Commission that their joint recommendation for 2019, to be finalised by the end of May 2018, may mitigate but will not resolve the choke problem.

Additional interventions will be required.

December Council

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29 March 2018

Following a consultative meeting in Brussels, last November, the Commission is now fully aware of the choke issue’s potential to cause chaos when the landing obligation comes fully into force on 1 January next year. Although the Commission’s formal position remains that member states haven’t yet tried everything in the toolbox to avoid chokes, a taskforce

has been established to examine all options.

The Commission’s proposal for the annual TACs and quotas regulation for fishing opportunities in 2019 provides the next level of opportunity to deal with potential chokes. Where a multi-annual plan is in place (Baltic and North Sea) a number of new tools are available: ● Use of the full scope of MSY ranges to set TACs for individual target species to mitigate the risk of choke ● Managing the mortality of by-catch species in mixed fisheries in flexible ways not necessarily through the application of TACs – removing TAC status automatically removes the species from the landing obligation.

In 2015, the Commission proposed to remove TAC status for dab, which presented a major choke threat.

A scientific exercise to obtain a comprehensive analysis to identify those species that would best be managed by means other than TAC is already under way.

The Commission has also recently spelled out that managing fisheries at MSY is an economic objective that will not be achieved by allowing exhaustion of quota of a minor by-catch species to choke a whole fishery. It also recognises that it is not realistic to manage all species in a dynamic marine environment at MSY simultaneously.

The Commission may also propose temporarily removing TAC status or making interim exemptions for some stocks at the December Council.

Quota uplifts

Chokes have been allocated to four different categories: ● Those that apply to a number of member states at sea-basin level where, even after quota uplifts, there will be insufficient quota to cover catches ● Those that affect only a few member states, and could theoretically be resolved by moving surplus quota between member states ● Those that could theoretically be resolved within an individual member state ● A final category where the issue is not shortage of quota but the sheer bulk of unwanted catch that would have to be taken ashore, making the trip unviable.

The work within the regional groups has so far concentrated on the first category: when there is insufficient quota in the system to mitigate chokes. Celtic Sea haddock and Irish Sea whiting are two prime examples. The value of whiting landed in the UK from the Irish Sea is £50,000. The value of the Nephrops landed and potentially threatened by a choke on whiting is £25m.

The idea behind quota uplifts is to cover the catches of unwanted fish previously discarded that will now have to be landed.

A problem arises when the quota is directed away from the fleets where the discard problem resides.

Quota uplifts are allocated according to the relative stability allocation keys.

This is likely to intensify the problem in those chokes caused by quota shortage when full implementation of the landing obligation arrives in January, unless a solution to misdirected uplift can be found.

For example, the UK’s share of Channel cod is 9%. The main discard problem in this fishery is caused by quota shortage in the English fleet. However, the bulk of the uplift will go to France, which holds 84% of the quota share. Unless there is a mechanism to transfer the quota to where it is needed – the UK – a choke will result, as day follows night. Quota shares, swaps and transfers already take place on a large scale but generally depend on currency – holding quota that is both available and that the other party wants.

Forced redistribution of quota is fraught with difficulties, but so far there seems to be little or no discussion about how this problem will be resolved – and time is running out.

Root problems and co-decision

It is widely acknowledged – except amongst the perpetrators – that the way the landing obligation was legislated for in article 15 of the CFP lies at the heart of the difficulties in implementing the new regime. Revisiting the CFP would involve a severe loss of face for many involved in that fiasco, including the existing European parliament and those who jumped on the bandwagon to advocate the landing obligation in the form that it currently takes.

For these reasons, it is unlikely that the CFP legislation will get the overhaul that it needs to make it fit-for-purpose, at least until a new European parliament is elected.

That parliament will not, of course, contain British MEPs, and Brexit opens a whole plethora of additional questions about how discard policy will be implemented in the EU27 and in the UK. UK ministers have said that postBrexit they wish to retain the principle of a discards ban, but have also said that they are open to changes that would make it workable.

Enforcement and consent

Implementing the landing obligation is a major enforcement challenge, not least because it shifts the focus of monitoring and control from the point of landing, to the activity of many thousands of individual vessels widely distributed across the seas.

On sea, as on land, effective enforcement requires a modicum of consent between the regulators and the regulated as the basis for a culture of compliance. A set of rules that make sense, are rational and just and, at the very least, are not contradictory is a precondition for that level of consent. We don’t so far have those preconditions, and the choke issue presents a major risk both to the viability of the fleets and the coherence and effectiveness of the enforcement regime.

Most fishermen recognise the need for an effective discard policy to minimise unwanted mortality and waste.

The challenge for fisheries managers, enforcement authorities and fishing vessel operators is how to achieve a practical and workable approach to minimising discards in the context of the current misconceived and poorly thought-through legislation.

Dealing with the choke issue is the first and most important hurdle and time is running out.