Coveney Secures Fisheries Mandate

The Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney has secured a new mandate from EU Fisheries Ministers to enter final negotiations with the European Parliament on a reformed Common Fisheries Policy.

The breakthrough came at 6.15am this morning, after 36 hours of negotiations.

Europe's fisheries policy has been criticised for badly depleted fish stocks, being too expensive and the practice of discards, whereby fish catches excess to quotas are dumped.

In a statement this morning, Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney said the agreement will provide the framework for long term sustainability of fish stocks and the continued economic viability of fishing fleets.

Minister Coveney will present the draft agreement to the leaders of the Fisheries Committee of the European Parliament later.

Here's a link to the article:

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0515/392314 ... -deadlock/

I am so confused about the pros and cons of discards at the moment that I don't know whether or not this is good news!?

John D.

Normally when a fisheries minister comes back from Europe telling us that it is good news for Ireland this means thet yet again it is very bad news for sea anglers. I fear that this may be the case. As always in these situations the "devil will be in the detail" and those "details" will be decided later by officals. In my opinion there are two main issues here.
Who will police this and how? I have heard the industry are asking for "self policing". God help us if this becomes the case.
What will happen to fish that would have previously discarded. If there is any oportunity to make money from them then where is the incentive to avoid them. We would end up with even more pressure on already depleted fish stocks.
As for bass it is still unclear if they are to be included in the discard ban. As far as I was aware the ban is only proposed for "controled species" ie quota species. Bass are currently non quota.
There is a lot more we need to know about this but I doubt that sea anglers well be the big beneficiaries!

I have heard the industry are asking for "self policing". God help us if this becomes the case.

This is exactly what the banking/finance industry asked for - and got - more then 10 years ago. We all know the results of that. God help us indeed.

Here's a link to the article:

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0515/392314 ... -deadlock/

I am so confused about the pros and cons of discards at the moment that I don't know whether or not this is good news!?

John D.

Join the club!

I have to confess to ignorance on this issue. I can see how discards are a disgrace and so wasteful. But what is to replace the quotas that were orignally put in place in an effort to protect stocks? Self-policing as has already been said is laughable (like the current situation here with the Law Society policing Solicitors). Was anything realistic on the table? Or is it just a case of wait and see?



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I'm a bit confused as to how the discard system works. Maybe someone could clarify it for me? I'll use cod as an example.

From what I understand in the current system is, that any excess fish caught above the given quota for a certain species must be discarded. For example, if a boat has a quota for 1 tonne of cod and if it lands 1.1 tonne then the excess 0.1 tonne of cod must be discarded. If a boat tries to bring more than their allotted 1 tonne of cod to shore they get fined. I can see that this is supposed to protect cod stock by stopping fishermen from targeting them once there quota is filled. It's not a perfect system by any means and incredibly wasteful as excess cod will likely be caught when targeting other species. The only positive is that there is a maximum limit to the amount of cod a boat can sell, thus making it unprofitable and time consuming to continue to catch these fish. I'm open to correction on how the current system works..

However, with the new proposed system..
If there is a no discard policy, what is to stop a boat targeting as much cod as it can fit on board? Fishermen will purposely target the most valuable species as they will fetch the highest price at market. It is all about profits after all! Also, if there is no limit on the amount of cod that can be landed I suspect that fish of lower economic importance may be discarded (illegally) in order to fill the ship with the most profitable species. This would mean that the already depleted stocks of certain species will be more heavily targeted. The simple defence of a commercial boat would sound something like 'that's what we happened to pull up today'.

Maybe I'm completely off the mark or being over sceptical, but to me it seems that some quota system should be in place, which doesn't seem possible if all fish, by-catch or not, can be sold?

Political spin at its finest!!! We are not stupid enough to believe that the minister has achieved anything with this only time will tell but I remain doubtful. There are so much deviations to take on board as some of you have already discussed and I have spoken on this subject many times before.

I'm a bit confused as to how the discard system works. Maybe someone could clarify it for me? I'll use cod as an example.

From what I understand in the current system is, that any excess fish caught above the given quota for a certain species must be discarded. For example, if a boat has a quota for 1 tonne of cod and if it lands 1.1 tonne then the excess 0.1 tonne of cod must be discarded. If a boat tries to bring more than their allotted 1 tonne of cod to shore they get fined. I can see that this is supposed to protect cod stock by stopping fishermen from targeting them once there quota is filled. It's not a perfect system by any means and incredibly wasteful as excess cod will likely be caught when targeting other species. The only positive is that there is a maximum limit to the amount of cod a boat can sell, thus making it unprofitable and time consuming to continue to catch these fish. I'm open to correction on how the current system works..

However, with the new proposed system..
If there is a no discard policy, what is to stop a boat targeting as much cod as it can fit on board? Fishermen will purposely target the most valuable species as they will fetch the highest price at market. It is all about profits after all! Also, if there is no limit on the amount of cod that can be landed I suspect that fish of lower economic importance may be discarded (illegally) in order to fill the ship with the most profitable species. This would mean that the already depleted stocks of certain species will be more heavily targeted. The simple defence of a commercial boat would sound something like 'that's what we happened to pull up today'.

Maybe I'm completely off the mark or being over sceptical, but to me it seems that some quota system should be in place, which doesn't seem possible if all fish, by-catch or not, can be sold?

Gerty86, your first paragraph is correct but of course things are not that simple. Commercial fishermen would argue that they fish for mixed stocks so when they fill their cod quota but still have quota for whiting or other fish they cannot help but land cod in their nets. If they are to abide by the law they should discard the over quota cod. This is the major flaw with the quota system but for all its failings at least there is no incentive to target the fish you have no quota for.
While on one level a ban on wastefull discards makes complete sense how do you stop people targeting the most valuable and often depleted fish species? There is no easy solution to this of at least not one that the "industry" will be happy with. A very simple solution would be to simply limit time at sea (in other words have time quotas) and allow vessels to land all they catch. This could work very well but there would be uproar from the commercial sector if this was introduced as it would interfere with their"right to earn a living". They see much more opportunity to "work" with a system that keeps them on the water.
In theory the no discards system could benefit the stocks as long as the boat recieves no money for the over quota retained fish. At least then there would be no incentive to target them. Already the EU is putting large sums of money in place to help skippers who might be inconvencienced by any new regulations.
We need to find out much more about this to see if there is any hope of improving fish stocks. I'm not overly optamistic.

Thanks for that John. Limiting time at sea for boats is an interesting idea, but as you said it wouldn't go down too well with the commercial sector. Another simple solution would be to limit the total mass of fish that could be landed regardless of species caught. It would mean that all fish caught would be sold, but again this wouldn't be too popular. I'm afraid there appears to be no clear cut answers to such a complex problem. Time will tell what this new proposal means in real world terms...

There are two types of discards,1 undersized and non marketable fish that goes out the scuppers regardless. 2. Marketable fish that exceeds the allowable quota.
Currently fishermen say they are dumping marketable fish because they have no quota for it. The truth is that this over the quota fish is not being dumped overboard, it is landed and sold(black fish).
Realistically nothing changes.

There is a lot not being said about this new regime, but as Sean O'Donoghue said on morning Ireland 'the devil is in the detail'.

It seems to me as a poorly thought out plan with a lot of loose ends that have not been thought out at all.

A more realistic contribution from the EU ministers would have been to increase all cod end mesh sizes to 100ml across the board for white fish/prawn fisheries, and then spend a little more time trying to bring in a system that will actually work.

The increase in mesh size would go a long way to easing the discard problem.

In other words they have put the cart before the horse!

The whole exercise was a waste of time and money with one word summing up the squalid affair "fudge".

Forget the word "discards" for it is just a smokescreen behind which the politicians can hide and say they did something. How and when are they going to implement it with press releases giving dates as far out as 2020 while leeway has already been built into the system allowing boats to still discard.

Recreational angling is still not recognised as an economic contributor, you and I are still not recognised as stakeholders, there appears to be no shift towards responsible fishing, more environmentally friendly catching gear (if there is such a thing), reduction in fleet/effort, subsidies, etc, etc.

Yes, we have witnessed a process, however it was far from democratic, and we can demonstrate and debate to the nth degree on threads like this how much we know/don't know about fisheries and the machinations of EU fisheries management. A more militant and straight talking approach from the as yet marginalised marine stakeholders may make a difference over the next ten years, however the jury is still out on that.

Will we see any improvements? Until the hard line is taken, no.

Probably going off the original subject a tad with this but it’s interesting to see what a small sovereign nation can achieve, I know the subject is scallops but it’s the process that is the key and this is what we should be aiming for in the future, working together as sovereign nations of the UK, Ireland and Isle of Man maybe an elected committee would be formed to represent all concerned stakeholders where our proposals would be agreed before being addressed by our governments and passed as law. It’s a real shame we have to go with our begging bowls to the EU and plead our case to fish our own waters or to ask for the power to restrict fishing access. The stories started in 2012 and more recently added this month it may have even been covered on here before but I may have missed it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe- ... n-22567280
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe- ... n-20172097
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe- ... n-16679875

Tight Lines
Aaron