The prolonged discussions at the EC’s December Fisheries Council have ended with some gains for Scotland.

These focus on two things:

• improved or retained quotas for high value stocks
• support for Scotland’s call for a ‘Catch less land more’ scheme

Quotas

Quota increases or rollovers have bveen secured for the three most high-value species: North Sea prawns, monkfish and megrim.

Despite the recent postponement of the EU-Norway negotiations, interim quotas have also been agreed for stocks such as North Sea cod, North Sea haddock and mackerel – ensuring that fishermen can continue to go to sea while these talks are concluded.

Catch less, land more

The Council has also given the green light for ‘catch less, land more’ trials, which Scotland has been promoting as another innovative way of rewarding fishermen for their conservation efforts.

In return for catching and discarding less, fishermen will be allowed to land and earn more.

Key outcomes

The headline results from the talks are:

• a rollover of quota for the £46.9 million North Sea prawn (nephrops) industry, part of Scotland’s most valuable fleet
• a 10% increase for megrim and a rollover for monkfish – two of the highest value species; flexibility in the monkfish quota will allow west coast fishermen to catch an additional 460 tonnes
• a 25% cut in west coast haddock (instead of the proposed 54% reduction)
• a 15% cut in the west coast prawn quota
• ‘catch less, land more’ trials to tackle discards and boost profitability
• exemption secured for 40% of the west coast prawn fleet (a total of 67 boats) to previously agreed cuts to days at sea
• agreement from the European Commission to look again at the emergency technical measures re-imposed on the west coast at the November Council.

Reaction from Fisheries Minister

Speaking from Brussels, Fisheries Secretary Richard Lochhead said: ‘Given the challenging backdrop, these were always going to be tough talks. We have fought hard for our fishermen and the outcome will offer some degree of comfort to parts of our industry.

‘After long negotiations, working with the UK, we have achieved gains for some of our most valuable stocks and secured interim arrangements to ensure stocks shared with Norway can still be fished.

‘We have also secured support for ‘catch less, land more’ trials – another example of Scotland showing international leadership on conservation.

‘We do not pretend that life will be any less tough for some vessels, particularly in the whitefish sector.

‘Further cuts in days at sea, agreed before this Council, will be challenging but as we did last year we will work with our fishermen to enable them to buy back days in return for signing up to conservation measures.

‘Quota cuts, on top of draconian technical measures re-imposed in November, will make life difficult on the west coast but we have successfully negotiated action to ease the pain, including days at sea exemptions, quota flexibility and a re-examination of the emergency measures.

‘We will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with the industry to support them through these difficult times.

Comment

We note something ver important in the Minister’s comments in respect of making strenuous efforts to repatriate some decision.taking to Scotland. This is a crucial matter. The tendency of ever-bigger government is to renove authority to ever more distant and ill-informed sources of power.

This is a dangerous and wasteful process. It is good to see and to record the Minister’s commitment – below – to reversing it.

Mr Lochhead, Cabinet Secretarty fr Rural Affairs and Fisheries, said: ‘In the new year we will begin working with the industry on the detail of a longer-term recovery plan and we will increase our efforts to return more decision-making powers to Scotland.

‘Fishing policy made in Brussels is bad for Scotland and we will shortly be setting out our response to proposals for European fisheries policy’.

Full details

Full details of the outcome of the December Fisheries Council are here, in the European Council’s website newsroom.

The key Scottish stocks for which quotas have been agreed today are (the value of 2008 landings is given in brackets):

Prawns (nephrops) (£95.5 million)

• Highest value fleet (based on landings) and highest value species (based on price)
• 0.6 % reduction (effectively a rollover) for North Sea
• 15% reduction for west coast (as the fleet only fished 60-65% of its quota this year this will have no economic impact)

Monkfish (£28.2 million)

• Fourth highest value fleet (landings) and second highest value species (price)
• Rollover plus flexibility to move up to 5% of quota between North Sea and west coast, meaning an additional 460 tonnes can be caught in the west

Megrim (£6.9 million)

• Third highest value species (price)
• 10% increase

West coast haddock (£2 million)

• Second highest value fleet (landings, North Sea and west coast)
• Commission proposed a 54% cut in 2010 but has agreed to phasing this in over two years, with a 25% reduction in the first year

Catch less, land more
The Council gave the go-ahead for ‘catch less, land more’ trials.

One of the reasons fish are discarded is the fact that quotas are imposed on what is landed rather than caught. This means fishermen dump smaller fish and use up their quota by catching larger fish which will fetch a better price.

By trialling an approach which will allow fishermen to increase their quota in return for cutting discards, both the environment and the fishermen’s profits will benefit.

The trials need to be agreed with Norway and if they go ahead are likely to take place on board whitefish boats in the North Sea.

EU / Norway talks

Each year, prior to the December Council, talks take place between the EU and Norway to decide how much fishing will be permitted in each others’ waters. These are usually concluded ahead of Council and enable quotas between EU Member States to be finalised.

This year the EU-Norway talks have not concluded which means quotas will not be finalised at Council for certain stocks.

However, interim quotas have been agreed today to ensure fishermen can continue to fish from 1st January. The talks are due to resume in January and quotas will be agreed for the following stocks (the value of 2008 landings is given in brackets):

• Mackerel (£64.6 million)
• North Sea haddock (£27.9 million)
• North Sea cod (£14.7 million)
• North Sea herring (£8.23 million)

Update 17th December: West coast fishermen are aghast at the agreement. Mallaig and Northwest Fishermen’s Association spokesman, John Hermse, sees it as destructive of whitefish fishing opportunities. He is quoted as saying: ‘We’ve already had boats that have tied up. We’ve lost some good people this year. I would say in the next two to three months we’ll lose more’.

The photograph above shows a Megrim – megrim or whiff (Lepidorhombus whiffiagonis) is a species of left-eyed Flatfish found in European seas between 100 and 700 metres below sea level. The photograph is by copyright holder Etrusko25 and is reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence.

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