Peter Jackson column
Nov 22 2007 by Iain Laing, The Journal
OUR fishing industry faces ruin, not because we are eating too much fish, but because our fishermen are dumping thousands of tonnes of dead fish into the sea.
They are not doing this out of some insane vendetta against fish, but because the rules of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy, CFP, say they must.
The fishermen are subject to quotas to conserve stocks but, however sophisticated their sonar, or however finely graded the sizes of net mesh, they inevitably catch large amounts of fish – such as cod – that they did not set out to catch. Because these cod do not form part of their quota, they cannot be landed and must be returned – dead – to the sea.
The EU estimates that, in parts of the North Sea, between 40% and 60% of the fish caught by trawlers is dumped back into the sea.
The result is that the price of a bag of cod and chips remains high and fish stocks continue to decline. In fact, in the Alice in Wonderland world of the CFP, ministers are pushing for an increase in the quotas to solve the problem.
However the problem is solved, it will mark another stage in the calamitous decline of the UK’s once great offshore fishing industry. The great fleets of trawlers have been broken up and the hundreds of ports from which they sailed are now fishing for tourists.
It could be argued there is no reason why fishing should be any more privileged that coalmining or textiles manufacture, also once great industries that have fallen victims to history.
But then we never invited coal miners from the rest of Europe to come down our pits and compete with us in the extraction of our own coal. This is what we did with our fishing grounds as the price for entry into the then Common Market.
In 1991, the European Court of Justice overruled a UK court decision and legalised the practice of quota hopping, allowing national fleets to register their boats and buy quotas in other member states and the Spanish have taken great advantage of this at the expense of the UK industry.
The CFP is a wasteful policy that damages the marine environment and the fishing industry. It should be scrapped.
This policy is wasteful and it should be scrapped
