Apparently quotas for things like cod, whiting, sole etc. in the north sea are running out, can anyone shed any light on this (Wurzel?)

I blaim the French

This one allegedly landed 25 tonne of mixed fish into Whitby yesterday - Whiting, Haddock and Cod and Mackerel. With a whiting ban now in place on UK vessels I understand there was some rather unhappy skippers about.



The second picture puts some perspective on the size of the boat with the average sized Whitby trawler in the background.

There's plenty of quota available in the North Sea, but not for the smaller boats.


Until recently the Under 10m sector didn't have to worry about how much quota they were given.

Landing declarations were purely voluntary.

After all the under 10s couldn't catch much fish and so were relatively free from restrictions.

As restrictions on over 10s were increased, it became attractive to invest in under 10 boats, especially as advancing technology meant that you could pack a lot more fish catching power into an under 10 than had been possible before.

This spawned a fleet of under 10 boats known as 'rule-beaters' or 'super under 10s' (some boats were physically shortened to get them classed as an under 10).

Whenever the sector moaned about how little quota they were being given, they were told not to worry as no one was counting (even though the little boats that did little harm were steadily being replaced by little boats that could catch much more than traditional under 10s)

All well and good until Buyers and Sellers came in, giving an audit trail back to the source of all fish moving through the supply chain.

Suddenly it was apparent just how much each boat was landing, and under EU pressure Defra (and now the MFA), was cracking down hard, leading to a number of convictions and the realisation that as 'black fish' was being squeezed out of the system, exceeding quota was now very risky.

But by now, the under 10 sector simply didn't have the quota to mach the under 10s fleet's catching power, and the big boys were hanging on to their share of the quota, even though they were not catching all that had been allocated to the sector.

So, there is plenty of quota available in the North Sea, it's just that the way it is shared out means that the smaller boats don't have a big enough share to match what they catch, so run out early in the year.

The Government is looking at a number of measures, including buying out the super under 10s, where just a relatively few boats are catching most of the sectors fish, but it looks as though the Government is determined to match the under 10s catching power to the quota available (rather than the amount of fish available, or finding some way to give them a bigger share, by reducing the quota available to the bigger boats).

Meanwhile the under 10s are putting more effort into catching non-quota species such as bass, mullet, flounder and wrasse, in an attempt to stay in business

See: http://www.nutfa.org/

This post has been edited by Leon Roskilly: May 16 2008, 01:42 PM

Only for the under ten meter fleet.

It's all part of the grand master plan, whether it's an EU directive or just our government giving into pressure from the environmental groups I've never been able to find out.
It is considered that there are too many under ten boats and are following the same plan of attack as they did with the over ten fleet, the quotas have now been set at such a low level it only takes a few weeks of fine weather for them to be caught up, it makes it impossible to operate even a small under ten boat viable, I suspect there will now be a run of court cases bagging up those that tried to continue fishing by stretching their quota allocation , dishing out hefty fines to burden them even more . The next move will then be to offer a decommission package an offer that will be hard to refuse by most, especially the larger under tens which I feel is their main target, once the fleet has been cut to what ever they think as appropriate perhaps the quotas will be then adjusted to match or the few larger under tens left will be allocated quota to be bought or leased as are the over tens.
I think those few that are wealthy enough to weather the storm will survive and end up doing very nicely out of it, same as has happened with the larger boats, the fat cats get fatter the rest will fall by the wayside.
This fits in nicely with DEFRA's vision and the marine bill, I've always said they work to a set agenda, they know that in a few years the UK fleet will require very little management, they know there will be restrictions on inshore netting and destructive methods like trawling because there will be a large reduction in the boats fishing inshore, they assume this will lead to more and bigger fish, they know that MPA's are coming forced in by the environmentals and are assuming this will also help provide more and bigger fish, they also know that they will have very little else to do other than manage anglers who because of the reduction in inshore commercial fleet will be considered the main threat to inshore fish stocks.

- 'Wurz' (than you thought!)

I'm ready and waiting for the first onslaught of Coastal Waters Policy Group/MFA/MCA officers running along our beaches as match anglers catch cod after cod .... only to see them being caught and released.

C'mon - Commercials and 'hybrids' lose plot, so ter speak?

Fail to accept change or look foolish, meee boy!

Hello Leon

I agree with some of what you say but it is not quite so simple, at the end of the day nothing was done with out the OK from DEFRA at that time.
There has not been any new under ten licences issued for 20 years , several of the so called super under tens were financed with decommission money from the big boats some were just upgrades from smaller boats and a few as you say were shortened by a little to get them under ten meters selling the over ten licence and buying a under ten licence, but all used existing licences in some cases having to buy several smaller licences to make up the tonnage to fit the bigger under ten boat taking several licences out of the system, all done under the guidance of DEFRA in some cases issuing grants through the old White Fish grant aid scheme to build the new boat, there was never any concern over any increased catching power.
No Leon some thing or some one else happened to suddenly change things, it coincided with DEFRA being threatened with legal action by the EU
DEFRA helped build up a thriving viable inshore fleet now suddenly they want to destroy it.

Only time will tell to see if I'm right and to see who's foolish HA.

I'll quote a piece from a very recent large pile of paper I received from DEFRA titled ENVIROMENTALLY RESPONSIBLE FISHERIES.

QUOTE
"The impact of sea angling on fish stocks and on the wider marine enviroment has not been accurately assessed. There is circumstantial evidence however, that for some species the impact of recrational sea angling may be similar to commercial fishing. This pilot would make a valuable contribution to the evidence base needed to inform management decisions on the need for conservation measures such as bag limits ."

I'll tell you a fishery that RSAs impacted upon ....... the Kingmere to Bognor Black Bream fishery in the 50s and 60s.

There are very few others, and if rockhoppers could have bagged 100 x what anglers did then, then the highly migratory bream fishery would have been wiped out.

Anglers have accepted change for the better (we hope) and now smoothhounds and bream in VIId and VIIe are treated in a sustainable way (viz - catch 25 bream; keep 4). Byelaws in the Sussex area, sensibly, keep wholesale commercial exploitation to a minimum.

Fish are not around our coasts in infinite numbers and we've got to find the balance between reckless slaughter and the need for food to sustain a population. We've mostly done this on terra firma with sensible farming methods; but shovelling tonnes of haddock, whiting, cod, mackerel, herring into a hold just won't do!

That's what I mean by change. Treat fish as a very finite resource and a luxury for the table; educate people to the degree of omnivorous behaviour, which we were designed for, and stop filling the pockets of individuals whose need is not protein, but money.

Morning Wurzel.

Typical back door example of defra management based on innuendo, could be, might be situations that are so far from reality, cherry pick one possibility and then wham, block policy across the board to affect all, to preserve nothing, achieve nothing apart from keeping the management jobs and pensions safe. Defra would be totally irresponsible to bring in new laws along with an increased police force based on circumstantial evidance, on par though.

I would welcome an in depth study of the rsa take, might be a waste of money for what it could achieve.

Any hint of the circumstances where the rsa and commercial take, disgard, waste is simular?

We are talking about the inshore under ten boats, that is only 33 feet long, OK some are power full for a boat of 33 feet compared to an old wooden open 20 foot beach boat but compared to a 30 meter beam trawler or a 30 meter fully sheltered white fish trawler grossing over £I,000 000 per year there is no comparison, I don't know of any shovelling of any kind ever done on under ten boats and inshore fishermen are pasionate about looking after thier resource.

Could you please let us into your secret on how to run a business with out earning money.

If anglers have changed for the better and catch 25 bream only keeping 4 you won't mind if DEFRA make a law insisting on it.