fat cats

[big_cod]

spring looking at the photo there is boats like that here, beamers very large ones very few people see these boats as they are a back of 12mile but they are very big vessels non are british .

[Ken Davison South Wales]

Hi Spring,

 

Something of this size will not need pointing out.

 

This amount will not reflect on council tax, only a proportion of council expenditure is met from central goverment the rest is raised by our current rates system.

 

The most upsetting thing is the fact that despite using fraud as a means to get round quotas they will probably not lose either the quota or the licence.

 

I would like to hear Wurzels' opinion on that one as it does reflect directly on his situation.

 

It is also very bad PR for the fishing industry.

[Guest jay_con]

Thinking about council tax your probably right, but I do know that the local borough council who privide most of our services here do get an income from fish landings. Im not sure how much it is. The document im reading is not too clear it just says :"Fish of all kinds including shellfish (wether sold by auction or private sale), upon the gross amount realised by the sale in the pound - Present charge 0.045.

 

Not sure if this counts if the fish is landed out of the country. But the amount on 3 million is 135,000. If the suggested levels of black fish are true There could be many cases where local councils around the country are out of pocket.

[Leon Roskilly]

They've stolen more than fish.

 

They've stolen the reputation of honest fishermen from all around the country.

 

The implications of that, like all other prosecutions going on at the moment, does as much damage to our fishing communities as the taking of fish that the sea cannot afford to lose.

 

Tight Lines - leon

[Jaffa]

"ALL" the other prosecutions going on atm?! There have been very few so far, from what I've heard anyway.

 

IMO its wrong to lump togeather what John Peter Duncan has done, with whats happening with the whitefish fleet. Your no doubt right to think that most of the public will see it that way though. UK fishermen will equal criminals.

 

Not that it makes much difference now. None of it will do as much damage to our fishing communities as the CFP and quota system has already done. Theres not much fleet left to lose in many ports.

 

I await with interest for news of prosecutions in other Europeon nations. So far all I've heard of is a few police raids in Eire.

 

A Danish processing factory, that can swallow the quanities the Altaire was landing, does not sit idle the rest of the time, nor are the international accountancy systems, to disguise the black fish, going to be something that appeared overnight or unique to that port.

 

Will also be interesting to discover exactly where the 1 billion, given in fisheries subsidies to Spain in the last few years, has actually ended up.

 

Still, when the Danish sandeel fleet are in the channel, massive Belgian and Dutch beamers are towing into 6 miles, and the Spainish finally gain access to the North Sea with Europes biggest fishing fleet; then at least we will know we did our bit, safe in the knowledge that all the problems were due to our greedy fishermen.

 

Sometimes the British are just so insular and naive its beyond belief

 

Just my opinion

 

[ 28. April 2005, 11:22 AM: Message edited by: Jaffa ]

[Jaffa]

[ 28. April 2005, 11:21 AM: Message edited by: Jaffa ]

[Leon Roskilly]

Jaffa:

"ALL" the other prosecutions going on atm?! There have been very few so far, from what I've heard anyway.

---

 

There are currently a number of prosecutions in progress, by DEFRA, around the country, based on satellite monitoring and logbooks going back over the last three years.

 

 

I await with interest for news of prosecutions in other Europeon nations. So far all I've heard of is a few police raids in Eire.

 

The reason why DEFRA are cracking down is that the UK (along with Spain), was heavily criticised for it's lack of enforcement action.

 

See http://europa.eu.int/comm/fisheries/news_c...inf03_50_en.htm

 

The current position on compliance and enforcement is outlined here:

 

http://europa.eu.int/comm/fisheries/scoreb...rd/index_en.htm

 

burrow down and you find details of infringements and fines imposed, by country here:

 

http://europa.eu.int/comm/fisheries/scoreb.../table13_en.pdf

 

 

Tight Lines - leon

 

[ 28. April 2005, 11:48 AM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

[Guest jay_con]

Jaffa:

"ALL" the other prosecutions going on atm?! There have been very few so far, from what I've heard anyway.

There are quite a few, I read about 4 in the past month and know there are a good few more to come. Some quite big ones With mention of big amounts of black fish in a very short time span.

 

Nothing quite on the scale of this jerk though. Although talking to a fisherman locally the other day about this paticuler case, He said that "it is only the tip of the iceberg"

[Jaffa]

Leon, thanks for the links; now I really believe our fishing stocks are finished if we remain in the CFP.

 

John Peter Duncan must really be an innocent man since according to them Denmark is the only country to accurately report all landings:

 

quote:

---

* Reporting of catches: although still patchy with regard to some of the reports required, there has been some overall improvement in the submitting of catch data to the Commission. The number of failures to comply fell from 28 cases in relation to the 2002 catches to 16 for 2003. Denmark is the only Member State which complied fully with the rules, while Germany, Italy, Greece, France, Ireland, Finland, Spain and Portugal failed to submit a number of reports.

---

Perhaps the Altaire sneaked in during the night, dumped the fish in the factory, then the innocent Danes awoke to discover Santa had been!

 

So it can't be the "tip of an iceberg" @spring@ because the Danish paperwork is right according to the EU.

 

You should be comforted by the fact that

 

quote:

---

Quota overruns: on the basis of the information received from Member States, the number of quotas which have been overshot has decreased from 3 to 2%. In concrete terms, the number of cases of overfishing stood at 23 out of 757 quotas in 2002 compared to 16 out of 811 quotas in 2003. The extent of overruns varies greatly from less than 1% to over 75% as do the quantities concerned. The Member States most concerned are Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands. The shortcomings in enforcement noted above have implications on the quality of data on catches which do not always correspond to the actual catches. Indeed, three-quarters of all infringement procedures currently pending against Member States concern cases of overfishing

---

My translation of that would be that they don't have a clue which quotas are being overrun or by how much, and that the situation with enforcement is terrible right across the EU.

[Leon Roskilly]

Jaffa:

My translation of that would be that they don't have a clue which quotas are being overrun or by how much, and that the situation with enforcement is terrible right across the EU.

Hence the new EU Enforcement agency down in Spain.

 

(Note this will be an EU body located in Spain, but staffed from within the EU. It is not a case of putting the Spanish in charge of enforcement as some people seem to have concluded).

 

Tight Lines - leon