seaside

I'd like to suggest you download and read the following review - CLIMATE CHANGE AND SCOTTISH FISHERIES http://www.marlab.ac.uk/FRS.Web/Uploads/Do...20Fisheries.pdf It was conducted for the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, a commercial organisation for those that know nothing of them whose aim is to advance the interests of Scottish fishermen at national and international levels by lobbying government officials in Edinburgh, London and Brussels. The topic is the impact of climate change on fish stocks, and hence commercial fisheries and the review attempts a simple summary of some of the key findings to date. It puts these into context for the Scottish fishing industry where it places some emphasis on cod, as currently changes to cod stocks in the North Sea and west of Scotland are of particular concern. It was performed by the Fisheries Research Services this year and is written for fishermen, is extremly easy to read and it does challenge many pre-conceived notions and opinions.

So you are quite tall then BC How would you stand with these http://www.francisfrith.com/pageloader.asp...p;keywords=fish though I'm afraid it was a quiet day at Whitby on this one http://www.francisfrith.com/pageloader.asp...p;keywords=fish

Have a look at http://www.francisfrith.com/pageloader.asp...p;keywords=fish I can assure you that you wouldn't see that amount today.

I understand the smaller guys getting upset, it's happening everywhere, and they are really losing out because with so many prawn on the market, prices are falling and more and more often the smaller prawn are being discarded because there's just no market for them. But they are not the only discards, tons of immature fish are also discarded which adds to the effects felt by the smaller inshore boats as well as RSA. What I really find annoying is that the techniques exist to exploit many of the fisheries with minimal bycatch, the prawn fishery in Norway manages to do it successfully, why can't the British ? Regular surveys are taken in the Clyde fishery, on-board a commercial vessel, these show in an average year for the prawn fishery 2925 tons of prawns landed / 418 tons prawns discarded / 715 tons fish landed / 1614 tons fish discarded The fish discards are juveniles of the demersal species, 1614 tons at 8oz to the fish = over 7 million fish that don't get a chance to breed. !! This isn't stuff invented by anyone, it's happening now, it's documented and it's just history repeating itself, a new stock identified and now being exploited by many without any thought for the future. How can anyone give respect to an industry which seems bent on chasing profit without taking the steps necessary to ensure it's own future, even if that means screwing it up for all, including the smaller of their own kind ?

JB - The west coast of Scotland is another area where most are now engaged in prawn, or as the Scots marketing guys prefer, langoustine. The reason though is that there is little or nothing else to go for - all the demersal and inshore pelagic stocks have been effectively wiped out. The inner clyde is virtually devoid of anything other than juvenile stock. This is neither media hype, uninformed speculation or propaganda - Austen Brown (Clyde Fishermen's Association) “ I will give you a short history of how we have got to where we are. Most of the fish-stocks problems have arisen from the deployment of technology over the past 30 years or so. Cheap fuel has allowed more power to be used to tow bigger nets. The invention of bobbins and rock hoppers allowed fishermen to explore vast areas of hard ground, which had hitherto been breeding-stock reserves similar to the no-take zones that are proposed by some of the Cornishmen. Multiple rigs now allow larger white-fish boats to operate profitably pursuing ground fish and prawns, thereby undermining the markets that are relied on by many of our member fishermen. The invention of the semi-pelagic trawl has almost completely annihilated the former deep-water breeding stocks of cod, hake, haddock and whiting in our area. Fish now have nowhere to hide; they are chased from the shore to the deepest water and virtually everywhere is towed. “ So yes, many of the vessels one sees now are chasing langoustine, but it's because there is no real alternative, there aren't enough fish there to make it commercially viable. This has also caused the west coast to lose millions of pounds from its' tourist industry, loads of charter skippers have had to pack it in, some very significant sea angling festivals and competitions are no longer held. It can hardly be surprising that there is a degree of resentment - it may be wrongly directed now but it is understandable, it happened in the past and no one was held accountable; perhaps what's worst is that some of it is still perpetuated today - eg: the exploitation of gravid Spurdog.

It would appear that in the North sea RAC meeting the other day, the Danish and UK commercials stated that they are seeing a lot of codling in the southern/central north sea and this is a sure sign that the cod emergency plan and measures have worked. Strange that organisations so anti science and EU controls should suddenly be singing their praises - couldn't have anything to do with TACs or Quotas, or could it ? How long before all the other anti cod recovery plan people suddenly become converts ?

Well it certainly raised the profile of cod chartering, though whether commercial fishermen or RSA will benefit is very questionable - quotas set have not historically taken the effects of it into account, so if there is to be any rationalisation, quotas will have to be reduced even further, and / or there will have to be some limits placed on RSA catches. I can't see either party being really thankful.

For those who may not be aware, the Federation has added a Conservation and Access 'arm' with the objective of ensuring a unified, coordinated and comprehensive approach to conservation and access issues affecting recreational sea angling ( RSA ) throughout Scotland. Long way of saying - working together to do what we can to protect our sport !! There are many issues which are likely to affect Scottish RSA over the next few years and we'll start to cover those in a monthly Conservation and Access Newsletter, beginning shortly. From time to time there may also be updates on key issues or 'one-off' special interest notes , even some where we may request an action on your part -- please give us all the support you can. Our goal is to distribute EVERYTHING by email.--- Saves time --- Saves money ----Enables it to be 'news'. A mail has been sent to most Federation Club secretaries outlining the above and asking them to pass it on to their members so they may subscribe to the mailings. But, as all such things take time, we thought we'd offer an alternative access point, so if you would like to receive the Conservation & Access Newsletter please send an email address to contact@sfsacu.com. All we really need is your name and the member club you belong to, but given that there are a host of activities requiring attention, we'd also like to hear from those wishing to get involved in The Team, or who have any conservation or access issue they feel should be addressed. Lookout for the first SFSA Conservation E-newsletter coming to your screen soon.

Just to add a little bit to Leons' feedback. Some Langoustine are now caught on the west coast of Scotland, transshipped to the east coast - frozen - flown out to China and Thailand (proposed) - shelled - flown back to Scotland - dressed and then transshipped to France / Italy / Spain. Many Scottish processing jobs are now being lost as margins are being squeezed through over-production, and I see more going in the near future as they put the dressing activity out to China / Thailand and then direct ship to the Mediterranean countries.

Glen - I really appreciate how you feel about getting started on your own, it does seem to be a real uphill task, but I think Ian has given you really good pointers. Apologies if I appear to be trying to teach you to suck eggs, but if you set out basically what you want to achieve, post it for input / ask for help , see what response you get, ( ignore the as**oles ) , be flexible and revise your approach if necessary and then the hard bit ...... drive it forward. I agree with you, all that bragging has really backfired and it will form the basis of many 'articles' aimed at hiding the real facts of bycatch, black landings, throwaways etc by passing the blame onto RSA and although it has as much credibility as the mad professor from Iceland - I'm sure it will be continually referred to. There are plenty willing to help as I've found when posting on behalf of the SFSA, go for it !!

Many of you may remember giving the SFSA/SACN some help in refining Mr Finnies attitude towards RSA somewhat. Part of the deal was that they committed to performing a study into the contribution RSA makes to Scotlands' economy. We did get a first cut request for tender done, but then things slowed down a bit as it took some time for the Exec to get a Project Manager freed up and begin to really move the process forward. However, we did have a meeting the other day with them to go through the initial pass of the document and offer some updates; the next pass is expected for review by the end of next week after which it will go out to tender. Tender award and initial consultations are expected to take up to the New Year and the work is currently expected to be completed around May. Other than those who have responded already expressing an interest in being involved, if anyone else feels they'd like to join in too, please drop me a pm or email. I can't stress just how important this is to RSA in Scotland, it's an unfortunate reality, but given that the Exec has more than enough pressure points, how much we bring into the economy ( and potential votes ) will have a direct bearing on how much interest there is shown in involving RSA at all levels.

Got 3 pairs about the same time in the general hardware store in Lerwick, if you're in the area, check 'em out, they could still have them.

Do you see the article in Fishing News likely to start a move to try and manage catch levels in the charter boat fishery in general, or do you feel the article was too specific and it will be 15 minute wonder that will blow over.

Well they are going to have to tell that to an entirely new audience - the Southern Hemisphere " The talks in Hobart ..... to develop a regional fisheries agreement to manage non-highly migratory fish stocks on the high seas from the Indian Ocean to South America and from the Antarctic to an as yet undecided northern boundary. The talks aimed also to set up interim measures to manage the effects of bottom trawling in these areas. But the EU, Russia and South Korea repeatedly blocked proposals supported by Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Pacific Island States and the United States which were intended to protect deep sea life from bottom trawling. see http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2006/2006-11-13-03.asp

Glen - I can't answer for others, personal opinion only, but as far as I'm concerned they meet the requirement of only keeping what they need - unless of course they were actually keeping them to sell or throw away when they got home (not suggesting they were before someone leaps down my throat).

--> QUOTE(Norm B @ Nov 11 2006, 12:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'm happy to state that C&R is not the be all and end all of conservation, it helps, but an overall management strategy is more important. C&R does help in slow growing, localised species like bass and mullet but in the greater scheme of things it's just a drop in the ocean, excuse the pun. A trawler will take in a day all the fish I keep in my lifetime. The greatest asset to conservation would be to totally ban commercial fishing but we all know that will never happen. C&R, bag limits etc are just tinkering around the edges of the problem. I don't understand why catch and return is so polarised on this forum, a survey was run on another forum and the vast majority of anglers voted for " You are happy to keep only fish you actually want to eat and / or use as bait?" or "You prefer to return nearly all of your fish 'cos you don't eat it?" or "You prefer to return nearly all of your fish on conservation grounds?" Around 5% each went for the two extremes of keeping nigh on everything or returning everything. I would have thought those responses would be typical of the wider angling population. In essence, I'll only take what I need and put the rest back.

It's an interesting paradox isn't it : Should associations only represent the views of their members ? If so, then why shouldn't non-members who have issues with those views create their own association ? But then they too (by membership levels) would probably not be able to claim to speak for the majority. Individuals belonging to no association cannot claim to speak on behalf of anyone without an individuals agreement - in other words an 'association'. So actions like that chappy wanting to ban bait digging etc would go unopposed as there would be no capacity for individual action as that individual could not be said to represent the majority view. If there were no associations, who would raise anglers issues ? It couldn't be SFCs, commercial fishermens groups, RSPB, etc - they are all associations. Nobody - in which case, what would be the future of RSA ?

Heads up - the Scottish executive would like your input - please give generously - you only have to send an email to ERDC@scottish.parliament.uk !! The Environment and Rural Development Committee of the Scottish Parliament has launched an inquiry on the marine environment and has issued an open invitation to all interested parties to submit written evidence to the Committee by Wednesday 20 December. The Committee has emphasised that, as well as representative organisations and appropriate public and commercial bodies, it is keen to hear from individual in coastal communities and people whose work is connected to the marine environment. There's a web-page showing details of the inquiry on the Parliament's web-site at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business...iryhomepage.htm but basically the aim of the inquiry is to direct attention, both inside and outside the Parliament, to the important issues which need to be considered in managing the marine environment effectively. The inquiry will focus on a number of points, including: • Uses: What are the varied, and often competing, demands which are placed on the marine environment? Where are the key pressure points and challenges – with a particular view to any that have distinctively Scottish perspectives? • Planning: What good practice is developing in Scotland from some of the initiatives which exist to co-ordinate the various activities, and manage potential conflicts, in the marine environment (e.g. marine spatial planning pilots, the coastal forum network, etc). • Development of governance: What do these initiatives show about how legislation and organisational structures etc. need to change? What is the best way to create an overarching framework for effective management of the marine environment? Any individuals or organisations wishing to submit written evidence should do so no later than 12 noon on Wednesday 20 December 2006. The Committee welcomes evidence on the issues outlined in the remit for the inquiry, or any other relevant points. Evidence should be reasonably brief and typewritten (as a guide, normally no more than 4 sides of A4). It would be most helpful if responses could be submitted by email to:ERDC@scottish.parliament.uk

For a small fee I will send you packets of 'Blanker Soup' concentrate, just add 3/4 gallon of water and follow John E's instructions.

JRT - understand where you are coming from, but unfortunately because the general public has become so inured to 'disasters', all interested parties have to hype everything up to 'Armageddon' levels just to attract attention and get market share. It seems more important that 'individual authorities' win the battle of words rather than address issues, so you get both sides of an issue trotting out truly banal and emotive statements whilst actually doing nothing of consequence and just letting things go to hell in a handbag. Consequently, although the vast majority will accept there are issues with for example, cod stocks - there seems to be endless debate as to whether that is caused by global warming, overfishing, lack of sandeels, natural variations, the spanish/french/dutch/eastern europeans etc., ----- BUT as all fiddle around, the cod stocks continue to deplete. Like Leon, I was involved in a multi-million $ exercise around Y2K, the threats were not those as hyped by the press - planes falling out of the sky etc, but more related to everyday business, financial and operational systems. Thanks to a whole load of effort made to address and solve the REAL issues, the whole thing passed by pretty uneventfully. One thing is for sure, unless there is some concerted effort to address the REAL ISSUES around fish stocks, their demise may not pass unnoticed, but it will happen. Then no doubt it will have been somebody else's fault, the government should have done something about it, compensation lawyers4U will have a field day, the media will hype it all and no end of experts will get their 15 mins.

FYI - some highlights of the CFP activities for October ---- 1. The European Commission has indicated the funds per Member State to be made available under the European Fisheries Fund (EFF), the EU's core instrument for financial support to the fisheries sector and fishing communities. It will run for seven years with a budget of EUR 3.849 billion. 2. EU Fisheries Ministers agreed fishing days for Baltic cod will be reduced by 10%, with a further 15% cut subject to an agreement on the setting up of a cod recovery plan by 30 June 2007. 3. Preliminary scientific advice on Community fish stocks showed encouraging signs from a number of stocks, in particular northern hake and mackerel. However, other stocks show little or no signs of improvement, notably cod in European waters. 4. The EU, the Faeroes, Iceland and Norway, agreed on management measures for blue whiting with a reduced TAC of 1,700,000 tonnes, down from 2,000,000 tonnes for this year. 5. Agreement between the EU, Norway and the Faroe Islands on management measures for mackerel in the north east Atlantic and a TAC of 422,551 tonnes (compared to 373,535 tonnes in 2006). 6. The EU and Norway signed a Memorandum of Understanding on monitoring, control and surveillance of fisheries activity relating to shared stocks. 7. At the AGM of South East Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (SEAFO) (Angola, the European Union, Namibia and Norway) the parties decided to ban transhipments at sea, blacklist vessels which undertake illegal fishing activities, place scientific observers on board vessels, apply the satellite-based vessel monitoring system (VMS) and catch reporting requirements, reduce incidental mortality of seabirds, especially petrels and albatrosses, ban shark finning and reduce incidental mortality of sea turtles. 8. The Council passed a regulation banning vessels blacklisted by the NEAFC from landing or taking supplies in EU ports, or transshipping to EU vessels, and prohibiting the trading of illegal, unregulated and unrecorded catches by EU enterprises. 9. Stop fishing notices were published for Spanish vessels fishing for forkbeard, UK vessels fishing for herring and cod, French vessels fishing for bluefin tuna, Swedish and Latvian vessels fishing for Northern prawns and Estonian, German, Latvian, Lithuanian and Portuguese vessels fishing for redfish in NAFO. 10. The EC decided to allocate additional fishing days in 2006 to Netherlands in the Skagerrak, to compensate for the permanent withdrawal of beam trawl capacity from the Dutch fleet. 11. The EC and the Government of Guinea Bissau agreed to extend the Protocol of the existing Fisheries Agreement, pending ongoing negotiations regarding a new Fisheries Partnership Agreement. 12. The EC and the Government of the Solomon Islands Fisheries Partnership Agreement entered into force. 13. The Fisheries Partnership Agreement between the EU and the Government of Seychelles was ratified.

QUOTE(Norm B @ Nov 3 2006, 08:55 PM) Much as I hate the CFP it is they who have made our government cut quotas. Left to their own devices, labour block votes and the commercial lobbies, the seas around our coasts would be barren by now. Coming out of the CFP is just not on, it's an integral part of the EU so the UK would have to come out of the EU as a whole and lose all other EU ' benefits ' - for example, in Scotland alone that would mean 17,872 beneficiaries of the CAP who in total got £257 million would have to lose out; the rural development grant of around £380 million would go - it would be a 'brave' politician who tried that route. It wouldn't make no real difference anyway, as the SFF leader Bertie Armstrong said in a meeting the other day, as fish are a migratory species and as a large percentage of our catches are taken outside UK waters, the UK would then have to create it's own CFP with both EU and non EU aligned countries in order to assure its' stocks. Not only would this add another layer of bureaucracy, but it would increase the complexity of all the political wrangling, wheeling and dealing that goes on, add no end of civil servants and give commercial fishermen yet another governing body to deal with.

Glen - On your basis of not debating whether or not it was achievable in the first place. The fundamental requirement of any plan is that it has an overall objective which is SPECIFIC and REALISTICALLY attainable (anything else is a 'target' 'wishful thinking' etc. ); from that objective you can develop a series of activities to achieve the required result, which to be successful, must be resourced accordingly. Any changes in the activities which seriously impact that objective require the issue to be revisited as no plan can succeed if the underlying activities or resources are neither undertaken or employed. On that basis I'd say it has been a failure to date because it is predicated on scientific advice which has been consistently ignored, TACs that have been implemented with no basis in reality and no real 'policing' of catch effort, along with other factors. Although cod stocks are a very emotive issue which make for great soundbites, I just don't see any sector with the real will to directly grab the public's' long time attention and support and step up, make the hard decisions, involve ALL concerned AND commit themselves to making it work. Given the lack of such commitment by all sectors, and that the goalposts will continue to move around, I'd say 'the plan' will never ultimately succeed or fail as it is constantly changing. Whether the stocks of cod survive or perish will be down to Mother Nature because no-one else is willing to truly commit, but no doubt in the end, all parties will see it as a victory for themselves somehow or another.

A good guide and it did help - after nearly 30 years fishing, my son has decided he'll try and fillet his own rather than get me to do it --- couldn't ask for better value !!!!

In May 2004 Germany nominated ten NATURA 2000 areas in the offshore areas of its EEZ in the North Sea and Baltic Sea to EU (see Figure 1). Germany is the first EU Member State with a complete set of marine NATURA 2000 nominations. The nominated MPAs within the German EEZ account for 31.5% of the total offshore German marine area. The Scottish Exec won't even given Arran a few square kilometres !!!! In February 2006, ICES started a new project entitled “Environmentally Sound Fishery Management in Protected Areas” to develop fisheries management plans for each of the ten German NATURA 2000 areas. The project is funded by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and will run for three years with the first project workshop taking place in April 2006. For further info ( in English ) http://www.habitatmare.de/en/intro.php