Ben Bares His Teeth

[wurzel]

I don't see that at all. It's not up to us to question why a law has been set and then decide whether we obey it.

The nineteen year old who speeds does so out of ignorance, he hasn't enough experience to know any better. The fisherman who breaks laws set up to attempt to protect stocks does so out of contempt for the law.

The situation where people start drawing their own lines about which laws they obey and which they don't is called anarchy.

 

 

Rubbish! A ninteen year old who speeds does it because he likes to go fast, I also suffer from the "need for speed"

 

If it acually did protect stocks, then there would not be the contempt for the law.

[Ken Davison South Wales]

But have you any proof that they are still doing it?

These offences took place back in 2002, DEFRA had to dig deep.

 

The chances are the local DEFRA inspectors turned a blind eye at the time knowing the fishermen had little choice, and can't see the point in throwing good prime fish over the side to rot, they know that quotas have done very little to conserve fish stocks.

 

Exactly the same has happened with the skate and rays issue in this area. The EU brought in the ban on direct fishing for skate and rays last January the local officers knew this was not possible for the local fishermen to operate with in that law especially at that time of year and with a very low dover sole quota set for the early spring there was little else to fish for. they took a month before they even mentioned they might have to enforce it, then they took another month to give us some warnings, then once DEFRA had acquired some more sole quota they told us to stop fishing for rays or they will prosecute, this is 10 weeks after the EU brought in the law.

But if some time in the future DEFRA get warned by the EU for not implementing fishery laws vigorously enough and threaten them with millions of pounds in fines as they did a couple of years ago, as they did fine France, then you are just as likely to get DEFRA officials running around like headless chickens trying to look efficient, all they need to do is look at the catch and landing records for last spring and all the boat owners, including me, and merchants from the South East coast would be in court charged with landing and selling over quota rays.

I don't consider myself in any way a criminal, I have tried to explain the workings of DEFRA and quotas to you and others before, bit of a waste of time really!

 

Quote from Steve G

after all it is so easy to condemn people without fully understanding the reasoning and cause that lead to it.

And to compare fishery law to robbery , drunk driving or speeding is just stupid ignorance .

 

I would not compare it with speeding, but I would compare it like for like with fraud (cooking the books) If I did that and got caught it would most definately be a crimminal charge and me pleading that times were hard just would not wash.

 

I would agree quotas do not work, even I can see bloody great holes in the thinking but surely it is up to those who have to work with to get them changed.