Romantic Cod and Fish Populations?

[Jaffa]

Which ecosystem? the 10k bc, 1000 Ad ,1850 AD, 1980, 2000...

 

The Fulmar must be among our most common seabirds now yet if i remember right was confined to a few birds at St Kilda at the start of the 20th Century.

 

The house im living in would have been underwater a few generations ago....

 

Purely economic grounds I can understand but there is a whole other set of things going on with discussion about fisheries that has damn all to do with economics or ecology but with people with one "worldview" imposing that on others.

 

Its okay for you to run a garden centre but its what for a Faroese commuinty to hack to death a school of pilot whales ( non endangered) ? Discuss

 

 

Not a pop at you personally Ken, just trying to articulate, however badly that IMO your experience does not mean your views are universal or right. Leon has damaged my brain...

 

Its late m8,

 

Cya

 

Chris

[Ken Davison South Wales]

He has put a dent in mine.

 

No, my original comment was made because of all the concern shown for a possible loss of jobs.

 

And here I sit having lost several good positions simply because my situation was not considered viable.

 

I would never presume to inflict my rather uninformed views on anything so important.

 

It was purely a secptical observation of the comments being made on employment aspects having spent my whole life in such an unsecured industry.

 

It did however teach me never to judge the situation from one side of the table and never to take any statement as cast in stone.

 

I try at all times to understand the other sides position, but I always like to arrive at my own conclusions based on both stories.

 

With that I am off to bed, it's been a long and strange day today.

[thurso angler]

I think the mining industry is an again unfair comparison, as the mining industry in the uk was, they could not compete with foreign goods, where as our fisherman have a industry that can survive if a proper sustainable system is implemented.

[spanner]

Lets not get hung-up on the rights or wrongs of one job versus another. We need to eat fish so we need to fisherman catch them.

 

"if a proper sustainable system is implemented"

 

I think that is the key that we all agree on.

 

How to achieve it is the problem we need to focus on.

[Ken Davison South Wales]

Hi Thurso,

 

There would be those who would disagree about mining and its' demise, but that was not what I was talking about.

 

My comments were about life after unemployment, I know from my experiences and there are far to many to list ( This is one area I am well informed about ) that if you have the will to survive you will survive and make good.

 

Things change all the time, some we can understand, others we may disagree with but they still happen.

 

The facts relating to mining were numerous, in some areas they were to efficient for their own good and could produce more coal than was required. Coal fired power stations were defunked, seams became to expensive to run and Maggie didn't like unions. But they have survived and most would agree the changes taking place in South Wales are for the better.

 

Someone once said to me years ago "There is pain in change, there are always negative losses and positive losses"

[Guest jay_con]

Leon ?

 

Any chance you could give us a list of attendee's at your meeting? and an agenda ? (Not been nosey - Honest).

 

----------------------------------------------------

Whilst I notice you dont wish to compare industries what I will say is there was plenty of coal left in the ground. Is there plenty of fish left in the sea?

 

I here there is an abundance of monkfish on which our trawler fleet will now be focussing it's attantions.

[big_cod]

reading between the lines i think thurso angler seems to have some sort of commercial interest here, trawling took a new era when rock- hoppers started to be used by which gave them the opportunity fish any where apart from wrecks, this was the road to where all we here is global warming seals even anglers have been blamed for taking fish of the wrecks what aload of bull, that is the only place where fish have anywhere to hide even that isnt allways the case, sometimes the doors on the trawl are banged into wrecks to frighten the fish out, the matter of the fact is trawling has in some places nearlly wiped cod out this practise has to stop if depra dont stop it ,it will without doubt stop itself i have seen at first hand seen what trawlers do ,destoy the ground for starters and eventually wipe the fishing out for averybody long lining shold be encouraged but oh no they get punnished for what the trawlers have done i have lived in fishing town all my life and seen just what has gone on over the years, what really gets me is that they just dont get it they wont take any blame its other factors, its crap and they onlyhavethemselves to blame, what gives them the right to destroy it for everybody, down here onthe east coast the decommisioning took place giving fishermen thousands of pounds for something they got for nothing but what happened in most casesthey got rid of the junk and bought bigger and better boats, they say there is less effort what a load of ******** the boats they are using now are far more equiped than the boats they got rid off some how it does nt make sence

[Leon Roskilly]

Winter,

 

This meeting was of the Marine Environment Working Group of the Sustainable Fisheries Programme (see http://www.defra.gov.uk/fish/sea/sfp/ )

 

There are a number of such stakeholder Working Groups.

 

With a large number of stakeholders wanting to be represented at these meetings, DEFRA decided that Sea Angling Representation would be restricted to the NFSA (I was attending as a representative of the NFSA Conservation Group, and will be reporting back to them).

 

This was the last meeting (of two) before the government response to the 'Net Benefits' report will be published in April (possibly delayed to after the election).

 

The Agenda of this working group covered:

 

- Marine Protected Areas

 

- Environmental Impact Assessments

(It's common for any new programmes or projects that are likely to impact the environment to be subject to an Impact Assessment under EU legislation - we have been looking at ways to apply this to innovations in fisheries and new fisheries)

 

- Environmental Incentives

 

(If fishermen are prepared to adopt measures that (say) reduce bycatch, damage the environment less etc, they can be offered incentives. At the moment, it's those who don't care that get advantage and perhaps stay in business whilst more concerned fishermen go to the wall. We want to redress the balance in favour of those who are prepared to take on 'stewardship' responsibilities)

 

- Update on planned Marine Bill

 

Those who attended the last meeting (largely the same as this one) were:

 

Lindsay Harris – Chair (Defra)

Euan Dunn (RSPB)

Martin Capstick (Defra)

John Harman (SFIA)

Steven Lockwood (WAG nominee)

Barry Deas (NFFO)

Fiona Gowland (SFF)

Leon Roskilly (SACN)

Sylvie Peplowski (WWF)

David Donnan (Scottish Natural Heritage)

Elinor Mitchell (SEERAD)

Peter Winterbottom (ASFC)

Paddy Campbell (DARDNI)

Angus Radford (SFI)

Anthony Hynes (Defra)

Cliff Morrison (FDF)

Peter Hunt (SAGB)

Joe Horwood (CEFAS)

Steve Holbook (WAG)

Rob Ashley (Defra/Boyden)

James Gordon (Defra/Deloitte)

Apologies:

Tony Hawkins (North Sea Commission)

 

Following representations to DEFRA from 'angling', Steve Colclough attended this meeting as a representative of the Environment Agency.

 

If you want copies of documents, minutes etc I suggest that you email annabel.stockwin@defra.gsi.gov.uk

 

Tight Lines - leon

 

ps Didn't get me legs broken!

 

[ 18. February 2005, 09:53 AM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

[Jaffa]

Rockhoppers did for the grounds and fleet here too, that and the fact they removed the 3 mile limit at the same time!!

 

Where were the goverment agency and rule makers stepping in to ban rockhoppers ? No where. Would have been easy to enforce to; you can't hide a set of rockhoppers.

 

They did not all get them at once. It was one Arbroath boat started, others were still happy with the seine net, but once it got going every skipper either switched to the hoppers or pair trawl or they would have gone under.

 

No one in DAFS even realised rockhoppers were significant and even if they had there was no mechanism for them to do anything about it.

 

When the next big leap in gear comes it will be 5 years before the goverment catch on again and again it will be too late.

 

[ 18. February 2005, 09:54 AM: Message edited by: Jaffa ]

[Leon Roskilly]

Jaffa:

When the next big leap in gear comes it will be 5 years before the goverment catch on again and again it will be too late.

Such innovations may be subject to an Environmental Impact Assesment in future, one of the recommendations of the Net Benefits report.

 

These have been used by other industries, but it is not clear how they would be applied to advances in fishing gear, as changes tend to come about and spread as a series of small innovations.

 

Tight Lines - leon