MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
EU fishing fleet: balance between capacity and fishing opportunities still distant
The European Commission's annual report on the European fishing fleet shows some progress towards achieving a balance between capacity and available fishing opportunities. However more remains to be done to ensure that stocks are managed in accordance with the objective of Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) and the Commission considers that there is still a need for active fleet capacity adjustment measures by Member States in order to achieve this. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesAs the UK has downsized it's fleet off it's own bat and then got hit by EU's fisheries policies which decimated them even more, it's time the Spanish took the major share of decommissioning.
May 01st, 2014 - 12:32 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The local vessels involved in the Clyde area are small with crews of 4/5 and land their catches at Troon-the only viable port left.
I can remember in my town,about 40 years ago, a healthy fishing industry with a market and dozens of vessels engaged in the inshore Clyde area.
Now the fishing market has closed and yuppy flats have been built on the site. There are only two ports left with about 20 vessels involved, covering a coastline of 90 miles.
Off the Scottish West Atlantic coasts there appear to be Armadas of large Spanish fishing vessels hoovering up everything they can catch.
As far as I know, they are frozen and landed back in Spain...no benefit to the UK economy.
We would be better following the Iceland/Faroes model.
Do they really need 76,000.
May 01st, 2014 - 12:46 pm - Link - Report abuse 0we should withdraw and tell the Spanish to fish elsewhere.
How did it get this bad for the UK fleet?
May 01st, 2014 - 03:01 pm - Link - Report abuse 0According to the European Cetacean Bycatch Campaign, Spain operates 17,500 fishing vessels. This is nearly as many as Greek boats. But the Greek boats are much smaller. But, by comparison, the UK only has 8,016 vessels. In terms of population, Spain (46,704,314) is much smaller than the UK (63,705,000) and therefore has no need for large catches or large numbers of vessels. Spain's fleet should be cut by around 50%. To 8,750. The spanish are thieves!
May 01st, 2014 - 03:47 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Who do you feel is responsible for downsizing the fishing fleet?
May 01st, 2014 - 06:32 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Our fleet- our government and corrupt EU greed,
May 01st, 2014 - 06:44 pm - Link - Report abuse 0could wrong through..
When the Icelanders increased their economic boundaries it was the effective death knell of our distant water fleet. Grimsby, Fleetwood and Gt. Yarmouth closed as viable fishing ports within a few years.
May 01st, 2014 - 10:24 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It was also realised that fish stocks around the UK could not be sustained by new scientific advances such as echo location and purse nets. Fish could now be located accurately and whole shoals pulled out the water.
It was obvious to most that this could not be sustained forever.
The UK decided to limit catches and decommission vessels.
When we joined the EU we lost control of our own waters-they were now EU waters and had to be shared with the other EU members and with countries who had “historical rights”
The Thatcher govt. had no interest in fishing as it was not in their voting heartland so they bargained away our rights for other concessions.
In discussions with other EU countries, they gave away more than any other country diminishing the UK fleet even more.
When the EU woke up to the problem of over fishing, they introduced quotas.
Although the UK had taken action to reduce their fleet, the EU Fisheries Commission took no account of this when they cut back on catches , so the UK was doubly penalised. Our useless government did not fight our corner. Before Spain joined the EU they had been buying up UK boats and keeping the UK registrations so they could effectively get rights to fishing in UK waters. When they joined the EU, they were given a proportion of the fishing catch in relation to their fleet - in addition to what they were getting from their UK registered vessels. As they had overfished their own waters, most of the remaining fish were off the west of Scotland where schemes had been put in place to protect the stock.
However, I think the EU has twigged at last and MAY be doing something about it. Denmark takes thousands of tons of sandeels, which are the main food of cod and mackerel to use as pig food. A ridiculous situation
It was Ted Heath who sold Britains fishing industry down the river not Mrs Thatcher. It's true that she didn't do much to put matters right and ban all Spanish fishing vessels from UK territorial waters but by then the damage was done. Tory party lost a number of seats to liberals in South West partially due to fishing policy although liberals are no better and probably worse.
May 02nd, 2014 - 06:30 am - Link - Report abuse 0So would you want to get out of the EU then?
May 03rd, 2014 - 03:50 am - Link - Report abuse 0Yep
May 03rd, 2014 - 07:38 pm - Link - Report abuse 0A.S.A,P.
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