Stock sustainability placed firmly at the core of new fisheries management deal

The reformed Common Fisheries Policy brokered in the latter stages of Ireland’s presidency of the EU will steer a course for fisheries management for the next ten years.

The policy is being heralded as ‘practical and implementable’, based on the principle of sustainability and will see an end to overfishing of most stocks by 2015 and all stocks by 2020.

Central to the reform package is the introduction of a discard ban which has been the clarion call of the general public and celebrity personalities in their demand that the practice of dumping huge quantities of fish at sea must end.

Reaching agreement on implementation among the 27 Member States was never going to be easy and was acknowledged by marine minister, Simon Coveney, in January when the final negotiations began in earnest. He was determined that the package, which also had to satisfy the EU Parliament, Commission and Council of Fisheries Ministers, would be finalised by the end of June.

Full credit must be given to Minister Coveney and his negotiating team for brokering a very complex fisheries policy. While the package must go before the Committee of Permanent Representatives for final approval and is not expected to be challenged, the practicality of implementing the discard ban is not going to be easy.

Roadmap to saving stocks

To achieve stock sustainability, technical conservation measures already practiced on some stocks will enforced generally to protect undersized fish being caught. Small fish however are the preferred diet of many Mediterranean nations and are demanded on the local market. Will Member States whose fisherman land scores of small fish from picture-postcard coloured boats into tiny villages be able to bring about this radical change?

Will simply imposing a ban and making it illegal to sell undersize fish work ‘on the ground’ or create a black market to meet the demand for a product that has been enjoyed since fish were first taken from the sea?

There is also the question of safety. Will fishermen be put under further pressure of fatigue as all fish will have to be sorted, boxed and landed, and will they be penalised for landing fish for which they have no quota?

This issue of landing all fish however is being addressed through a system termed ‘flexibilities’ which allows a fisherman to land a small percentage (for example in a mixed fishery) for which he doesn’t have quota. But these fish will be deducted from the target species allowance for which he does have quota.

It is without doubt that the reformed Common Fisheries Policy, which has been welcomed generally by Ireland’s fishermen’s organisations, is a radical action to finally protect stocks and ultimately fishing communities, both of which were facing extinction in many corners of this island and beyond.