There has been a lot of codswallop said during the course of the EU Referendum campaign and some of it has focused on the Common Fisheries Policy. So on the eve of Nigel Farage leading a pro-Brexit flotilla up the Thames, (see here) I am delighted to welcome a guest blog from Dr Euan Dunn MBE, Principal Marine Advisor for the RSPB. Euan has huge experience of understanding and influencing the interactions between fisheries and marine birds, nationally and internationally. So, when it comes to assessing the implications of the the EU Referendum for fisheries and the marine environment, Euan is well placed to help us separate fish-fact from fish-fiction.
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The sight of a flotilla of UK vessels sailing up the Thames to highlight fishermen’s support for leaving the EU and its Common Fisheries Policy may stir the hearts of a nation with a visceral attachment to the sea and to the British staple of fish and chips. On the face of it, there’s a simple logic to repatriating our fishing waters and unhitching ourselves from a Brussels-crafted policy described by the House of Lords European Union Committee in 2008 as having, ‘one of the most dismal reputations of any EU policy’.
But much has changed since the Lords’ recommendations for making the CFP fit for purpose. With its 2013 reform (spearheaded by the UK), the CFP is heading in the right direction and our hard-working fishermen are benefiting, along with those of other Member States. After decades of overfishing, North Sea cod is recovering strongly and the majority of assessed North Atlantic stocks are now considered to be sustainably fished.
Fishing boats off the Isle of Skye waiting for the outcome of the EU Referendum? (Credit, Euan Dunn)
The new CFP also made an unprecedented shift away from regarding our waters as just a factory floor for the fishing industry, towards managing them as a marine ecosystem. The obligation to lighten the environmental footprint of commercial fishing, such as tackling the needless bycatch of seabirds in fishing gears, has been written into statute.
But, if the EU marine cake is looking healthier, many UK fishermen still crave a bigger slice ie a larger quota of fish. The UK’s current share is the result of a settlement dating back to the dawn of the CFP in 1983. And in fact we came out of it pretty well with some 30% of the EU’s total catch, even though we only have 13% of the total EU sea area. This quota is then divided between the big offshore operators and the small-scale inshore boats, with the latter rightly crying foul that they get too little, but this inequality is purely in the gift of the UK Government to remedy, and has nothing whatsoever to do with Brussels.
So the fundamental question arises: would UK fishermen be better off if we left the EU and ring-fenced our own waters? Part of the answer lies in the fallacy of ‘ring-fence’. As is often said, fish have no passports, crossing borders with impunity. The western mackerel stock undertakes a formidable migration from the Iberian peninsula to the arctic, while herring, cod and other species are also highly mobile ‘straddling stocks’. So it’s fanciful to think that UK waters, unlike an isolated outpost like Iceland, translate into bespoke UK fish that we can herd for our own use. To enjoy the access we have to fish today, a UK outside of the EU would have to negotiate bilateral access agreements with a host of Member States as hard-headed as we are about securing a, let’s say, "squid pro quo". And the time taken to broker this would create major uncertainty for the industry and its market. The tortuous agreement the EU negotiates annually with Norway would have to be replicated by the UK with all its fishing neighbours.
Moreover, a scenario of UK waters for UK fishing vessels poses an immense challenge of policing our fishing limits, this at a time when our enforcement agency, the Marine Management Organisation (MMO), has suffered swingeing budget cuts (see here). We would have to aspire to Norway which invests heavily in its fisheries control and penalises malpractice heavily, so much so that our skippers fish warily in its waters. Norway, like Iceland, is also part of the European Economic Area (EEA) which a post-Brexit UK would have to seek to re-join (if the rest of the EU agreed). This just piles the pressure on our fishing industry which exports 45% of its catch, four-fifths of which goes to EU countries.
Commercial fishing is a dangerous trade; working the sea calls for a special kind of commitment. In many ways, our fishermen have been the victims of decades of mismanagement but the multi-national waters they ply are showing healthy signs of recovery under an ambitious new CFP. As the flotilla steers a course up the Thames, its crews might well reflect that arguably greater hidden dangers lurk in the stormy waters they are supposedly leaving, were they to cast adrift from their EU shipmates.
Thanks all.
Here is a detailed response to Robbo's questions from Euan...
All excellent and appropriate questions.
As to your first, if UK consumers are eating less whitefish than a decade ago, part of the reason is that they responded to marketing encouragement to eat a wider variety (mackerel, pollock, monkfish etc).
All the same, according to SeaFish in 2015 while salmon remained the most popular, cod had moved up to second place, pushing tuna down to third.
I agree that we are importing far more whitefish from elsewhere, notably cod from Iceland and the Barents Sea, but this is surely because we have been unable to match domestic demand with supply from EU waters – the ongoing recovery of our own cod stock (at least in the North Sea) should help redress that balance.
I see the point that you were leading up to – that whitefish imports (at least) might have relieved pressure on domestic stocks, leading some to attribute the recent cod recovery to an improved EU fishery policy.
For all its faults, I think in fact measures taken in recent years under the CFP have contributed to the recovery – fleet reduction, more-precautionary reference points, long term management plans, more-selective gears (especially mesh sizes). As a result, fishing mortality of North Sea demersal stocks has declined such that all are now exploited at levels which are at or near those consistent with producing Maximum Sustainable Yield. North Sea fishermen and their leaders themselves contributed significantly to this sea change through, notably, the Scottish Conservation Credits Scheme. Benefits like growing eligibility for MSC certification and promotion through sign-up to SeaFish’s Responsible Fishing Scheme have also built on this shift.
As to your question about what national policing of our own waters would no longer happen were the UK to leave the EU, while we can’t know where the pinch points might be, the issue as I see it is more the resourcing challenge of how the MMO squares up to enforcing a more exclusive ‘Exclusive Economic Zone’.
I agree with you that we need to hold to account the cost of airmiles (CO2 emissions) and environmental sustainability issues associated with importing aquaculture product from overseas – so the more we can be self-sustaining in wild seafood the better and my case is that the CFP is finally moving in the right direction to help us do that.
I’m sure the UK will continue to export product but there’s no denying that leaving the EU would create market uncertainty for UK producers and processors in a highly dynamic industry.
Finally you query why the RSPB as bird conservation charity makes no mention of sandeels. It was a tempting issue to address but space was limited and it is less of an issue for UK fishermen. However, it’s a good example of how things have improved under the CFP. The RSPB has been working to improve the management of the North Sea sandeel fishery for twenty years. When we started it failed on nearly every criterion to meet a precautionary approach to fisheries management (according to two eminent Danish fisheries biologists at the time). Since then, under the CFP, we now have a 20,000km2 closed area off the east coast of Scotland to protect sandeel-dependent seabird colonies, the North Sea sandeel stock is now managed as separate units instead of a blanket North Sea TAC that formerly exceeded 1 million tonnes, and the annual fishing effort in each unit is based on monitoring the strength of incoming recruitment. We still have issues with the Dogger Bank sandeel fishery but overall it’s a fishery that’s moved much closer to the ecosystem-based management mandated by the 2013 CFP reform.
Whatever happens on June 23, the RSPB will continue to advocate for sustainable fisheries for the benefits of fishing communities and the wider marine environment.
An excellent blog. Do the fisherman taking part in this demonstration really think that in the long term, leaving the EU will really lead to much more healthy seas with higher fish stocks, because this must surely be the long term prime objective of everyone. The vision of each EU country trying to grab as much as it can from the sea without proper regulation is a potential nightmare. Although it requires a lot of patience, surely the only way to ensure a high standard of environmental quality for our seas in the long term is to work in cooperation with our EU partners by remaining within the EU.
redkite
Really interesting and informative blog, Euan. Sadly, the reaction of many fishermen seems to be the same as Leave generally - heaping all the ills of the world, many with their real home in Westminster, onto the EU. Alex points out a key recommendation of the Natural Capital Committee - that by easing back and allowing stocks to recover we could return to the much higher, sustainable catches of the past, an easy and economic way of increasing food production AND benefitting the environment and the fishing industry. The rewards of Brexit will be a poison challis, taking the breaks off catch levels and risking finishing off this great industry - and the marine environment - for ever.
Since the 1800s the UK has struggled and failed on its own to control the greed of fishermen, my family included. It is only since the EU took charge that there has been a slow recovery, but it is by no means over. We have the potential to increase the total catch each year by a great deal if we continue to pay at least some attention to what our scientists say. We need to lessen the impact of bottom trawling which has not yet been tackled properly. If we end up with Brexit it will set the recovery back many years after the new people in government allow free rein to the fishermen.