Scottish Government
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Positive response to fish dumping campaign
Scotland's determination to radically reduce the amount of fish dumped in Europe's seas has received a positive response in Brussels.
Returning from the Belgian capital where the latest EU Fisheries Council took place, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment Richard Lochhead said:
"The scandal of dumped fish has shot up the agenda in Scotland since we held our Discards Summit last week and revealed that £40 million worth of marketable fish is being thrown back into the North Sea every year. There has been disbelief, frustration and anger at this monumental waste.
"Now I have been able to raise the issue in Europe too and there was broad support from the EU Commission and others who now see the importance of this matter. Any solution to this economic and environmental madness must involve Europe but the Scottish Government, backed by fishermen, conservationists and scientists, is ready to help find the right solution.
"The dumping of fish is a direct result of regulations in the discredited Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). We must find the right solutions for our fleet, securing a sustainable and profitable future for it. There are tough negotiations ahead on the future of the CFP and the EU's cod recovery plan, which we need to ensure takes account of the lead Scottish fishermen are taking in Europe to conserve fish stocks through our innovative real-time closures and conservation credits.
"I believe we can come up with a solution which benefits everyone - fishermen, the environment, consumers. Scotland once again stands ready to show the way forward in Europe."
Mr Lochhead hosted a Discards Summit last Thursday (September 25) to look at ways of radically reducing the dumping of marketable fish. Around 60 fishermen, fisheries managers, scientists, conservationists and policy-makers, including representatives came together at the event.
The Scottish Government is making the issue of discards a key part of this year's autumn negotiations on fish stocks and quotas. In Brussels today and yesterday, Mr Lochhead was able to raise the issue within the EU. There will be further talks in the run-up to the Fisheries Council in December, where decisions on quotas are made for 2009, and Mr Lochhead will also meet European Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg when he visits Scotland in mid-October. He will also meet Norway's Deputy Fisheries Minister, Vidar Ulriksen, in Edinburgh tomorrow. Norway already has a discards ban in place for some stocks.
There are a number of reasons why fishermen currently have to discard large amounts of marketable fish, particularly North Sea cod. One important reason is the mismatch between the EU quota available for North Sea cod and the increased abundance of the stock, particularly the abundance of marketable fish (ie fish above the minimum landing size). North Sea cod quotas are at historically very low levels and, despite last year's modest increase this is not keeping pace with the increase in the abundance of the stock.
The Scottish Government believes that discards can be radically reduced. Potential solutions include: making fishing nets more selective so that only fish above the minimum landing sizes are caught; closing areas of the sea on a temporary basis where high abundances of certain species are found as has been happening under Scotland's innovative voluntary real-time closures scheme; restricting the number of days which a boat is allowed to spend at sea.
Scotland has already shown a strong lead in identifying and adopting innovative conservation measures at sea. It introduced this year a voluntary real-time closures scheme, which sees fishermen avoiding areas where there is a high aggregation of cod, and secured historic agreement at last December's Fisheries Council to run its own Conservation Credits scheme, which give boats more days at sea for taking part in conservation measures.
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