Posted on 08/15/2003 5:00:57 PM PDT by Pokey78
Trawlermen in Cornwall and Devon are dumping dead and dying fish worth tens of millions of pounds because European conservation legislation is taking no account of particularly abundant cod and monkfish stocks this year.
The discarded fish pollutes the water and the seabed and robs crews of three quarters of their earnings while French fishermen are allowed to fill their nets with fish from West Country waters.
Fishermen say cod and monkfish are unusually abundant in south-west waters this year and they cannot help catching them every time they drop their nets. But whenever they lift their catch, they face the choice of a big penalty for landing over-quota fish or throwing dead fish back into the sea that would fetch a good price at market.
The abundance was confirmed last month by fisheries scientists working for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs after Cornish fishermen took them to see at first hand the unusually large stocks this year.
Nevertheless, quotas imposed by the European Commission prevent south-west fishermen landing more than 75kg of cod - less than 20 average fish - every month, while French boats in the same waters are allowed to catch 10 times as much.
Paul Trebilcock, the chief executive of the Cornish Fish Producers' Organisation, said: "We have been warning that setting low quotas will result in dumping. There are more fish this year than for five years and the discarding is getting out of hand.
"It is quite galling to see the French fishing a few boat lengths apart from our boys and taking it all home while we are having to dump it."
The monkfish quota was cut by 15 per cent in December as a precautionary measure by the EC. Cod quotas have been reduced by 20 per cent this year and 65 per cent over the past five years.
The South-West's 50 beam trawlers dump up to half a ton of monkfish on each of the 40 trips to sea they make a year. Over a year, some 600 tons are dumped, valued at £9 million on London fishmongers' slabs.
So far this year, West Country fishermen have dumped cod and monkfish worth more than £10 million at market and several times more in supermarkets or restaurants.
They are calling for quota extensions to take advantage of this year's bounty. Dumping fish as waste on the seabed is more damaging to stocks and marine ecosystems than allowing trawlers to fish freely.
"Having masses of fish dumped each day is proving how unresponsive and undynamic the EU Fisheries Commission is, unable to realise that each fish stock is a wild commodity," Mr Trebilcock said.
"EU calculations of stock sizes are based on imprecise data, Europe concluding that stocks are in trouble while open evidence from fishermen, as we have now proved to Defra fisheries scientists, says the opposite."
He said a better way of managing stocks would be to create a 60-square-mile closed area off the Cornish coast as a spawning area.
"It would cost some of our members a lot of money but it is better than quotas because it means no fishing at all in the area rather than discarding fish when you are over quota," he said.
Meanwhile, the crew of Ben Loyal, a Newlyn fishing boat, have shot a video of them throwing good fish into the sea and sent it to Ben Bradshaw, the fisheries minister, and Franz Fischler, the European Fisheries Commissioner, to protest at the pointless waste.
A Defra spokesman said Mr Bradshaw had written to south-west fishermen, confirming "that there does seem to be a greater abundance of monkfish than was predicted in last year's assessment".
His letter adds: "We are looking at the information to see whether there is a robust case for adjusting this year's quotas." However, a decision is not expected until next year.
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