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« Reply #3 on: March 23, 2007, 04:00:28 PM » |
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Hi Glenn,
I also share your doubts wrt the transparency of the minister, he clearly speaks with a forked tongue. However, like it or not, cod is firmly on the radar, although, I think that this will be EU led and not DEFRA, they will simply be the enforcers.
With regard to which one gets us first, I don't think the RSA strategy is that important, licences and bag limits were always going to be management tools once DEFRA had looked at the way other countries managed their inshore fisheries. A significant driver for this originated at EU level and as with commercial fishing and EU wide regulation, there was a perceived need to include and consolidate regulation of RSA across the European Union, especially with the influx of new eastern European member states (Poland etc.)
To my mind the RSA strategy is nothing more than a first notice of intent, it is the marine bill that is of principal concern and the potential legislation to over-manage an activity that is in dire need of fresh input, in terms of new ideas and means to enhance the sea angling opportunities.
The research is as yet unpublished, and related to me by word of mouth (I possibly shouldn't have referred to it). The countries involved certainly have large fleets, the Dutch fleet is probably bigger than ours, although comprises a different fleet segment (mainly beam trawling). Wrt your other points, I couldn't comment, although the Dutch are reknown as excellent fishermen. Yes they do have a lower TAC than the UK, they concentrate more on plaice and sole, they also do not have as much cod around their coast as we do, so to a certain extent you are correct in your asssumptions.
However, comparrison to member states TACs or quota's is not a like for like comparrison. What concerns me is that if (hypothetically speaking) we in the UK have the lions share of the cod TAC, due to its distribution and our historical track record, we have more anglers than these other individual EU states, sea angling effort is going to be proportionately higher. If we have more RSA effort, access to more cod for longer periods, then it stands to reason that our take will be on a similar scale to that of other countries who have less anglers and reduced availability of cod.
There is in the North Sea a missing stock component of around 40,000 tonnes, if the TAC is 23,000 tonnes, thats a sizeable unaccounted component, my point is that if RSA is responsible for 20% of that missing component, which equates to approx. 1/3 of the North Sea TAC, then we have a very difficult argument on our hands. Especially if WWF wins its case in the European courts. Of course this is all hypothetical but based on educated estimations, I know the general feeling is that anglers don't impact fish stocks, I think that is probably true and unless proven otherwise it is a position we shopuld defend rigorously, however, if proven otherwise, we may have to accept some restriction on stock conservation grounds. To continue to argue against would be folly and undermine any credibility we may have.
PS. if you think that this post is fuel, please don't hesitate to delete it.
Cheers
Doc.
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