Saturday, 19th June 2010
The Dutchman who’s doing his best to save our fish suppers
(Published in The Scotsman, 19 June 2010)
Unless it’s been overtaken by that famous Glaswegian delicacy, chicken tikka masala, I think I’m right in saying that the fish supper remains Scotland’s favourite convenience food.
The question is: for how much longer?
A recent study by the University of York and the Marine Conservation Society estimated that stocks of fish which live near the sea bed such as haddock, halibut and plaice have declined by an incredible 94% since the 1880s, while cod stocks have dropped by 87%.
Anyone who’s been a loyal patron of their local chippie over the years will have noticed the effect this growing scarcity has had on prices.
Unsurprisingly, the principal cause for this shocking slide has been identified as over-fishing – something that the EU’s strict quotas, forced on our hard-pressed Scottish fishermen every year, are supposed to address.
The system is far from perfect. It encourages the whole-scale dumping of vast quantities of perfectly good but over-quota fish, dead, back into the ocean. It would be far better to move to a Norwegian-style scheme, whereby fishermen had to land everything they caught on their allocated days at sea, to end this horrific waste.
But of course, any system to regulate catches so that our fish stocks recover can only work with proper enforcement.
When I first joined the European Parliament’s Fisheries Committee in 1999, there was a mythology throughout the fishing nations of the EU was that they were being singled out for extra harsh treatment by over-zealous inspectors while their neighbours were getting away with murder.
It was clear to us that the only way to resolve the problem and ensure a level-playing field was to create an EU-wide fisheries inspectorate.
So, back in 2002, when I was President of the Fisheries Committee, we floated the idea of a Community Fisheries Control Agency (CFCA) which could pool all the resources of fisheries inspectors from every coastal member state.
It took until 2005 to set up the CFCA with its headquarters in Vigo, northern Spain, under the leadership of senior Dutch official Harm Koster. Mr Koster now has a team of around 60 staff and a budget of £7 million.
Visiting the CFCA, as I did last week, is like stepping into a modern high-tech war room at the Pentagon. Teams of skilled officials, from all across the EU sit in front of banks of computers on which the movement of virtually every EU fishing vessel in sensitive fish breeding grounds can be monitored.
Aircraft and helicopters, as well as large fishery protection vessels, are in direct contact with the Vigo command centre, ready to swoop on any illegal boat or anyone suspected of breaking the rules. Miscreants can find themselves under arrest and facing hefty fines or even imprisonment.
With 80% of European fish stocks overexploited, Mr Koster assured us that fishermen fully understood the gravity of the situation and were generally happy to comply with inspections.
Of course, with European waters now a tightly controlled zone, the temptation is for those who don’t want to play by the rules to go elsewhere. European trawlers are now travelling as far as West Africa to fish, well out of the CFCA’s reach.
Back in Vigo, Mr Koster is confident that with double his budget, the CFCA could extend its scope beyond Europe to ensure European fishermen aren’t exploiting these areas to exhaustion. In the current climate of cutbacks, however, that dream may have to wait.
In the meantime, we have to hope that the CFCA’s work in Europe itself pays dividends. I for one don’t want to witness the extinction of the fish supper!
