Thursday, 19th August 2010
We must repel ‘Viking raiders’ to protect our fishing fleet
(An abridged version of the this article was published in The Scotsman on August 19, 2010)
A thousand years ago, bloodthirsty Viking warriors plied the high seas around the Scottish coast on their ravenous quest for plunder and booty. Sadly, it seems history is repeating itself. Today, their modern descendants are intent on robbing Scotland of one of our most precious marine resources – our mackerel fishery.
Iceland and the Faroe Islands – the two tiny Nordic nations we rarely encounter aside from the odd international football match or volcanic eruption – have unilaterally moved to grab the lion’s share of this year’s mackerel catch for themselves, with total disregard for their neighbours. These modern-day ‘Viking raiders’ have massively increased their quotas against scientific advice and in breach of international agreements, threatening not just the health of fish stocks but of Scotland’s entire fishing industry.
This act has been rightly branded as “piracy” by the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation and roundly condemned by everyone from Scotland’s fisheries secretary Richard Lochhead to Maria Damanaki, the European Fisheries Commissioner. The dispute has also brought back painful memories of the infamous Cod War of the 1970s, when Britain and Iceland clashed over the latter’s decision to extend hugely its home fishing waters.
It’s perhaps no surprise that the anger felt so widely among Scottish fishermen has recently bubbled over into ‘wildcat’ blockades of vessels from Iceland and the Faroes, most recently on Tuesday, when 50 enraged trawlermen in Peterhead used their vehicles to prevent a Faroese boat from offloading its mackerel cargo onto the quayside.
Mrs Damanaki has described Iceland and the Faroes’ actions as “anarchic” and slammed the two island nations for their “unreasonable” behaviour. Her strident language reflects the fact that Iceland, in particular, is in a weak bargaining position. Following the collapse of its fragile, banking-led economy, the once proudly independent state of just 320,000 people has come running to the European Union cap in hand, begging to be let into the club and gain access to its lucrative crutch funding for ailing nations.
Unlike many fish species, mackerel stocks in Europe have remained healthy over the past decade, largely due to good management by fishermen themselves and a quota agreement between the EU, Norway, and the Faroe Islands. So amid a general weakening of our fishing sector, the Scottish pelagic fleet – which catches mainly herring and mackerel – has been something of a success story. Mackerel landings alone are now worth a staggering £135 million per year to the Scottish economy – roughly one third of the country’s entire catch value.
But the increases demanded by Iceland and Faroe – to 130,000 and 85,000 tonnes respectively - threaten to undo years of conservation and sustainable fishing. If all of the counties involved catch their expected quotas, 772,000 tons of mackerel will be caught this year, 35 percent more than recommended by the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas, the scientists who advise the EU.
Needless to say, this could cause immense damage to mackerel stocks in the North Sea and send Scotland’s pelagic fleet into a spiral of decline, marking the final nail in the coffin for a Scottish fishing sector that has already suffered so much.
What can the EU do in the face of such provocation?
In my view, if Iceland and the Faroes press ahead with their illegal catch targets we should suspend our current fisheries agreement with them, introduce a ban on all seafood products, close our ports to their vessels and make this issue a 'make or break' item in Iceland's EU-accession talks. Maybe then they will realise that we are deadly serious about this and will not allow them to plunder our fish stocks.
Britain may have lost the Cod War, but we have learned the lessons and will not lose the Mackerel War.
