SPEECH/04/125 Dr. Franz FISCHLER Member of the European Commission responsible for Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries Fast tracking the development of environmentally-friendly fishing methods Conference on environmentally-friendly fishing methods Dundalk, 11 and 12 March 2004
Ladies and Gentlemen, I welcome this timely Conference and would like to thank you, Dermot, for organising it. I am particularly pleased that it is held here in Dundalk, where Cuchullain, foster son of King Conor and one of the great heroes of Irish mythology, lived in a fortress up on the hill. One of the many stories about him goes that one day he stood before the Druids in the Hall of Heroes and exclaimed I care note whether I die tomorrow or next year, if only my deeds live after me. This leads me directly to an Irish proverb which goes: You ll never plough a field by turning it over only in your head. This fits for the topic that we re discussing today, namely how to fast track the development of environmentally friendly fishing methods, because here too not only intellectual conversation but action is what is needed. Making any economic activity environmentally friendly is, of coursein the interest of European society. It conjures up images of harmony between people taking what is necessary for them to make a living without harming nature, the provider. Fishermen need healthy fish stocks in a balanced environment. Any upset in this balance leads to the cycle of boom and bust, which is unsustainable in economic terms too. This is why any environmentally-friendly fishing method is, by essence, fishermen-friendly as it helps maintain the necessary environmental balance for their own future. For the past twenty years or so we tried to make fishing more environmentally friendly through a range of measures generally known as technical measures. But looking at the bad state of many stocks, it is clear that those technical measures are taken alone not the panacea for healthy stocks. In my speech today I will first look at what these technical measures are, what their potential is and their limits. In the second part of my speech I will outline the Commission s thinking on how we can fast track the development of environmentally friendly fishing methods with four concrete actions. Technical measures aim to control the fishing operation in terms of Who, how, what, where and when : that is which type of fishing vessel can use which gear to fish which species in which area and for how long. What technical measures do not cover is how much fish we remove from the sea. This means that technical measures are an adjunct to quota and fishing effort, not an alternative to them. They are an important cog in the conservation system, not an end in themselves. So far we have used technical measures to control various aspects of the exploitation patterns, such as reducing catches of juvenile fish or avoiding incidental catches of non-target species. Such measures include - Gear specifications such as mesh sizes, square mesh panels or other escape devices and sorting grids - Closed areas and seasons, - Bans on the use of certain fishing gears, - Or restrictions on the size composition and species composition of landings. Let me give you an example to show the potential of technical measures. Three years ago I had the opportunity to see for myself what benefits selective gear in Nephrops fisheries can bring. I was on a French 15 meter vessel in the Bay of Biscay. The skipper deployed two nets, a conventional one and one with square mesh panels. 2
I could see for myself that by using the one with square mesh panels the by-catch of undersized hake dropped to 25%, compared with the traditional net. This in turn led to better quality Nephrops as there was less crushing in the cod end and less time is spent by the crew sorting out the catch. Technical measures have also an important role to play in minimising the impact of fishing gear on the marine environment. Let us take the protection of marine mammals, for example. In order to protect small cetaceans, such as dolphins and porpoises, the Commission has proposed to phase out driftnets in the Baltic sea, to use acoustic devices on fixed nets. Our proposal also foresees to place observers on a number of vessels to gather data in a range of fisheries so that better knowledge will help finetune our measures in the future. Another issue related to marine mammals, which often takes a prominent place in the media, is whaling. The EU has always favoured a multilateral approach in tackling international issues. And, although the EU is not a member of the International Whaling Commission, I believe that recommendations adopted in such organisations, must be adhered to by all concerned. Other technical measures with potential are closed areas and seasons which are widely used both at EU and national levels. Examples include the closure of cod spawning grounds in the Baltic, the plaice box in the North Sea, closed areas in hake fisheries and marine protected areas in the Mediterranean. The objectives of these measures vary from protecting juveniles and/or spawners to minimising the impact of fishing on the seabed. Now I would like to turn to the limits of technical measures. The mixed nature of many fisheries makes the formulation of adequate technical measures difficult with only little impact. For example if you would like to improve the selectivity in roundfish fisheries and you set the mesh size in trawl fisheries so that you minimise the catch of juvenile cod, it will then automatically lead to a drastic reduction in catches of whiting and haddock. Another limit of technical measures is related to the implementation of gear specifications. Enforcing fisheries measures is notoriously limited, even if new monitoring technologies such as the satellite-based vessel monitoring system gradually make the task less difficult. Measures applyed to gear sizes, number of gears on board, and their uses, proves control much more elusive. Some fishermen use all sorts of devices to hamper the selectivity of technical measures when the gear is in the water. This makes it also clear that fishermen need to co-operate. It is a kind of paradox that the fishing industry generally presses for technical measures to be more widely used in fisheries management, instead of other measures. And fleets from the Baltic and the North Sea to the Celtic Sea and Bay of Biscay have taken part for a good number of years now in sea trials on selective fishing gears. Yet, evidence from inspections shows that implementation of technical measures is very poor throughout the EU. Well as Oscar Wilde said in his comedy: The importance of being earnest The truth is rarely pure and never simple. In fact the behaviour of the industry can be explained by the costs that the industry has to bear from technical measures related to gear. There is the cost of acquiring new gear, as well as the short term economic loss resulting from greater selectivity. Larger mesh sizes or including a square-mesh panel into a cod end, lead to the escape not only of non-targeted and juvenile fish, but inevitably of some marketable fish, too. Fishermen tend to resent and resist this additional short term cost. 3
This is why, technical measures reach their limits where the full co-operation of the fishermen are not assured. That is a challenge for the fishing industry as much as for fisheries managers. Things brings me to the second part of my speech: How can we tackle these obstacles and fast-track the development of environmentally-friendly fishing methods? As I already said, I see four different kinds of action: - First, we must improve our knowledge - Second, we should better organise our work - Third, it goes without including the stakeholders - Fourth, we need new incentives for the fishermen. First, improving our knowledge. Though a major effort has been made in the European Union in technical research over the past 10 years - the EU has contributed some 8 million a year for over 400 projects on increasing gear selectivity, reducing discards or quantifying the impact of fishing on the environment - we must improve our efforts. I see the following priorities: - We must better understand the dynamics in marine ecosystems, and how they react on the impact of human activities - We need low-impact, species-selective fishing gears that reduce undesired effects on non target species and marine habitats - We should introduce additional measures to strengthen gear selectivity and reduce discards at sea - and finally closed areas and marine protected areas should be examined as a means of protecting habitats and non-target species. Turning to my second fast track point - better organising or work - I believe that we must integrate technical measures more into our overall management approach. Technical measures cannot be seen in isolation but as an integrated part of a management system, together with the TAC and quota system and fishing effort management. We must abandon the ad-hoc approach that has prevailed until now, resulting in a number of technical measures about which nobody knows what they were supposed to tackle in the first place. As James Joyce said: Mistakes are the portals of discovery. This is why we must grasp the nettle and check whether technical measures - Are consistent with other management objectives? - How we can make them less complex and - wether they are enforceable? We must also check which technical measures should be applied at the EU level and which ones at the national or regional level. Recovery plans for stocks at risk of collapse or management plans for healthy stocks are ideal candidates for including technical measures, as such plans will increasingly be designed for specific fisheries in defined areas. 4
I suggest that we spend the next two years in cleaning up our existing set of technical measures, within the context of Council decisions on long-term management of fish stocks. This would also simplify our rules and make them more transparent. Ladies and Gentlemen, we need to better involve the stakeholders this my third action point - in devising, testing and implementing effective technical measures. We must assess together with the sector all technical measures and formulate new ones to ensure that the rules are clearly expressed in layman s terms and that any potential difficulty in implementation can be tackled from the roots. We are already moving in this direction. Decentralising the CFP management process one of the pillars of the CFP reform means also developing more selective fishing gears together with stakeholders and discussing the technicalities of the fishing sector in the forthcoming Regional Advisory Councils. My fourth and last fast track point concerns incentives to fishermen to help them to change their practices. Aid available under the FIFG helps to acquire selective fishing gear which is not required under EU rules. But we should go furhter. Fishermen deserve recognition when they decide to extensify. I know extensification does not fully fitt in fisheries because I have borrowed it from agriculture. But the question is: Should the change to a more environmentally friendly fishing activity be supported within the framework of the fisheries structural funds? Another aspect worth exploring is whether the users of more selective fishing gear could be rewarded through the allocation of some additional fishing opportunities. Ladies and Gentlemen To sum up, the EU fisheries sector has much to gain from the use of fishing methods that minimise the effects of fishing activities on the marine environment. We should therefore do everything we can to accelerate the adoption of environmentally-friendly fishing methods. From the Commission side we are ready to - we are ready to invest in scientific research for the years to come - we support a more integrated approach to fisheries management - we will better involve stakeholders in devising and implementing CFP measures And we are ready to speed up these activities. But we cannot do it on our own. We need the European fishing industry as our partners. They must invest in effective measures and they must share responsibility with fisheries managers for making these measures work. I know it is a challenge but I also hope that the industry is ready to accept this challenge. Thank you. I look forward to hearing your views and any alternative proposals you may wish to put forward in today s discussion. Thank you. 5