Last year I wrote an article entitled “Eating our fish stocks into oblivion”. The main point of this article was that the increasingly indiscriminate fishing going on around the world was seriously straining the sustainability of the whole marine eco-system and threatening the fortunes of the fishing industry. In a nutshell, the effects of population growth and its demands, and the seemingly endless technological practices employed in catching fish, will eventually catch up with us with unsurprisingly disagreeable consequences.

Throughout the last 30 years or so, international agreements between different nations have sought to stem these out-of-control fishing practices with varying degrees of success. While most European and North American nations tend to abide by stricter rules, the situation with rogue nations like Japan and Iceland continues to undermine the efforts for a long-term fishing industry and a sustainable marine life. Bans and quotas have come and gone. Up to last year, a concerted effort had been made to give some respite to the Blue fin Tuna species that has in recent years been under continuous attack with the rise of tuna ranching.

One regulation that for years has been under endless criticism from both environmental lobbies and the fishing industry itself is the ban and eventual practice of fish ‘discards.’ Discarding takes place when fishermen catch fish they cannot sell, either because they do not have a quota or because they are too young and small to be legally landed. They also discard fish to ‘upgrade’ their catch, i.e. to replace part of their catch so that it becomes more valuable. Most fish are already dead or dying when they are discarded and in 2005 the Food and Agriculture Organisation estimated the amount of discards in the North Atlantic at 1,332,000 tonnes per year. The estimates for the North Sea ranged from 500,000 to 880,000 tonnes. Some EU fisheries discard up to 90 per cent of their catch. Scotland’s fishermen alone are estimated to have thrown away perfectly edible fish to the tune of £40 million worth only last year.

A controversial book and eventual documentary, The End of the Line by Charles Clover, has stimulated European public debate about the fishing industry’s unsustainable practices and the often contradictory legislation that is wreaking havoc on the world’s prized fish stocks. This was followed by a concerted effort called the ‘Fish Fight campaign’ fronted by chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and backed by celebrities such as fellow chef Jamie Olivier, Sir Richard Branson, Stephen Fry and Jeremy Paxman. The campaign managed to raise 650,000 signatories to a letter that asks that Europe’s fishing policies be reviewed as soon as possible, especially the practice of fish dumping known as “bycatch”.

This has raised the attention of EU Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki, who this week is presenting a proposal to ban the practice of discards. Damanaki has the backing of British, Danish, German, French and Belgian Ministers but there is some question as to how the ‘Mediterranean’ lobby such as Spain, Italy and – to some extent – Malta will react.

In a sense, this practice is the perverse consequence of the regulations regarding the quota system. Part of the blame must inevitably lie with the fishermen. EU fishermen regularly exploit the lack of an outright ban on discarding in the EU to dump unwanted fish. Moreover, current EU rules only account for landed fish and not caught fish, aggravating the problem of discarding.

What is being proposed is that since discarding fish will become illegal, this should promote more attention from fishermen when operating at sea and discontinue the absurd practice of wasting such a resource. This would give more credence to quota swapping and better enforcement, hopefully leading to a more diverse market. This, of course, is the thorny side of the issue. Although technology for monitoring fishing is improving in leaps and bounds, it is still by and large difficult (if not impossible) to know just what is happening at sea. The current interpretation of the quota system means it is illegal to land the discarded fish, which means that we actually only have estimates of what is being caught.

It is crucial that fishermen understand that a fundamental shift in mentality is necessary if this common property is to be sustainable to be enjoyed not only today but by future generations. All fishermen must understand that this is not a threat to their livelihoods. Effective and true monitoring must be seen to be done equally and efficiently in all countries if we wish to create a level and fair playing field and hence make fishing a continuing prosperous industry for tomorrow.

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