The following, which will appear in next weeks Fishing News, is probably the best letter that it has ever been my pleasure to see sent into the paper: GANGING UP ON FISHERMEN Dear Editor, The heading above is because fishermen are too busy working their nuts off trying to earn a living to have time to defend themselves. Much damage is being caused to the fishing industry by conservationists who are self proclaimed ‘experts’. Some of these ‘experts’ are very good at manipulating the media who love them, and publish every dubious, or in some cases, completely false, stories given to the press. I say ‘false’ because many of their assumptions and calls for fishing bans or stops, or catch restrictions are based on ICES advised quotas, which are often pure guesswork, conservationists treat that guesswork figure as gospel in their campaigns and castigate ‘wicked commercial fishermen’ when it is they (the conservationists) who should be prosecuted because their so-called evidence would not stand up in court. Some time ago I purchased a copy of The Times and was drawn to the heading “Stop Buying British Cod”. This report was totally, factually inaccurate and featured a large unregistered Eastern Bloc or Taiwanese stern trawler fishing illegally. I rang the Times, incensed by their jounalism, only to be told that their environmental correspondent was new and had only just started. Further calls drew a blank and there was, of course, no retraction, so that mud stuck. That article probably resonated with their readers, who did not know any better and, as a result, did not purchase cod caught by British fishermen on British markets. Junk news, headline grabbing, articles which are strictly non-factual are extremely damaging to this industry and need to be counter acted by legal action, enforced retraction of the offending article, and damages. The Marine Conservation Society, Greenpeace, the Blue Marine Foundation and others base all of their recommendations on hypothetical arithmetic – the same as ICES does on species quotas. There is, as a result of this, huge unfair discrimination against British commercial fishermen who only have a very small percentage of what is left of the “imaginary pile” of paper fish on the EU table, within British limits. And, as these groups ‘gang up’ and prepare to bully the European Union, our share will disappear. This is the scenario developing behind a suggestion that “sea bass must be kept for anglers”. Bloody cheek! Commercial registered vessel fishermen, operating as food suppliers, and being subjected to the relentless cutting of the previously mentioned ‘guesswork’ should not be controlled by Greenpeace, the Marine Conservation Society, Times Newspapers, other media groups or the Blue Marine Foundation, who are currently representing specific interest groups (i.e. anglers) against what has now become, or perhaps always were, the ‘natural enemy’, due to the commercial nature of fish catching, the commercial fisherman. Leisure fishermen are being pitched against commercial fishermen to reduce their existing quotas. There has always been a strong argument that vagaries of tide, wind, and frequent weather changes make stocks of fish virtually impossible to predict. Famine and feast have co-existed around the coastal fisheries of our islands since forever, often without any logical explanation. Put a ban, or huge restriction, on certain species and they will appear everywhere, and then they will have to be discarded! Professor Callum Roberts, another “expert” from the Blue Foundation, states: “Switching the bass fishery to hook and line fishing only, recreational fishing, would make excellent economic sense. It would eliminate most of the environmental impacts associated with the commercial net and trawl fisheries, including prevention of damage to sensitive near shore bottom habitats and by-catches of dolphins and porpoises.” This professor of marine biology has obviously not heard of the sand and aggregate dredgers that remove millions of tonnes of fish habitats permanently from the seabed, annually. Nor has he heard of the effects of electric bean trawling upon estuarial Dover sole stocks, and the fracturing of other species’ back bones as a by-catch, or by kill, from this electric beaming. The group this professor represents are using selective methods to discriminate. Their argument is recreational angler specific, accompanied by ‘loaded economics’ that require scrutiny, in favour of the fishing industry. How dare they try and interfere with a flawed system that has seen almost all quotas cut to the bone year after year leaving commercial fishermen with almost nothing to work on. British fishermen could feed the nation, or at least part thereof, a fact always historically overlooked by politicians until times of war, or perhaps when discussing leaving the European Union. If the latter happens, UK territorial fishing limits need to be extended. If the public were accurately informed by an industry fight-back, they might be less inclined to donate to the causes which have become out-of-control ‘monsters’, practicing a type of anarchy by imposing their views upon a general public without consultation, disregarding criticism from scientists (on the causes of climate change), and being given an easy ride on law-breaking from the judiciary. It’s about time politicians did something for us for a change and not just empty promises – guarantees of legislation changes is what is needed. A personal view from Mr M.W. Jackson Snr, Ex-trawler skipper / ex-marine group leader
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 16:23:49 +0000
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