Others responses

Disclaimer : The views expressed in this report are those of the stakeholders that were interviewed and in no way represent the views of the research institutes, the national authorities or the European Commission.

Commonalities

We might not have expected commonalities in unsolicited ideas, but the most obvious common theme was steadfast opposition to the LO. There were also strong feelings that it would not deliver its objectives, particularly in actually reducing discards or ecosystem benefits. It was also clear that many fishermen had limited understanding of the workings, purpose and implementation of the LO. There was also considerable antipathy expressed towards scientific advice, particularly from Irish, Danish and Azores fishermen. They clearly feel that the information fed into the assessment and hence advice does not represent the situation that they see on the fishing grounds. Several identified this as likely due to the lag in the data (surveys, landings, etc) being plugged into the assessments and then the final TACs and quotas being set. This lack of credibility in the system to deliver its stated objectives and, what are probably seen as inappropriate management measures, e.g. restrictive quotas and the landing obligation are clearly undermining any support for the process by most of the fishermen interviewed.

Specific Issues

Information sharing

Information sharing between fishermen was a principle area of disagreement. Several fishermen thought that sharing information on areas where they had identified hot spots of under MCRS fish or choke species would be useful. However others thought that they would only support this within small groups where trust would be high. Discussions with one fishermen suggested that an approach would be to start such an approach with a small and coherent group of fishermen. This could be mediated through the co-op or PO systems. It could start with
Trust

Many of the measures that encountered resistance in the interviews have also been suggested to us in other fora by other fishermen, e.g. RTC, spawning or nursery closures (e.g. seasonal), and also information sharing. Closures in particular represent constraints on their fishing opportunities, so they may be unable to fish at times and places they would like to. It is possible that they do not trust the authorities to manage these in even-handed and sensitive way. In particular that the closures would go on longer or cover wider areas than initially envisaged. However, some seasonal closures have been proposed by industry, such as the Celtic Sea cod box. Ideas like information sharing are seen as requiring trust in other fishermen, where local and detailed knowledge is seen as commercially important, and trusting competitors is difficult.

By clicking on the orange bullet you will get Fishermen interviews. Material is based on WP4.1 Delivrable

Citation :

Fiche Others responses, Author(s) : Dave Reid


DiscardLess Atlas [on line]. 2017. Reid et al., 2017. DiscardLess Deliverable D4.1: Initial avoidance manuals by case study including tactical, strategic and gear based approaches agreed by scientists and fishers. http://www.discardless.eu/fishermen_story