Here’s an interesting look at how to judge the lifespan of goods conservation work.
In 2002 the Tale Valley Trust (TVT) funded a three year river project delivery by Westcountry Rivers Trust (WRT). They provided expert advise and work on the ground for 25 farms in the Tale valley to help protect & enhance the river.
As part of my role, I’m revisiting these farms, 10 years later to see how well this good practice advice has been maintained.
Watch this space for the results!
04/012/12
Held an excellent lunch time presentation with the staff at DWT on eels, we looked and the lifestyle and challenges of this interesting fish as well as discussing the threats it faces as an endangered species.
Scott
Find out more about DWT’s River Otter Project
13/11/12
Attended the Rivers Trust’s autumn conference focused on the ‘Living north seas’. This is a European project dedicated to tackling the barriers to migration for fish. For those that don’t know migratory fish species like salmon and eels face numerous barriers travelling up and down our rivers, such as, weirs, pumping stations, hydropower schemes, tidal flood gates, etc. A fascinating couple of days!
Find out more about the conference
Scott
Find out more about DWT’s River Otter Project
Attend one of these events to find out more about DWT’s River Otter Project and the Water Framework Directive.
Thu 31 Jan
7.30-9.30pm
Kilmington
Illustrated talk by Scott West, DWT’s Water Policy Framework Delivery Officer and fisheries ecologist. Suggested donation £4. Meet at Kilmington Village Hall, near Axminster. Organised by East Devon DWT Local Group. For more information Christina Bows 01297 23822
Mon 11 Feb
7.30-9.30pm
Exmouth
Join this group for an illustrated talk about the River Otter by Scott West, DWT’s Water Framework Delivery Officer. Meeting to be held at the Bastin Hall, Elm Grove, Exmouth. Suggested donation £2.50 to include light refreshments. Organised by Exmouth & Bystock DWT Local Group. For more information Roger Hamling 01395 274766.
Find out more about DWT’s River Otter Project
Almost everyone will be familiar with the phrase sometimes offered as a consolation to someone who has failed to make a relationship work: ‘never mind, there are plenty more fish in the sea’. Only a maritime nation could come up with such a comparison; the idea of the fecundity of our seas is so ingrained in the national psyche that our Victorian forebears declined to put in place any fisheries management measures because they believed that our fisheries were, to all intents and purposes, inexhaustible.
We now know that such faith was badly misplaced. The figures from just one species –cod – tell the tale. It seems likely that, under pressure from fishing, stocks are now one tenth of what they once were. Much of that loss has been recent. The North Sea catch dropped from 287,000 tons in 1981 to 86,000 tons in 1991. The story for most fish is similar. Around 70% of the fish stocks in European waters are at present being overfished.
Fisheries management has been back on the agenda for some time and the main tool for that management is the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). Three aspects of the CFP above all others signal its failure. Best known of these is the now discredited practice of throwing back perfectly edible fish either because they were not the target species or because the boat catching them was over its quota. The intention behind the practice is good management, but it could only work if fish were returned alive and undamaged to the sea. Mostly they are dead; those that are alive have a low chance of survival.
Equally damaging but less well known is the process by which quota is set. The advice of fisheries scientists has, in the past, not been accepted as a given, but as a baseline from which the fisheries ministers of Europe can negotiate upwards, often declaring their increased share of an increased quota to be a triumph, when in truth it has been a disaster. Lastly, it is alarming that, having exploited our fisheries for so long, there should be so many – around 60% – for which we still do not have good scientific data. Throw in the fact that we still exploit many species without imposing a limit and you have the recipe for the disaster which has ensued. The current CFP runs until 2013 and it is already being reviewed. This constitutes what could well be a last opportunity to get it right.
Who could argue with a desire to move from overfishing to sustainable management of our fish stocks, working on the principle of ‘maximum sustainable yield’? The proposals recently put forward by EU Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki aim to do just that. They argue that ‘if stocks were exploited at maximum sustainable yield this would increase stock size by 70%. Overall catches would increase by 17%, profit margins could be multiplied by a factor of three times, return on investment would be six times higher, and the gross value added for the catching industry would rise by almost 90%’. One might (perhaps churlishly) point out that, when stocks have declined by 90%, aiming to less than double the remaining 10% is a modest target. Nevertheless, it would mean a lot more fish in the sea and a much more productive, sustainable and long term fishing industry. Everyone should be satisfied.
Getting agreement that the fishing of the future should be neither wasteful nor damaging and must maximise sustainable harvests is relatively easy, but achieving these deceptively simple goals will require a profound change in the way we manage and exploit our fisheries. The journey to this promised land has to go via a pretty bumpy road. All fish caught must be landed, even when they are less valuable in the market place, until we can find more selective ways of targeting individual species.
The overall catch must fall for a while until stocks can recover. Species for which no sound data exists will have to be exploited well within likely limits using the ‘precautionary principle’. Species for which there are currently no quotas ought to be embraced by the system, though that is not currently part of the proposals being put forward. Most challenging of all is the need to fish in ways which do not have negative impacts on other species (such as dolphins and diving seabirds) and on the range of different habitats where the fish we eat are born, live and grow before we catch them. And finally, we will have to stop pursuing our prey wherever they are found. There must be parts of our seas where all marine life can find sanctuary – which is the purpose of the network of Marine Protected Areas proposed in the Marine Act and currently being evolved.
It is a harsh but inescapable fact that this will impact on a generation of fishermen. Many of them recognise the dilemma, understanding the need for long term sustainability while at the same time worrying about the likely impact on their own livelihoods of achieving it. Society as a whole must respond to this. The change is for the good of the whole; we cannot expect one small part to bear all the cost. If we wish to reduce fishing effort and the size of our fishing fleet, then investing public money in buying out capacity has to be part of the strategy.
The plans outlined by Maria Damanaki are largely sound and to be applauded – but they are only plans. They have yet to be subjected to the pressures of human interest, from individual member States and from those on whom they will impact. Only broad public support of the kind so skilfully whipped up by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall will protect the plans. Everyone who cares about the future of our fisheries and our marine environment must make their voices heard. If we fail, a once in a lifetime opportunity will be lost and future generations will be left the poorer.
How often, over the past decade, have you heard the assertion that something needs to be ‘fit for the 21st century’? Two of the most recent candidates have been ‘a banking system’ and ‘a welfare state’, but there have been many others. It seems that, in all sorts of areas, we face challenges which we recognise as very different from what went before – the 20th century.
We can get a measure of the challenge we face by looking at the first decade of the 20th century – England under Edward VII, king from 1901 to 1910. If that decade had aspired to come up with a way of doing things ‘fit for the 20th century’, could they possibly have anticipated the demands which would be made on that system in the last decade of the century?
One thing is for sure – they weren’t agonising over putting in place an environmental management system fit for the 20th century. Their ambitions were for expansion and exploitation; in this they were remarkably successful. The concept of sustainability, an awareness of the limits of the Earth’s carrying capacity, even a concern for pollution did not shape their thinking. It took the whole of the century to catch up with those ideas.
Nowhere is that better illustrated than in the way we have managed our fisheries. Our seas are – or rather were – some of the most productive in the world. They have been fished for centuries, but the 20th century saw a change in capacity to exploit which could hardly have been dreamt of. From the introduction of the steam engine at the beginning to GIS at the end, fishing has become an increasingly sophisticated activity with an ever growing impact on the marine environment.
The litany of loss is a long one, from habitats damaged (there used to be a reef system at the mouth of the Exe, called the Exeters, for instance; there isn’t now) to species’ collapse (the North Sea herring) to near extinction (the common skate). It was no-one’s fault; the exploitation was urged on by and served the needs of society. During the same period of time, the land suffered a similar exploitation, with species rich natural habitats replaced by improved pasture, intensive arable and forestry plantation, monocultures all.
The challenge now is to put in place a fisheries management programme ‘fit for the 21st century’. And what a challenge it is! It is estimated that stocks of many species are one tenth of what they were 100 years ago. Then there are the problems of bycatch, of discards, of seabird declines for want of food, of damaging fishing methods. Not to mention attitudes to exploiting the sea which go back centuries and are hard to refashion.
So where to begin? As on land, the real need is to take the pressure off substantial areas so that wildlife can thrive as it once did. This won’t always mean excluding all activities; some fishing methods are not in themselves damaging (other than to populations of the target species, of course). But any effective network of marine protected areas will need some places where we take a hands off approach and let them be.
There is at last an emerging proposal to create such a network. It is being led in the South West by a project called ‘Finding Sanctuary’, which is getting close to making its recommendations. The fishermen are understandably nervous and have talked of fishing ‘ghost towns’ resulting if the ‘wrong’ decisions are made. They have also begun to distance themselves from Finding Sanctuary, even though they have been openly embraced by the project. Their anxiety reflects the gravity of the decisions which have to be made. This is a once in many lifetimes adjustment; it does not come without cost. Our generation stands to pay for the excesses of the past – what we are buying are Living Seas for future generations to fish sustainably.
Our use too must become more sustainable, which is why the newly formed Inshore Fishing and Conservation Authorities (IFCAs) have such a vital role to play. The Devon and Severn IFCA has not got off to a very promising start. Its role has been expanded to take in the very important habitats to be found in the Severn Estuary Special Area for Conservation (SAC). This has meant the involvement of several local authorities not part of the old Sea Fisheries Committee. Despite the fact that they will receive additional funding for the first four years to cover their contribution, despite the fact that the Authority is now as much about conservation as fisheries and despite the presence of the Severn Estuary SAC, some councillors have vowed not to play their part in the new body.
No doubt it will all settle down. We all benefit from a healthy and sustainable natural environment; it’s not instead of human services, it’s part of them. If we really can set up an ecologically coherent network of marine protected areas in the South West and the 4 IFCAs – Isles Of Scilly, Cornwall, Devon & Severn and Southern – oversee and legislate for sustainable use of resources, both inside and outside the network, then it is just possible they will look back in the 2190s and be grateful to this generation for setting up a marine management system ‘fit for the 21th century’.
