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Alliance wants greater quotas for small boats

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By SeafoodSource staff
08 August, 2012 - Hundreds of small British fishing businesses are facing financial ruin, according to campaigners who are calling for radical reform of European fishing rules. They say their case revolves around one key statistic: that although small fishing boats account for 77 percent of the UK's fishing fleet and 65 percent of full-time employment in the industry, they are allowed access to only 4 percent of the fishing quota.

The result of this apparent imbalance, says a new alliance of environmental activists and fishermen, is that the viability of boats under 10 meters long — and thereby classed by the EU as “inshore” operators — is increasingly under threat. Big fishing interests not only dominate the industry, but are also threatening fish stocks. This, they say, threatens the existence of fishing communities that go back centuries.

In Hastings on the south coast, a fleet of 29 small fishing boats still operates from the beach known as the Stade, mainly catching cod, plaice and sole. The town's fishing industry is part of the south-east region, in which 339 small boats have access to a defined pool representing about 30 percent of the regional quota, while nine larger vessels control 70 percent.

Local fishermen say that until 2006, they were effectively left to fish as they saw fit, but the introduction of a European register of buyers and sellers in 2006 marked the arrival of a much more stringent regime.

Click here to read the full story from The Guardian >

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