By 2050, changes within the U.K. fishing industry will have made seafood a sustainable option for meeting the nation’s protein demands. Healthy oceans will have been achieved alongside improvements in the economic sustainability and wellbeing of fishing communities.
Furthermore, consumers will trust the integrity and sustainability of U.K. seafood supply networks and aim to buy British products, pay fair prices for those products and embrace new species as they become available.
These predictions were made by Stephen Simpson, a senior lecturer in the Biosciences Department of Exeter University, at the 2nd Buckland Fisheries Colloquium. Titled “Securing the Supply of Food from Marine Fisheries,” the colloquium was held at Fishmongers’ Hall in London earlier this year.
Simpson has spent the last few years as a NERC (National Environment Research Council) Knowledge Exchange Fellow.
A crucial component of his work was a project called Fisheries 2050, which brought together all sectors involved in fisheries to imagine what the U.K. fishing industry could be like in 2050.
The project considered that the United Kingdom has the opportunity to be a global leader in reforming its fisheries. Existing law and policy could be applied sensitively and adaptively in order to recover many commercially important fish stocks.
More U.K. fisheries could therefore become sustainable and productive than in 2014, when these predictions were being formulated, giving fishermen a better standard of living.
The project envisioned three distinct forms of fish production and markets within U.K. fisheries:
- Inshore fisheries which were artisanal, using static gear, with short supply chains, valued coastal communities and highly informed consumers.
- Offshore fisheries which employ “high-tech, stealth vessels” that would be sustainable due to new fishing technologies. Supply businesses would buy in bulk and produce highly processed products.
- And lastly a growing aquaculture segment which would lead to “mass protein production, plus the niche production of high-value species.” More molluscs and crustaceans would be grown, and herbivorous fish such as sea bream and mullet could be farmed.
Based on workshop discussions, Simpson painted a potentially rosy vision of the future U.K. fisheries industry. For example, fishing businesses would become more stable due to fair prices, lower market volatility and cooperative business models.
Well-educated fishermen would become more attentive to the markets in which they operate. “Management framework and technologies allow them to be responsive to real-time communication with buyers and consumers,” he predicted, “in order to deliver a quality, fairly priced product in an internationally competitive market.”
All consumption will be of sustainable, traceable fish, whether originating in the United Kingdom or imported. Some consumers will have embraced and celebrated seasonality and diversity of U.K. fisheries, he added, increasingly choosing to “Buy British.”
“These changes, from suppliers to consumers, will make the U.K. fishing industry more resilient to the changes that have come about as a result of climate change. As we face more environmental uncertainty beyond 2050, we are confident that U.K. fisheries will not only continue to contribute to the food supply, they will also retain many social, economic, health and cultural benefits.”
The warming of the seas around the United Kingdom was one of the major themes running through the colloquium and Simpson also included this in his presentation. “There has been a 250 percent increase in warm-loving fish found in the North East Atlantic Ocean during the last 20 years,” he said. “At the same time there has been a 50 percent decline in cold-loving species.”
This has led to shifts in distributions of some species. Cold-loving fish such as cod and haddock have declined or moved northwards, while warm-loving species such as red mullet, horse mackerel, and sardine have moved into British waters or increased in abundance there.
The seas around the British Isles have therefore remained productive despite the change in species. This has coincided with a decline in fishing mortality on traditional species due to fishery management measures.
New fishing opportunities are therefore emerging, Simpson said, which could promote corresponding adaptations or reorganization of fishing patterns, and marketing and consumer preferences.
