The Scottish Fishing Crisis
Today the Scottish Fishing fleet and the Coastal communities
that depend heavily on fishing are facing a very uncertain future.
Two years ago we warned the people of Scotland that this crisis
was fast approaching and the message was largely ignored. Now
with our local communities facing financial disaster on a vast
scale, we must set aside party political differences and work
together to find a long term solution.
The problem has come about through gross mismanagement of
the Fish stocks by the European Union. Political maneuvering and
one-upmanship has taken the place of reason and logic. People’s
livelihoods are being jeopardized to satisfy narrow political
points by various European Politicians notably those from France
and the Iberian Peninsula. Large scale agricultural interests
are dictating events not the Fishermen of Europe.
We cannot claim that this crisis has come upon us suddenly.
These extracts from newspapers over the past two years bear eloquent
testimony as to the numerous warnings that the Industry has received.
From the Aberdeen Press and Journal 6th January 2001.
‘Hour of need’ for fishing industry
Bob Kennedy
The Government must change its attitude towards the
fishing industry if the industry is to survive, SNP fisheries
spokesman Richard Lochhead said yesterday.
In his new-year message to the industry, Mr Lochhead
said that the extent to which the Government is willing to change
its attitude towards fishing communities in 2001 will determine
the shape of the industry for decades to come.
And the North-east MSP warned that if the Government
does not deliver significant emergency financial aid, thousands
of jobs in the fragile rural communities may be lost.
Mr Lochhead added: "Following last month's poor
quota deal, 2001 is set to be yet another turbulent year for the
fishing industry and only a willingness on the part of the Government
to change its attitude towards our fishing communities, will ensure
that the industry survives and prospers.
"For decades under Tory and Labour governments,
the industry's pleas have fell on deaf ears and our fishing communities
have seen their interests relegated by Tory and Labour politicians
who have concentrated their attention and their resources on other
priorities.
"The Scottish Parliament has been good for our
fishing communities but the Scottish Executive has continued the
Westminster tradition of failing the Scottish industry.
"Now it is time for Government ministers to finally
recognise that if appropriate assistance is not given to our coastal
communities, thousands of jobs in the catching and processing
sectors will disappear in a very short period of time. There is
no use Labour ministers burying their heads in the sand and pretending
there is no such risk.
"Scotland needs more than just the usual warm
words from fisheries ministers. We need the Labour Government
to demonstrate a commitment to the fishing industry by announcing
an emergency package of financial and conservation measures comprising
new cash and innovative technical conservation measures. We need
more than just task forces and talking shops.
"Regeneration of fish stocks must be the number
one priority for the industry and the Government for 2001. This
will come at a price and the Government will have to help foot
the bill otherwise our rural communities will suffer enormous
job losses.
"This is the industry's hour of need and the Government
must at long last put its money where its mouth is and deliver
for our fishing communities.
"2001 is also the brainstorming year for the reform
of the Common Fisheries Policy and the Government will have to
fight tooth and nail to ensure that a pro-Scottish CFP emerges
at the end of 2002."
End of Article.
Now this is what I wrote on the Internet on the 6th January
2001:
The E.U. has already given the U.K. Government a 'Take it
or Leave it' deadline to accept the new quota's by JANUARY 17th!
(Bully Boy tactics as usual). What is not said that large areas
of English Waters where Cod spawn and are regularly caught are
exempt from quotas, I wonder why? Is this an E.U. stitch-up favouring
the French and the Spaniards? Has some murky deal been done by
the U.K. Government which as usual has thrown our Fishermen and
processors to the wolves?
The U.K. Government will NOT fight our corner because there
are no Votes in it. How many Fishing Ports and Villages support
Labour? they are almost without exception S.N.P. Strongholds,
Labour has nothing to lose! Time to wake up and face reality,
it's long overdue, but the S.N.P. MUST Fight our Corner in this
fight, and NOT leave it to the E.U. The E.U. C.F.P. has been an
unmitigated disaster, they have no idea how to manage a fisheries
policy, they are manipulated by the Danish, French and Spanish
Fisheries Ministers to their exclusive benefit, aided by an indifferent
far away British Government eager to use Fisheries as a bargaining
chip to gain further advantages for ENGLISH INTERESTS. It makes
it imperative that an Independent Scotland, gets out and stays
out of the E.U. Takes FULL CONTROL of our Fisheries once more
for the benefit of our Fishing Communities.
Power over the North Sea lies far, far away in Brussels.
Rhona Brankin, the Minister responsible for Scottish fisheries,
can grace delegations to Europe with her presence but her contribution
is negligible. Perhaps this explains why she accepted reduced
cod quotas without also securing a deal which would protect the
immature haddock stocks that are far more important to the Scottish
fleet.
Brankin is only a junior minister - even though Peterhead
and Fraserburgh are the most important white fish ports in Europe.
Her UK counterpart is also out with cabinet. Neither Holyrood
nor Westminster cares much about our hunters of the deep. Recently
released documents revealed that the Foreign Office regarded fishermen
as "expendable" back in 1971. (See the Article:
‘The Great Betrayal’ on the Clannasaor website.) Our waters were
to be opened up to other European member states - a sacrifice
which would, it was argued, be outweighed by the wider economic
benefits of membership.
It is interesting to look at how fisheries have fared in
countries which did not join the European Union. The Faroese automatically
close grounds where immature fish are caught and test them each
month until they are considered "safe". The Norwegians
- unlike the EU - do not allow their boats to discard immature
fish; they deduct the catch from their quota.
The common fisheries policy (CFP) means we do not have the
flexibility or independence to adopt such sensible measures. The
CFP is being reviewed and the United Kingdom Parliament says it
wants more local autonomy in the management of stocks. But countries
like Spain - which will be President of the EU when the final
decision is taken in 2002 - are most likely to object. The SNP
have the unrealistic and mistaken belief, as many in other parties
have, that only a stronger Scottish voice in Europe will help.
In the case of the fishermen, any such unlikely reform will come
far too late to be effective.
Extract from the “Sunday Telegraph” 27th May 2001)
British Fishing Will Be Wiped Out In A Decade
By Christopher Booker
At last the European Commission has begun to reveal
the masterstroke whereby, in two years' time, it can turn all
the fishing waters round the coasts of western Europe into "a
single European sea". And as some have long feared, this
will deal a deathblow to what remains of Britain's fishing industry.
The plan, recently disclosed by Commissioner Franz Fischler in
Strasbourg, is to abolish the present national quota system and
to allow fishing permits to be bought and sold across national
boundaries.
This will finally allow the vast, massively subsidised
Spanish fishing fleet to buy its way into that "equal access"
to the North Sea and other northern waters to which it is entitled
under the treaties. In recent years the Spanish fleet has received
EU subsidies worth nearly £2 billion (including £230 million from
British taxpayers); and with further state aid on the way, it
will be in a strong position to buy out all those struggling,
unsubsidised British, Danish and German fishermen who have been
so relentlessly hamstrung by Brussels regulations.
For 10 more years, UK fishermen will be allowed a "derogation"
to continue to fish within 12 miles of Britain's shoreline. After
that, all waters up to the beaches will become "a common
European resource". The only boats then allowed to fish will
be those with enough support from subsidies to compete for permits.
Almost the only boats left round our coasts will be Spanish, French,
Belgian and Dutch.
Thus we shall see the end of the story which began
30 years ago, when Edward Heath agreed to hand over the richest
fishing waters in the world as a necessary sacrifice to realise
his dream of taking us into that Common Market which, he said,
would involve "no loss of essential sovereignty”
*****************************
From the house journal of the FAL.
Call to slash fish quotas
My Association is not taken by surprise at whatever
measures, however ruthless the Commission may introduce for the
achievement of the European ideal i.e. the political integration
of the new nation called "Europe". We have been warning
for years that anyone who studies the treaties is bound to come
to the conclusion that the British fishing industry has to be
wiped out, to make way for the introduction throughout all EU
waters of the principle of "equal access" for all EU
fishermen after 2002.
Deceit is the well tried weapon of the Commission,
and of successive British governments. It has brought them remarkable
results up to the present in many fields. The Brussels bureaucracy
have cleverly engineered this crisis in the fishing industry.
They calculated that British fishermen should be led towards the
establishment of a single European Union fishing fleet, on a non-discriminatory
basis, with no increase in fishing effort, without ever knowing
what was happening.
They believed that this could best be accomplished
by successive steps, each cunningly camouflaged to emphasize the
need for conservation (which they thought would appeal to everyone)
but which when taken together would inevitably and irreversibly
lead to the annihilation of the British fleet. To bring all this
about, fish stocks had to be substantially reduced if at all possible,
and what better way to achieve this than to engineer the destruction
of the food supply.
So they have deliberately encouraged and allowed the
wholesale slaughter of the sand-eel biomass in the North Sea,
the staple diet for most species of fish in those waters. The
sand-eel stock has now almost collapsed, in spite of which a TAC
of over a million tons a year continues to be set, while industrial
fishermen are unable to catch 50% of it. Further drastic cuts
in quotas while at the same time making demands on our fishermen
to dump thousands of tons of prime quality fish all dead back
into the sea, a practice which they have been forced to adhere
to for years, has nothing to do with conservation.
It has a far more sinister objective than that. It
is much more likely part of a deliberate policy of inducing British
fishermen to be the unwitting agents of their own extermination.
So that when the incredible recuperative capability of marine
nature again reasserts itself in the North Sea, and fish stocks
recover, there will be very little inconvenient British fishermen
to mar the creation of a single European Union fleet fishing under
the principle of non-discrimination as "Brussels" so
obviously intends.
Thomas Hay
Chairman FAL
*************************
From the Sunday Post. July 8th 2001.
Spanish armada threat to trawlers
Exclusive By Adam Docherty
A Huge Spanish armada is to be given the go-ahead to
invade Scotland's fishing waters in a move that threatens to wipe
out the hard-pressed industry here. The European Union is to vote
to allow the mighty Spanish fishing fleet to plunder the waters
off the Scottish coast they'd previously been banned from. The
12 and six-mile limits around our coastline, which have offered
some degree of protection to the battered British fleet, are likely
to be ripped up.
The effect would be devastating for UK fishermen who
are already being hammered by strict quotas that have forced them
into a hand-to-mouth existence.
The Spanish, who have Europe's biggest fishing fleet,
have strong allies in the Greeks, Italians, Portuguese and French
who support the EU's intentions to ease fishing limits. Scots
MEPs admit they have a major fight on their hands to have any
chance of stopping the Spaniards and saving the industry.
Rich pickings
UK fishing stocks make up nearly two thirds of all
the fishing resources in the entire EU and the Spanish, as well
as the Portuguese, Dutch, Danes and Finns, have long wanted to
get their hands on such rich pickings. Scots MEP Struan Stevenson
says the Spanish are planning nothing less than full and equal
access to the North Sea. "At a recent meeting to discuss
proposals on reform of the Common Fisheries Policy, Spanish representatives
stood up, one after another, to say they would not support the
continuation of the six and 12-mile fishing limits". Mr Stevenson
said. "Clearly we have a fight on our hands.
Commissioner Franz Fischler recently told a special
meeting of the Fisheries Committee that he wanted to see alternative
methods for distributing total allowable catches and quotas".
"If this was the case, the most powerful fishing fleets would
drive out small operators by the score. "Where does that
leave fishing communities of Shetland, the Western Isles, the
North-East or Pittenweem? "They would be wiped out by the
wholesale commercialisation of allowable catches and quotas. "We
did not join the CFP to see our fishing industry decimated and
our fishermen impoverished - yet that is exactly what has happened."
Sadly, the once proud Scottish fleet which landed 400,000
tonnes of cod in 1970 is now limited by strict controls and quotas
to a mere 20,000 tonnes. The fleet has been decimated and many
fishermen are living on the poverty line.
*********************************
This is what I wrote on the 9th July 2001
This tells us nothing much that is new, but certainly reinforces
the message to the SNP. I hope someone in the SNP with
some guts will print out copies of this Sunday Post
article and put them down in front of Swinney and his useless
quango in the NEC. E.U. policy is destroying TENS
of THOUSANDS of SCOTTISH FISHERMEN'S and FISHWORKERS
JOBS! Can't the SNP see that this is all a DONE
DEAL with Phoney Blur and the New Labourtory party in London wringing
some quid pro quo out of Europe, something that will benefit only
the City of London and CERTAINLY NOT SCOTLAND!
In Fraserburgh, Peterhead, Gamrie, MacDuff, Buckie and other
small communities, ordinary families are looking utter
disaster in the face! I have never seen or felt such
anger before, do you want to know why? I was seeing a Client this
Morning. Sunday Morning when he should be out on the
links playing Golf or reading the sunday paper, no
he comes out to me with his books for my opinion and I have to
tell him that the Fish processing business he has built up for
27 years of hard work and risk, is BANKRUPT!
On Monday morning he will be issuing 12 P45's to his staff
and then we will go to his bank together to arrange
the sale of his Business premises, machinery and his
comfortable home to clear his overdraft and debts. He is NOT going
to crawl to Alex Salmond, because he knows Alex cannot
do a thing, as the SNP do not have the power to change
a broken lightbulb in the corridors of Brussels! My Client is
NOT ALONE! I know of at least TWENTY firms which are teetering
on the brink of DISASTER in Fraserburgh alone! Our
Fishing communities have got to face the hard and unpalatable
fact that 50 to 60% of their working population are facing LONG
TERM UNEMPLOYMENT? Because that is what you will have in two
years time if the Scottish People don't act now to
gain our Independence and get out of the EU straitjacket.
Today Thursday 14th November 2002, what is the situation?
Many of my Clients are Fishermen and farmers, along with
various tradesmen such as Joiners, Painters, Electricians,
Marine Engineers, Refrigeration Engineers, Plumbers,
Net Manufacturers, Management companies handling fish sales, Market
porters, Port workers, Shopkeepers who supply the boats, and the
like. Most of them depend on the fishing in one way
or the other. I know them and their families personally,
they are good friends and in the village where I live I have noticed
the gradual contraction of the numbers who have lost
their jobs in the trades associated with fishing, Light
engineering, Ships painters, Fish processors and there
are yet many more on short time struggling to make ends meet to
pay their mortgages and feed their families.
The present situation is extremely serious, whenever a boat
ties up for the last time, not only do the crew of
5 or 6 lose their livelihoods but another 18 to 22 more
lose their jobs ashore. It is not really noticeable statistically,
but like the ‘death of a thousand cuts’ real hardship
is slowly encroaching onto our communities. A review
of Fishermens Tax returns reveals that earnings have dropped to
around 47% of what they were five years ago without
taking inflation into account! The profitability of
Firms connected with the Fishing Industry has seen a similar decline.
Our fishermen are now suffering their worst crisis ever.
Back in 1970, our once proud Scottish fleet was landing
around 400,000 tonnes of cod a year in Scottish ports.
In 2002, following the recent savage cuts in TACs (Total
Allowable Catches) and quotas, Scottish
boats will only be allowed to land 20,000 tonnes this year. By
Comparison, The Huge Danish Industrial fishing fleet (Largely
owned by huge Agricultural Interests) which catches,
sprats, Sandeels and pout (to make agricultural fertiliser
or animal feedstuffs with,) most usually to fatten up pigs in
near total darkness in narrow steel cages which do not allow the
animal to move. (This is totally outlawed in Britain
as being unnaturally cruel causing the animals to suffer.)
Their total allowable by catch of Cod is 35,000 Tonnes. This is
UTTER MADNESS!
Since Britain signed up to the EU in 1971, Scotland has lost
over 2000 vessels from our fleet and many tens of thousands
of jobs have been destroyed round our coastline, both
at sea and on land. The Scottish Fishermen have fully co-operated
in making net meshes larger only to see the Spanish and French
use meshes two thirds smaller! The core objectives
of the Common Fisheries Policy - to protect the livelihood
of fishermen and to sustain fish stocks have failed utterly and
abysmally. Ill considered and unscientific policies imposed by
politically motivated desk bound bureaucrats and Commissars
in Brussels have ensured the rundown of, and eventual
ruin of our fishing Industry which in turn will destroy the unique
culture and way of life of our small communities which depend
on fishing.
The quota system, which forbids the landing of fish for which
a skipper has no licence, has led to the dumping
of over 2 million tonnes of healthy prime quality
fish each year in the EU. 25% of all the fish caught in the EU
are simply dumped dead over the side, back into the
sea, because skippers would face draconian penalties
if they tried to land them. This catastrophic waste, at a
time when fish stocks have fallen to unsustainable levels, beggars
belief. Now the Spanish, with their huge, modernised
fleet of 18,000 trawlers, much of it paid for by British
taxpayers, are agitating to abolish our 6 and 12 mile limits and
rape our fish stocks right up to our shoreline.
The E.U. Fisheries Commission under extreme political pressure
from the Danes have actually increased the TAC for
the Danish industrial fishing fleet to 1,000,000 (One
Million) Tonnes, Three years ago it was 600,000 tonnes with a
by catch ofwhite fish of some 50,000 Tonnes! To allow
such an increase when it is a well known fact that
Sandeels are a staple part of the diet of Cod, Hake and haddock
is beyond logical comprehension. Had they thought of consulting
the University of Aberdeen’s Torry research station,
they would have found the following statistics available.
The research vessel Scotia examined the stomach contents of
Cod and found that Sandeels were present in 100% of cod in
the 3rd quarter in 1985, 97% 1st quarter in 1986, 65%
and 75% in 1st and 3rd quarters in 1987.
In addition Puffins on May Island in the Firth of Forth and
Hermaness head in Shetland depend in Sandeels to feed
their young. Overfishing round the ‘Wee bankie’ in
the Forth estuary and off Shetland has drastically reduced the
numbers of puffins and it is estimated that mortality
amongst the puffin chicks due to starvation, has in
some years exceeded 90%. Why has the TAC been increased
when sandeel stocks have plummeted to an all time low? The only
answer seems to be some arcane Political agenda.
Even the S.N.P. are finally starting to wake up to the disaster.
Speaking at an RSPB Seminar on reform of the Common
Fisheries Policy, Shadow Fisheries Minister and North
East SNP MSP, Richard Lochhead, said that a twin challenge lay
ahead for management of fisheries.
Mr Lochhead said:
"Through the reform of CFP there will be two challenges
that Scottish fishermen will want to see addressed.
Firstly, restoration of stocks to sustainable levels, and
secondly, ensuring that the Scottish fleet retain their historic
rights and will be large enough to take advantage of
healthier stock levels in the years to come.
"On the one hand we must tackle industrial fishing
and discards and on the other ensure relative stability
is not compromised in any shape or form.
"Ideas being promoted by some MEPs like one flag
for all EU vessels or the introduction of individual
transferable quotas must never see the light of day.
"It's good to see a common agenda springing up
between fishermen and environmentalists. It is important
that we recognise that healthy seas can mean healthy
stocks, and that can mean a healthy and viable fishing industry
in Scotland.
"It is crucial that this agenda is not wrecked
by the national interests of other EU members as CFP
reform makes its way into legislation. Everyone who is interested
in a sustainable future for the Scottish fishing fleet must stand
together to ensure that we achieve the best deal possible."
Thank you Richard for at last waking up to the realities
of life as faced by our fisherfolk and the processors
on shore. The political realities indicate that Prime
Minister Blair has other Fish to fry, something he is very good
at! Has a secret underhand deal been done over Gibraltar?
Or as is more likely he is in line for the post of
President of the United States of Europe. Blair
will NOT wish to rock the boat to the detriment of
his personal ambition! Alex Salmond did his level best
to pin Blair down at Prime Ministers Questions, but Blair is more
slippery than an eel. If Scottish Fishermen are looking
for help from that quarter, then hell will freeze over
first.
Get the UK Parliament to put pressure on Brussels to reform
the CFP? Not a chance! Unfortunately the CFP is incapable
of being reformed to something acceptable to Scottish
Fishermen.
As this recent report from the Daily Telegraph of the
2nd August 2002 Shows:
Earlier this summer the director-general in charge
of fisheries, Steffen Smidt, was summarily fired on
orders of the Spanish government as a punishment for trying
to save Europe's declining stocks from catastrophic over-fishing,
much of it by Spanish vessels. The move was a breach
of EU treaty law. But what most irked Euro-MPs was
the way that the commission hierarchy tried to cover up the deed
by presenting it as part of long-term reshuffle
Richard you would be better employed spending some time to
persuade your party that Being in the EU is not an
option for our Fishermen and Farmers! The SNP’s ‘Independence
in Europe’ policy is deeply flawed and highly dangerous, especially
as moves are afoot to create ‘The United States of Europe.’ Quote
from the French Newspaper ‘Le Mondé’
Idea of “European president” gains ground
Support for the idea of having a “European president”
is now strong. Debate seems to be centred now mainly
on who it should be – Tony Blair and José-Maria Aznár
are among the candidates. It seems that this question is now being
discussed by the European Convention which Valéry Giscard d’Estaing
chairs. It now seems that the Germans are coming round
to the Franco-British idea of having a president. (Chirac
wants Europe also to have a “foreign minister” and
both London and France are moving towards supporting a sort of
“European security council” too, i.e. a militarised
EU.) The Germans seem to be merely seeking assurances
that the Commission will not be excessively weakened by the
creation of a new presidency: some French members of the Convention
want the president to be in charge of the Council as
well as the Commission. [Henri de Bresson & Daniel
Vernet, Le Monde, 14th October 2002]
Large vested Industrial and political interests will ensure
that any reform is to the benefit of the southern EU
members alone. The E.U. are still not tackling the
endemic pollution of the North Sea from the Rivers Elbe. Weser,
Rhine and Waal. This must be tackled before it is too
late to take remedial steps, much discussion is taking
place, yet nothing concrete is being done. Each year hundreds
of thousands of tonnes of toxic heavy metals continue
to devastate the bottom living sea life of the North
Sea, forcing the dwindling bottom rung of the sea life chain,
ever forward towards eventual extinction.
Another great problem facing our Fishermen is the burgeoning
Seal population. Many years ago, Seals were regularly
harvested for the Pelts and Meat. The meat usually
ended up in cans of pet food. However this practice has ceased
due to ill thought out Wild animal protection legislation.
Along with the decreasing numbers of Orcas (Killer
Whales) which prey on seals, their population has increased
threefold in the past 20 years. Seals now catch and eat more fish
than the entire Scottish fleet. Clannasaor propose
that an Independent Scotland revert to the previous
practice of harvesting seals to keep their numbers to an acceptable
limit.
Clannasaor take the view that Fishermens Livelihoods are
just as important as conserving Seals and the balance
of nature MUST be restored.
The only logical answer is for Scotland to go it alone,
outside the E.U. As an Independent, neutral country
controlling it’s own Fishing policy and fleet with
a strong Coastguard presence.
A Strong INDEPENDENT Scotland can enforce strict Fishing
discipline amongst the unprincipled pillagers of
fish stocks. Clannasaor propose that draconian penalties
be levied on all such pillagers with a range of penalties such
as Confiscation of Boats and gear, Long Prison terms
for the Captain and mates of the boat concerned and
extremely heavy fines levied on the Companies owning the
boats. Any Boat caught fishing in Scottish waters without a licence
will face charges of piracy on the high seas and the
Directors of the Company or Boat’s owners will face
extradition on the same charges.
In the interim the Scottish Fishermen will have no
other recourse but to do as the Spanish and French
fleets do: Force foreign owned fishing vessels to leave
their traditional fishing grounds. They do it all the
time to the Cornish and Devon line boats, so why not take a
leaf out of the Iberian pirates own rulebook and run them off
our fishing grounds?
This will cause a great stushie, especially with the
Westminster mandarins. The SNP could take a lead in
Holyrood and Westminster by demanding that Britain
withdraws from the EU! That would shake the birdies
out of the tree. The French, The Italians and the Spanish
use such tactics all the time to get their own way like petulant
little brats. Why not emulate them? If we do not take
drastic action, there will be no Scottish fishing Fleet
and within a few years there will be no fish either!
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