Government Response to Closure Petiton

[Paul D]

Petition for Closed Areas

 

 

The Government remains committed to the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) objectives of long-term sustainability of fish stocks and the marine environment. We aim to achieve this through the provision of a suitable balance between fleet capacity and available fishing opportunities and the better integration of environmental elements within the management of the CFP.

 

Under the right conditions closed areas are valuable tools for the preservation and enhancement of certain critical habitats. Many areas around the UK are already closed for certain times of the year or to particular gear types in order to protect specific stocks, spawning aggregations or nursery grounds.

 

However, closing an area to fishing does not automatically result in a reduction in fishing effort. It may even lead to an increase in fish mortality through increased pressures on other stocks and/or areas and increased discards. There may also be safety issues if small vessels are forced to fish further from their home port. Consequently, closed area management cannot be used in isolation from quota, effort, and technical conservation measures.

 

Closing large areas around the UK could seriously impact on the profitability of fleets in fisheries dependent communities, especially those where fleets largely consist of non sector (under 10m) vessels. For this reason, the Government favours a number of alternative measures designed to work alongside the targeted closures already in place with the aim of reducing fishing mortality. These are currently being developed with the fishing industry to ensure their effectiveness. They include

 

Real-time closures. The Scottish industry is currently running a voluntarily pilot scheme where areas are closed in response to abundance of undersized cod. An extension of this trial (and the involvement of other EU Member States) is being explored.

Observed effort. The Government are supporting the use of on-board observers to provide an incentive to fishermen to avoid cod.

Increased selectivity. The Government are working on a range of technical conservation measures to improve the selectivity of certain gear types.

Effort cap. The EU Commission has proposed a change to the existing cod recovery mechanism which would allow Member States to manage the effort of their own fleets independently. Since we do not believe this is practical for widespread application in 2008, the UK has proposed as an alternative to pilot the scheme across one gear grouping to test how effective it might be.

In each case, if successful, we propose extending the provisions to all Member States' fleets and to all sea areas.