5 October, 2007

THE SCOTTISH Government has published its blueprint for the future of North Sea cod stocks, a day after environmental campaign group WWF claimed the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) was still failing.

Scottish fisheries secretary Richard Lochhead yesterday (Thursday) set out a number of key points proposing an increased regionalisation of fisheries management.

The SNP minority government will now endeavour to engage with the European Commission in an effort to conserve cod stocks, while at the same time increasing cod quota for fishermen.

Mr Lochhead said: "We have already started to think differently and imaginatively in our whole approach and to meet the undoubted challenges we face in conserving cod stocks.

"We must not for instance jeopardise our ability to catch healthy stocks as a result of a cod management plan."

The blueprint makes the following key points:

- the most effective technical measures will be developed regionally, to ensure tailored solutions building on past experience;
- the adoption of further measures need not be rushed through without full consultation and analysis, to avoid the risk of inappropriate solutions;
- with more cod in the North Sea an increase in the quota, alongside continuing effort controls, is necessary to reduce discarding;
- fishing effort restrictions will continue to be necessary, but these should be more tailored to regional circumstances with responsibility increasingly delegated to member states;
- managing the immediate improvement of the stocks is an urgent task, but moving to optimal management can be phased-in over a longer period of time.

Mr Lochhead added: "Our blueprint for the future of cod management challenges head on the false premises in the European Commission's approach, which underestimates the measures already taken and the clear signs of improvement underway. It also proposes solutions.

"We have already taken the first steps through pilot programmes for real time closures and onboard observers, developed in close partnership with our fishermen and environmental groups.

"We have to move away from the command and control approaches in the past, and implement regionally based solutions, involving the industry and our fishing communities in framing their future."

The document is available online at: www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Fisheries 

Meanwhile WWF said that the Common Fisheries Policy was still failing to achieve sustainable management of the European fishing stocks.

WWF said that the way fishing quotas were set continued to fuel the "chronic problem of over-fishing in Europe, putting at risk fish stocks and the future of the fishing sector".

The organisation's senior marine police officer Helen McLachlan said: "It is clear that the problems related to annual quota setting have not been eliminated since the reformed Common Fisheries Policy was introduced, and now a new horse-trading season to set quotas for 2008 is about to start.

"This is not a failure which can be laid at the door of the Commission alone, but a systematic shortcoming of the EU management and decision-making structure itself. It raises serious concerns, as to whether the functioning of the Common Fisheries Policy is fit for purpose."

She said that the European Commission had not proposed, and the council had not adopted the necessary reductions in quotas for cod, in line with the agreed recovery plan.

For the North Sea stock, a 55 per cent reduction in quota was not adopted in 2005. In 2006, the reduction was 12 per cent, compared to the required 16 per cent.

This, in combination with a failure to implement other measures to reduce cod mortality, means that none of the cod stocks appear to be showing signs of improvement compared to 2002, she added.