30 April, 2009

A GROUP of 11 Shetland inshore fishermen have set up a new association in the latest move to take on the islands’ pioneering shellfish management company.

The move comes as the Shetland Shellfish Management Organisation (SSMO) consults this week over the renewal of the Shetland Shellfish Regulating Order (SSRO), introduced in January 2000 as the first locally run management scheme for fishing in the UK.

Scallop fisherman Sidney Johnson is heading the new Shetland Inshore Fishermen’s Association (SIFA), which he said is needed to give its members a voice in the way the industry is run.

Shellfish catching is worth £4.5 million to the Shetland economy and 122 boats hold SSMO licences to fish up to six miles offshore.

Mr Johnson said he hoped to generate sufficient opposition to stop the regulating order being renewed for another 10 years and hoped that SIFA would have a say if a new Inshore Fisheries Group (IFG) was ever set up in Shetland, following the six pilot schemes already operating in Scotland.

“We feel we have been blocked out of decisions and this will give us a voice. We don’t seem to have any clout as individuals so we have formed a group,” the 36 year old skipper of the scallop dredger Genesis said.

“They make decisions that can have a drastic effect on our livelihoods and we have no say in that, and the people who are making those decisions have never seen a scallop dredge or a creel in their life, and I find that totally ludicrous.

“The regulating order is now under review and if there’s a high number of objections it will have to go to a public inquiry and they won’t be able to get a follow up regulating order without going through the whole process again.”

In 2006 Mr Johnson presented a 600 strong petition opposing the regulating order to the Scottish executive, raising many grievances about its lack of fairness.

Shetland Fishermen’s Association chief executive Hansen Black, who is a director on the SSMO board, said all those grievances had been addressed.

“I would say that if anyone still has a grievance then the best way to deal with it is through the consultation process,” Mr Black said.

He added that Shetland was the only place in the UK where the scallop stocks were stable or increasing. “To me that is a sign the management system is working.”

Yesterday SSMO manager Jennifer Mouat said that 19 creel fishermen had turned up to a consultation meeting about the SSRO at Scalloway’s NAFC Marine Centre on Monday night.

“The chairman asked if anyone was opposed to the regulating order and nobody said anything. In fact quite a few of the fishermen spoke up and supported the regulating order and said they thought it was important for the future management of stocks and the Shetland economy as well,” Ms Mouat said.

Consultation meetings with scallop fishermen and the general public are being held at the NAFC Centre on Saturday.

The 10 fishermen who have joined Mr Johnson so far are Billy Anderson (vice chairman), Ronnie Johnson, Ivor Poulson, Stanley Gray, Richard Grain, Karl Dalziel, Michael Watt, Danny McKinnon, Martin Hay and Cecil Slater.

The SIFA can be contacted on 01806 588 795 or 588 254.