Crystal Sea Trawling Blog

Most of the boats are in now all finished for Xmas, but today the whole industry right across the UK and Europe have waited anxiously for the news from Brussels. This is something we have to go through every December and I have to say I think there is a better way to do this. The scientists from CEFAS (the british fishery scientists) do great work with limited rescorses and we in the industryhelp by taking them to sea on our boats so they can use them as scientific platforms to measure the stocks as accurately as possible, we also fill out yearly reviews on what trends we are seeing in the fish stocks and where the science seems to be out of kilter with what is happening on the ground. The teams from CEFAS also do many independent surveys year round all around the coast on there research ship and they constantly monitor the stocks looking for good or poor recruitmnts to the stocks. All this information including all the other EU countries fisheries science is put forward very early in the year to ICES where the stocks are fully assesed by the best fishery scientists in Europe.

 I fully believe the work that is done by the scientists is as accurate as can be possible and the link with the fishing industry is of immense importance as we can offer the eyes and ears on the ground and this is paying off as the trend is for better understanding of the state of the stocks thus leading to the fish stocks to be improving.

It is high time that this yearly farce is ended and we start to move to longer term management plans for all stocks with just yearly reviews, as at present this yearly clamour is subject to, to much politics and NGO's scare stories with little or no attention being paid to the real work being done by the scientists and the good work being done within the industry.

This is important as many jobs are effected in fishing communities right across the EU and longer term fisheries management will bring greater confidence and continuity to all involved in the fishing industry.