Fishermen may agree plan to conserve wild salmon

An Icelandic businessman who has spent a decade trying to convince Ireland to abandon commercial netting of wild salmon believes that the majority of fishermen in Ireland now support his proposals.

Mr Orri Vigfusson, chairman of the North Atlantic Salmon Fund, says it just requires a commitment from the Government to achieve a successful buy-out of the sector. Mr Vigfusson has spent the last week in Ireland with a delegation from the fund, and says that Ireland is ready to join the international effort to conserve the fish.

"The sea fishermen of Iceland, the Faeroe Islands and Greenland are already playing their part," he says.

Recently, Britain agreed to give financial support to a buyout there, and the fund is in negotiation with Northern Ireland on a similar scheme. Mr Vigfusson hasn't set a price on compensation for more than 1,400 licence holders in the Republic, but believes that the package should be both voluntary and "generous" to reward fishermen for loss of income.

He says it should be financed by a combination of support from EU structural funds for tourism, Exchequer funds and a levy of £10 to £20 on anglers' licences.

The fund delegation met representatives of fishermen and anglers at four meetings over the past week in Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Sligo, and Mr Vigfusson says that support for his initiative was "almost 100 per cent". He also met the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Fahey, and says he received a positive response. A spokesman for the Minister said that Mr Fahey had stopped short of giving a firm commitment, but had asked Mr Vigfusson to submit detailed proposals.

Mr Vigfusson says he is aware of the work achieved by the National Salmon Commission over the past year to introduce conservation measures, starting with a tagging and logbook scheme to count the wild stock, but believes this work is not proceeding quickly enough due to lack of Government support. He has also met Prof Noel Wilkins, the former chairman of the commission, who resigned recently over an intervention by the Minister in the controversial tagging scheme. Prof Wilkins has been succeeded in the chair by Mr Joey Murrin.

Prof Wilkins has argued strongly for "set-aside" of licences, rather than a buy-out, on legal grounds.

Mr Vigfusson says his preference is for a buy-out - depending on the fishermen themselves. He says he is aware that poaching might continue, but says that an element of self-policing among participants in the scheme would discourage this. "We shouldn't stop conservation measures because of the actions of a few criminals," he says.

Irish salmon stocks have begun to make a recovery, but Mr Vigfusson says that they are still "much lower" than several decades ago.