OPINION:Tight regulations govern the complex and often emotive act of throwing fish back into the sea
THE DISCARDING of fish under EU quota rules was back in the headlines this week when a Wexford trawler owner landed and gave away monkfish to the public rather than throw them back in the sea. The issue was also prominent in the media throughout last year when the celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall mounted a television campaign on discards.
As a result of media campaigns such as that one, pressure is increasing on policymakers, managers, fishermen and scientists to “do something about the discard problem”.
In February last year, the EU commissioner for maritime affairs and fisheries, Maria Damanaki, said “we must put an end to the nightmare of discards . . . We cannot go on like this . . . we need a new policy.”
Discarding is high on the agenda in the upcoming review of the Common Fisheries Policy. However, there are key issues at stake here that need to be considered in trying to understand and debate the complex facets of fish discarding.
It is important to remember that discards are the result of commercial fishing activity, and that this activity is driven by society’s insatiable demand for fresh fish. As a result, the fishing industry is big business in Europe. It employs more than 141,000 people, mainly in coastal, peripheral communities. The EU fleet of 85,000 fishing vessels landed €7.7 billion worth of fish in 2009. The total turnover of the EU seafood sector amounted to €23 billion in 2009, which puts it between Coca Cola (€23.6 billion) and Google (€18 billion) in terms of global turnover.
In Europe, the fisheries resource comes under the remit of the Common Fisheries Policy, which uses “total allowable catches” and national quotas as the main management measures. The policy is undergoing major reform, and discarding is high on the agenda.
Discards are defined as that portion of the catch of fish which is not retained on board a vessel during commercial fishing operations and is returned to the sea, often dead or dying.
Discarding is recognised as a significant problem in fisheries worldwide and represents a significant proportion of global fish catches. The practice is generally associated with bottom trawl fisheries and is considered to constitute waste or, at the very least, a suboptimal use of fishery resources.
The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation has estimated global discarding at 7.3 million tonnes, which represents about 8 per cent of the global catch. Shrimp and bottom trawl fisheries account for more than 50 per cent of total estimated discards. The UN body has also noted the northeast Atlantic has the second-highest discard level in the world, estimated to be 1.3 million tonnes, the majority being attributed to EU fisheries.
The discard problem becomes acute when individual quota allocations are mismatched between these species, for example when the quota for cod is exhausted but the quotas for haddock and whiting remain unused.
Published scientific work has shown that beam and otter trawlers in the Celtic Sea area (south and west of Ireland) have respectively discarded 71 per cent and 64 per cent of their catch by numbers, and 42 per cent and 36 per cent by weight.
It is important to note that discards may have beneficial effects for other animals. Various scientific studies have shown that discards have become an important food source for populations of some seabird species and also for bottom-living scavengers.
There are many interrelated factors that cause discarding. The main reasons are linked to economic/market considerations or to comply with regulations. Lack of marketing opportunities, quality considerations or large price differentials between or within fish species can all induce discarding. The main drivers and their contribution varies considerably in different fisheries, but fisheries that are managed extensively by landings control regulations are often characterised by high discard rates.
(It is important to note that in Europe although annual fishing opportunities are derived from total allowance catches, in fact it is total landings, not catch, that are controlled.)
The stock status can be a big factor in discarding. For example, the haddock stocks are prone to very successful spawning and, in years where juvenile haddock are abundant, significant discarding of small fish may occur.
EU regulations that set limits to the catch composition on board a vessel may compel fishers to discard excess catches of specific species. Fishers are aware that this type of “regulatory discarding” of marketable dead fish serves no conservation purpose.
This undermines their faith in the management system and can lead to non-compliance with the regulations, as happened in Kilmore Quay this week.
Inappropriate fishing gear is also a major problem in some fisheries. For example, many beam trawl fisheries target sole with 80mm mesh which is compatible with the minimum landing size for sole but also results in high catches of small plaice for which there is no market. Discard rates for plaice are very high as a consequence.
Internationally, it is well-recognised that managing discards is complex. Each sea area has a different mix of fish species and a different mix of adult and juvenile fish. Therefore, they are likely to require a specific suite of measures to minimise discards.
For example, in overexploited fisheries, reducing the amount of days that vessels can fish (effort reduction) is likely to be one approach to decreasing discards. Effort reduction may not be necessary if “discard reduction devices” take a central role, for example introducing devices into the trawl that allow small fish escape.
A number of countries have instituted fisheries policies and management regimes based on the principle of “no discards”. A “no-discard” policy implies a paradigm shift in approaches to fisheries management. It moves the focus of management measures from landings to catches and from fish production to fish mortality.
By regarding “no discards” as the norm, any discarding then requires adequate justification. It should be emphasised that discarding occurs in all international fleets operating in the waters around Ireland and that mitigation measures must be applied to all these fleets if we are to implement a successful discard reduction policy.
The Marine Institute and Board Iascaigh Mhara published a “discard atlas” in 2011 which provides an overview of Irish discarding practices around Ireland by species and which identifies the scale of discarding associated with the main bottom trawl fisheries.
Ireland was the first country to produce such an atlas. Its purpose is to present the scientific observations on discarding by the Irish bottom trawl fleet in a non-technical way in order to inform debate on how to significantly reduce discards in Ireland’s fisheries and is a key step on the road to sustainable fisheries.
It is important to note that Irish fleets exploit stocks that are also fished by other nations. In many cases, Ireland may only have a minority share of the total allowable catch and account for only part of the overall discards.
As a result, to understand the significance of discarding associated with Irish vessels, it is important to consider the contribution that they make relative to the international catch.
It is therefore critical to develop a European discard atlas if we are to quantify the key international fisheries and tackle the northeast Atlantic discard issue.
Dr PAUL CONNOLLYis head of the fisheries ecosystems advisory services at the Marine Institute. This article draws on material from the institute's Discard Atlas (available to download at marine.ie)