Plea to reward responsible fishing

OVER 160 artisanal fishery, coastal and environmental groups across Europe have called on EU fisheries ministers to ensure the new Common Fisheries Policy rewards those who use socially responsible catching methods.

The Ocean2012 coalition, which includes 15 Irish groups, issued its appeal yesterday as European fisheries ministers met in Luxembourg to seek agreement on a new system of mandatory transferable fishing rights.

The new system proposed by the European Commission is opposed by Ireland. Minister for Marine Simon Coveney reiterated the objections at yesterday’s council to what he said was a “privatisation of national fish quotas”.

Mr Coveney said he also met EU maritime affairs commissioner Maria Damanaki to outline his concerns that it would lead, in Ireland, to “the buy-out of our family owned fleet by well-resourced international fishing companies without links to our coastal communities”.

“I explained that this would result in loss of employment in our fishing fleet, processing and other fisheries-related jobs in our coastal communities,” Mr Coveney said, adding that he received “good support” yesterday from a number of other ministers.

The Ocean2012 coalition, which includes organisations as geographically diverse as the Donegal Small Islands Fishermen and the Danish Society for a Living Sea, noted that while Mr Coveney and colleagues were “quick to dismiss” the proposal, they had been “slow to suggest an alternative that will deliver sustainable European fisheries”.

The Sea Fisheries Protection Authority welcomed a Cork Circuit Court decision to fine a British registered fishing vessel, the Susa Uno, €27,000 for illegal fishing activity in Irish waters. It was detained in Castletownbere, Co Cork, on April 22nd.