Without the ending of drift netting there is almost no prospect of restoring our salmon stocks, writes Niall Greene
One would have expected that a scientist of the eminence of Noel Wilkins might have been better informed and more objective in his piece about the management of Ireland's salmon resources following a ban on drift netting. (The Irish Times, July 29th, 2006).
He is right to draw attention to the fact that the ending of drift netting is not a guarantee that salmon can be restored in abundance to our rivers and lakes. There are many other variables which will determine the struggle to conserve and restore our salmon resource.
What is certain, and the subject of a wide consensus among fish scientists and managers at home and internationally, is that without the ending of drift netting and its indiscriminate impact on migrating fish there is almost no prospect of restoring salmon stocks.
The ending of drift netting, Prof Wilkins suggests, will grant "the sole right of catching salmon to the rod anglers" and result in "an important national resource - the wild salmon - [ being] handed over totally to the salmon anglers and their families".
He asks whether the "transfer of public rights to a small group [ is] really in the public interest". This is good polemical stuff, but pretty far removed from reality.
At the core of the argument for ending drift netting is the proposition that the best way to manage a migratory fish like the salmon which returns to the place where it was born to spawn, is to confine exploitation to the rivers and estuaries.
In this way levels of exploitation can be set and regulated to ensure sufficient salmon survive to spawn. If there are insufficient spawners then exploitation can be suspended until stocks recover. Within that framework angling and commercial netting in the estuaries can continue to cohabit and it is a matter of negotiation as to how the exploitable surplus in any individual river is divided between the two.
Consequently, there is no reason why the commercial supply of salmon to restaurants and smokeries cannot continue after the ending of drift netting, and no need for the elaborate system of tags and fees which Prof Wilkins suggests.
However, given the poor level of current salmon stocks and the need to close many rivers and to greatly reduce exploitation in others, it is inevitable that the supply of commercially caught salmon will be greatly reduced and, consequently, its price considerably enhanced.
But there is simply no proposal on the table that the angling sector should "monopolise salmon".
A good deal has been written about the contention that the ending of drift netting will result in the transfer of "public rights" to fish for salmon to "private interests".
A fisherman drift netting is as much a part of the private sector as the owner of a salmon fishery. Throughout virtually the entire life of this State there has not been a public right to go fishing for salmon either commercially or by angling - participation has always been licensed by the State.
It is worth examining who these "private interests" are that are to be the beneficiaries of the ending of drift netting. Pre-eminent among them is the State. Through the fishery boards and the ESB it is by far the largest owner of salmon fishing rights in Ireland.
Furthermore, the State has domestic and international obligations to conserve salmon which it could not fulfil while drift netting continued and the State will benefit in terms of regional employment and an increased tax take from an expansion of angling tourism.
The next largest operators, and in many cases actual owners of fisheries are angling clubs and associations, many of them important components in local economic development - the vast majority of salmon fishing on the Nore, for instance, is in the hands of local clubs.
These clubs and their members, in association with the fisheries boards, make an enormous investment in time and money in maintaining and protecting spawning areas and the rivers generally.
Many of the rest of Ireland's salmon fishing rights belong to small hotels and guest houses which contribute to the economies of remote areas.
The dilemma in which the drift netters find themselves is in large measure due to the explosion of drift net licences by successive governments since the 1970s and the pressure which this and the new fishing technologies associated with it has put on stocks.
The landed value of the entire legal drift net catch is now probably no more than about €5 million per annum and people leaving the industry deserve fair compensation for the loss of that part of their income. The angling community have long made clear their willingness to contribute to such compensation.
The ending of drift netting is only a milestone on the road to restoring salmon stocks. The hard work starts now with the need to improve water quality, restore and protect habitats, ensure that over- exploitation is not transferred from the seas to the rivers and estuaries and to prevent illegal fishing.
The angling community have led for years in all these activities and will continue to do so.
Niall Greene is chairman of Stop Salmon Drift Nets Now