Archive for the ‘Marine Conservation’ Category

Dursey West Cork, Do We Really Need Beauty Interpreted for Us?

Saturday, January 29th, 2022

Cork County Council and Failte Ireland in October 2020 published a “Draft Dursey Island Visitor Management Plan”, within which is iterated very clearly on page three of the document; “Cork County Council is currently proposing to re-develop the Dursey Island Cable Car as a tourism destination“. To that end a Visitor Management Plan is to be developed and established so as to “control visitor numbers to an acceptable level given the sensitivity of the island“.

I am a tour coach driver guide since January 2016 and have been visiting the Beara peninsula, West Cork to fish since the early 2000′s. The beauty of Beara is its, ruggedness, its wildness and within the context of our modern world a relative lack of development, that is not to say that modernity has not reached Beara, it has just been limited. This mix of modern and old should be retained and strengthened to preserve what is a unique heritage and way of life, not in a time capsule way but sensitive to what is a special environment.

As a coach driver guide I love transporting people from all walks of life and diverse nationalities around Ireland, I feel privileged to do this job. However, although Ireland clearly has a successful tourism modal unfortunately it is based on a mass market “bums on seats” approach. The powers that be may deny that statement however a visit to the cattle market which is the Cliffs of Moher visitor centre, Co. Clare or wading through the hoards of people at Glendalough, Co. Wicklow, or trying to enter into Killarney mid to late afternoon on any given day during the summer months while negotiating fierce volumes of traffic will attest to Ireland’s international tourism marketing strategy, we target volume and in the process we sell a high quality product in a yellow pack fashion.

The Beara is special because it is underdeveloped within the context of what is recognised as a “modern” tourism destination, in short infrastructure is limited a key feature of which are the narrow roads and they are its saving grace, limiting traffic and access. I do the “Ring of Kerry” regularly and Beara does not need that particular business modal because it will kill its unique selling point of wildness that envelopes you, a wildness and inaccessibility that actually protects a unique landscape, home to rich marine and land based biodiversity.

The draft visitor management plan alludes to mitigating physical damage to landscape, biodiversity, littering and traffic the result of increased visitor numbers upon completion of the project. The key to mitigation is not to build at all. The Dursey cable car originally was put in place for practical purposes to facilitate local access to and from Dursey Island. Upgraded on a couple of occasions since its installation in 1969, the last time in 2004, the Dursey cable car in its current format does have a tourist appeal just by being there, its old school look lends to the excitement of the journey. The latch on the door and the feeling that one could fall into Dursey sound at any moment as one flies across give the experience an edge in a Father Ted sort of way which is “real Ireland”.

I have used the cable car to access fishing on Dursey Island and as the report states one might get stuck if the mainland electricity fails which happened to my friends and I one November evening just as it was getting dark, however Paddy the then cable car operator, lord rest him, got us back later that evening around 10.00.pm when the lights came back on. We flew across in a gale, the cable car rocking and the waters in the sound a green/white glowing maelstrom of phosphorescence below, an experience we will never forget and still get great enjoyment out of narrating in full the tale as it transpired. We survived and so did the cable car.

The cable car/interpretive centre proposal for Dursey is a vanity project for Cork County Council and Failte Ireland which in essence will turn a practical piece of infrastructure into a fairground ride and through road widening and signage will signal the beginning of the end of what makes Beara attractive as a visitor destination, its ruggedness and inaccessibility. Present day visitors to Beara have to make an effort, this is the type of mitigation that works, why open up a place to the masses when it is already open albeit in a particular way.

Ironically by leaving well alone the right people will be attracted to Dursey, people who appreciate it because they made the effort to get there, to bird watch, fish, walk, whale watch or just take in the views. People who have just stumbled across the place by accident like I did back in the early 2000′s and have come back year after year because of its unspoiled beauty and solitude. That is the unique selling point of the place and that is how it should remain, if tourists want a fairground attraction they should visit Tayto Park, Co Meath. To pursue and build this project is folly, the product of misled egos who will spend €10 million of tax payers money under the pretext that it will benefit the country. The real benefits into the future both local, national and international for Dursey Island will be derived by leaving well alone…………………

Ashley Hayden, who wrote this piece has extensive business development experience within the Irish food service and tourism sectors going back to 1985, holds a BA in Geography and Economics and an MSc in Business, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship where he researched into the provision of Green Tourism Infrastructure with specific reference to angling. Currently he works as a tour coach driver guide and has done so since January 2016.

 

“Salmon” by Mark Kurlansky

Saturday, May 15th, 2021

Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Genesis 1:28

Published by Oneworld Publications in 2020, “Salmon”, by Mark Kurlansky follows in the tradition of his previous title, “Cod”, outlining human kinds historic interaction with the iconic fish species that is salmon, a species which could in time be viewed as a litmus test to indicate the survival or not of the human race. For there is a perception in certain circles that if salmon cease to exist humans will not be far behind.

Salmon’s narrative pulls no punches, it outlines very clearly how European culture has viewed the earth and its resources as there to be tamed and exploited for profit, whereas indigenous native cultures, in particular the American Indians, worked and lived in harmony with the land.

Kurlansky dedicates the book to the late Orri Vigfusson an Icelandic environmentalist who succeeded more or less before his passing in curtailing the commercial fishing for North Atlantic Salmon. That said, if as the book states there are only 1.5 million salmon left in the north Atlantic when on an average year the Pacific sockeye salmon run into Bristol Bay, Alaska alone numbers 50 plus million, then we have a lot not to be proud of as humans.

The above grainy image taken sometime in the 1960′s shows my Grandfather Redmond, Mum and Dad holding up four salmon caught in trammel nets which would have been set along the south beach in Greystones, Co. Wicklow. My memories of going out fishing post 1970 when we returned from England to live was that salmon were common then. In fact lobster and salmon were regularly served up in Granny Redmond’s house back then.

The above is backed up by Kurlansky, historically North Atlantic salmon runs in Europe and the eastern states of America were as prolific as Pacific salmon runs to Alaskan rivers are today. Riverine obstructions such as dams, various forms of pollution and over fishing primarily but not totally at sea having over centuries reduced the vast North Atlantic salmon stocks to what they are today. In the past, salmon was a staple of the European diet only becoming a luxury the more scarce it got.

The key facts that emerged for me from the whole book were that the native Americans had no word for famine because they never went hungry, that there were salmon fishing cultures within all the coastal states east and west and that there were anything from 150,000 to 300,000 inhabitants per coastal state all fishing for and reliant on salmon. That they smoked it, salted it, dried it and traded the fish commercially for thousands of years while never reducing the runs, yet within 400 years “sophisticated” Europeans by their actions succeeded in bringing the North Atlantic salmon to its knees on both sides of the pond and making a good fist of ruining Pacific salmon runs on many a western American river.

The only reason today that salmon run so prolifically in Alaska is the lack of human settlement, however even these runs are under threat due to a proposed open cast gold mine which if it goes ahead will be one mile wide and a quarter mile deep and in the process will destroy 3000 acres of wetlands and 21 miles of salmon spawning streams. Have we learned nothing? Reading Kurlansky’s “Salmon” would be a good start……….


This Is Our Natural World

Sunday, September 20th, 2020

Sunday the 20th of September 2020 was a lovely bright day, blue skies but chilly due to a brisk north east breeze. Having pre-planned to meet family south of Wicklow head, we all initially met up at Magheramore strand. Arriving down onto the beach it was a beautiful scene comprising surfers, swimmers and families all enjoying being out in it. However cop this…….

and this……….

Now, whoever left this pile of muck to include cans, plastic bottles, tent, kitchen utensils, wipes, nappies, you name it it was there, would appear to have put it into the black bags. WELL DONE, YOU OBVIOUSLY CARE FOR NATURE, PAT ON THE BACK. Then conveniently decided to leave it there for the next big storm to wash it all into the sea. But then again the idea that a high tide line can shift relative to weather conditions just would not enter the average persons head. That is how close to nature the average person is.

We are told to leave no trace, we should not need to be told, and when one considers the effort needed to bring all this stuff down to the beach, would it have been so difficult to carry it all back up again like responsible and considerate people would? No its just too much effort, lets just have the party and fuck the rest.

Ironically these same people probably do consider the environment when it comes to climate change etc which is sad, but reflective of the average person who will think nothing of purchasing a take away coffee (why?, the Italians don’t do take away coffee and they are the experts, instead they sit down with it) driving off and later chucking it out the window, as applies take away food, fizzy drink cans and bottles. I should know, just take a look in the hedgerows along the lane I live on.

Every single day there are new items of litter and wait for this, I know that it takes twenty minutes to eat a “happy meal” from McDonalds and also a snack box, because the nearest take away and McDonalds are both twenty minutes from my house and the wrappers/boxes end up outside my gate.

This is our world and I am being objective when I say that the average Joe or Josephine have no connection and do not give a shit about the environment. If so they would certainly not purchase baby wipes (plastic based so do not biodegrade), take away coffee cups (even if it is compostable it has to be placed in a compost bin, most will end up in a normal bin and so onto landfill), plastic bottles, body scrubs (the bits inside of many brands are plastic so get washed down the plug hole and eventually end up in the sea as micro plastics).

I could go on but you get the picture and no, I am not mad, crazy or on a rant, this hypocrisy, this double standard goes on every day of the week in most peoples lives. So yes, we should get rightly uptight at the gobshites that left the rubbish on Magheramore strand, Co. Wicklow, but we cannot let ourselves off the hook while we continue to buy into the convenience world of products that have become increasingly part of our lives over the last thirty years in particular.

A starting point for all would be to give up that take away coffee and instead sit down with it like an Italian, you would do yourself and the natural world a big favour………..

Paradise Lost? Or How to Damage a Fishery within Five Years

Friday, June 28th, 2019

I first cast a line on the Beara peninsula in May 2005, close to the Dursey cable car, a 32 gram silver Kilty catcher and at a count of forty seconds, yes Dursey sound is that deep, I hit mackerel. Since then I have traveled down annually, sometimes bi-annually, on one fateful trip meeting and chatting with Roger Ball on the rocks at Garnish. Born out of that conversation developed a friendship centered around sea fishing, soccer and a love of the bountiful marine paradise which the rich coastal waters off Beara are, or should I say were, because they are under attack, from within.

Roger and his longtime friend Dave Hoskins have been traveling across from the United Kingdom and down to Beara for years, Roger came first in 1997. Both Cornishmen, they talk about how good the fishing was in the 1970′s around Plymouth where they grew up and how it was destroyed by over fishing. When Roger by accident found the Beara in 1997 while driving around Ireland he thought that he had landed in heaven, for there before his eyes were vast shoals of open sea mullet, his favourite fish to catch. From then on he returned most every year to walk the dogs along coastal paths with his wife and to fish.

Between Roger, Dave and I we have 22 years of knowledge built up about the shore fishing from Dunboy in Castletownberehaven around to Urhan close to Eyeries. In that time shore fishing mainly from rock platforms we have caught 21 species of fish ranging from bass to wrasse. What amazed us about the fishing was how many of the resident species such as conger, wrasse, pollack, bull huss, mullet, plaice and dab grew to their full potential size and also the numbers of fish available which in this day and age of over fishing at sea was staggering.

Well it was too good to last, year on year when we returned the fishing was as good if not better than the time before. Yes one could add that our improved catches were predicated on a build up of acquired knowledge, however the quality of fish and fishing never changed, for seventeen years it remained constant. Then in 2014 we noticed a change, the mullet were not as plentiful and the average size of pollack and wrasse on the marks that we fished began to shrink noticeably. Then, the clean ground marks which were paved with large dab up to specimen size began to produce less fish. Could all this be our collective imaginations running wild, were we losing our touch or getting paranoid. No, a trip planned for June 2019 unfortunately revealed everything that we had suspected.

On Saturday 22nd June 2019 we arrived at our holiday cottage all geared up for a weeks fishing. On the way we had supped Guinness in McCarthy’s Bar, Castletownbere, devoured bowls of Adrienne’s lovely chowder with brown bread and dug fleshy lugworms for a well looked forward to ground fishing session. The weather was not great, strong south to south east winds and rain but we persevered, lure fishing with spinners to catch a few medium size pollack but no mackerel on the first evening.

Sunday was a washout however things improved on Monday enough to seek out mullet and shore fish locally again for pollack and the hoped for mackerel which along with the mullet again were marked absent. A couple from northern Ireland who were fishing on a favoured mark near our cottage mentioned how they had been traveling down to fish for years but that on the last number of visits a perceptible decline in the fishing had set in. Might it just be an aberration said I, no it’s the result of gill netting they categorically said. My heart sank, as this is what Roger, Dave and I had always suspected but could not prove. The evidence was there, smaller fish sizes, dearth of mullet and flatfish, but we had never seen evidence, that is until the next morning Tuesday 25th June 2019.

With full tide around 11.30 am and a pet day ahead of us we hiked out onto the headland to a favourite mark which traditionally produces plenty of large pollack and wrasse. The form of this mark without fail is rods on the first cast doubling over to quality pollack hitting jelly worms. Numerous casts later we were fish less before a couple of juvenile pollack hit our lures, something was dreadfully amiss. Roger decided to wrasse fish and yes he had bites to hardback crab from the get go, but not from the mothers that we used to catch, instead their half pound offspring made up the offering. We were mystified but deep down knew, then we were informed.

The half decker tootled across the bay eventually lining up about eighty meters offshore commencing to shoot its net right across our casting line. It had taken us an hour to walk out and now we could not fish as this obvious gill net ( we could see it slipping over the stern of the boat) was well within our casting range. To add insult to injury a crew member lifted up a good size pollack and taunted us with it smiling as he motored by.

The really sad part is that they did not even have the whit to consider that it was tourists from another country they were mocking. Tourists that are long term friends and admirers of the Beara, tourists who sing its praises and encourage others to consider visiting, tourists who come twice a year, tourists who spend good money on accommodation, in O’Neills of Allihies, McCarthy’s Bar, Supervalu, the local petrol station, etc.

Now we knew the source of decline and it created a sick feeling in the stomach, a feeling of helplessness because Roger, Dave, Rob and I all knew the outcome of the action we were observing, a negative reduction of the fishery. These individuals were doing nothing wrong according to Irish law, they could carry on regardless and will, we all knew that nobody was going to stop this violation of a pristine marine biosphere, a diamond in the rough. I couldn’t continue fishing and said to the lads I’m heading back, they hung on for a while but eventually succumbed also as their heart was not in it.

For years we had respected this place, catch and release, an odd fish for the pot, our angling was a conduit, a way to connect with nature and give something back in return, the stories of basking sharks, dolphins playing tag, gannets diving, the sea alive with flashing fish, the few bob left in various local businesses, on Tuesday 22nd June 2019 modern life from our perspective caught up with paradise and chewed it up.

As stated earlier in this piece, from 1997 until 2014 the shore fishing we encountered between Crow Head and Cod’s Head to include Dursey never changed, it was totally consistent and always surprising us in the affirmative. To witness the mullet shoals was in itself incredible, when they merged with mackerel and sprat as we saw on occasions the spectacle was blue planet stuff.

Marine spectacles as described above are less likely to occur now in and around Dursey bay because post 2014 gill netting, using in this instance a net approximately 500 meters long (a legal practice) which did not occur in this area to the scale that we witnessed before 2014, has taken out the vast resident mullet shoals and is now having a right go at the pollack, flatfish and whatever else swims into their indiscriminate invisible plastic meshes. To cap it all the boat was targeting prime wrasse to be used as pot bait, what an ignominious end for a wonderful sport fish.

This writer comes from a family with coastal fishing in its bones, was taught how to dig bait, long line, trammel net, lay pots, tie knots, row boats and understand the sea by my father, grandfather and uncles. I was taught to respect the sea and respect the creatures within it. I was taught how to maintain a fishery by leaving some for tomorrow, never to be greedy. If this plunder continues, which it will unless there is Government, EU, or better still local intervention, there will eventually be no adult fish left and the dynamic of a wonderful local unique to Ireland marine ecosystem will be altered forever. It may take a decade or two but it will happen as evidenced on Ireland’s east coast.

It would make you weep, in just a few short years the fishing has been damaged, not as yet mortally, but if it is not curtailed the future for the coastal bays off Dursey Island and Allihies Bay is stark and I should know, I saw the incredible mixed fishery off Greystones Co. Wicklow disappear before my eyes within ten years once the mussel dredging commenced. However the future for Dursey could be different as there is still time, again it just needs people to be informed and not be afraid to speak out.

No one is saying for one moment that local people in rural areas should not earn a contribution to their living from fishing, quite the opposite in fact, community managed sustainable artisan inshore coastal fisheries are part of the solution to marine over fishing. However, in that context no individual has the right to say that a shared resource is theirs alone, which is exactly what is happening on the Beara peninsula and other such places around the Irish coastline and the state has to recognise this fact and be the catalyst for social change by introducing radical inclusive legislation acknowledging that all citizens have a stake in the marine and not just those who choose to commercially fish.

A way forward would be for the state to Firstly, ban monofilament gill and tangle nets forthwith as they are lethal indiscriminate fishing engines, continue to fish as “ghost nets” if lost in storms and these same lost nets become major contributors to micro plastic pollution as they eventually rot and break up. Instead artisan line fishing should be promoted and encouraged as an inshore fishing methodology which is more environmentally friendly being less indiscriminate and also delivers a higher quality end product for market.

Secondly, the targeting of ballan wrasse for pot bait should be banned immediately and instead fishermen/women should be encouraged to obtain carcasses and fish heads from fish processing operations for pot bait instead.

Thirdly, community managed marine protected zones should be established in key areas such as the Beara around the country to protect and preserve wild places, nursery areas, habitats and local ecosystems which are the foundation stones for the wider marine biosphere. These zones would not necessarily be no take but most certainly would be net free, with creeling (potting) allowed inside under a management plan, commercial line fishing outside or along the perimeter where the over spill of prime fish would occur, and sea angling would be catch and release using barbless hooks.

The above is a loose template but has merit for further discussion as within its frame resides inclusivity which is key to successful long term management of Ireland’s coastal resources. The present modal is predicated on take while giving nothing back as this story shows and that path as is abundantly clear has led Ireland’s and the worlds marine fisheries to where they are today, broken and or severely strained.

Meanwhile those who make a living or contribution to their income from fishing complain of lack of fish, or reduced access to fish when in actual fact there are reduced numbers of fish relative to what there was because of the methodologies and approach that the industry they are part of employs. In effect the industry is shooting itself in the foot while those who work within the sector point the finger at everybody but themselves as to why they cannot catch or access whatever fish are left. This race to the bottom breeds a mentality of take what you can while it is still there before someone else gets it.

In this day and age of climate change, biodiversity loss and musings on the value of natural capital how we interact with resources is vital and obviously changes in approach are essential. Sadly, when it comes to what is left of sea fishing in rural areas trying to introduce change is akin to sucking blood out of a stone as the same old cliches will be trotted out with vehemence even when the fishing as it used to be has died. Its our resource, we looked after it, its what we have always done. Compromise, which is the way forward, where everybody benefits will be a dirty word but that is where we must go.

So if anyone has read this piece and been moved by it, please send a letter or email to the Minister for fisheries, Minister for Tourism, Environmental NGO’s, Inland Fisheries Ireland, the CEO of Failte ireland and anybody else you can think of who might make a difference at a national decision making level, calling for protection of our wild marine places, the adoption of environmentally friendly fishing methodologies and practices and recognition of all stakeholders when it comes to resource use management. Your efforts could just make a difference. Thank you………..

PS: The images used in this piece are from previous trips, not the one described above.

Ashley Hayden © June 2019

Ireland’s Sea Fisheries Belong to All its Citizens

Monday, January 18th, 2016

My Grandfather Willie Redmond built clinker design boats in his shed behind Killians Hall a stones throw from the harbour in Greystones, Co. Wicklow, which was a great benefit to yours truly an outdoors loving young lad who gained access to a boat from a very early age. In my tenth year dad taught me to row, initially in and out between the moored boats in the harbour only letting me leave the confines of the pier head when I could show him that I could maneuver the craft to his satisfaction. The litmus test being that I could row between the said moored boats without touching them.

A young Ashley Hayden at the harbour Greystones in 1984 with his first born daughter Emma - Claire.

Around the same time I helped dad construct a long line out of heavy cotton line imported from Hong Kong to which were attached 100 mustad spade end hooks on two foot snoods at 12′ intervals. Dad’s modus operandi became clear in the late summer of 1971 when in early September we shot the line in a zig zag pattern off St David’s school, me rowing with the last of the ebb tide while dad payed out the baited hooks before two hours later as the flood tide commenced roles reversed dad rowed and I hauled, a series of large red spotted plaice flapping over the gunnels. The boy was hooked.

Today 45 years later I would be hard pressed as a young 55 years old grandfather of two wonderful grandsons to repeat the above exercise such is the decline that has occurred in Ireland’s inshore sea fisheries. If this decline had occurred due to natural causes one would not lament so, however the damage is solely man made. In 2007 I wrote a piece, “An Angler’s Tale” about that first day off Greystones in 1971 and considered how we all could work towards improving our sea fisheries so that my Grand Children might experience in some way the marine wonders that I saw, smelled, heard and felt as a young boy and latterly teenager.

Given that my first born grandson Myles is now three and second born Dillan is two months old that day is well nigh upon us and sadly Ireland’s marine fisheries have not improved, in fact things have only gotten worse. In the early 1980′s I considered the idea of artisan sea fishing out of Greystones but buried the notion very quickly as the writing was on the wall even then with regard to sea fisheries decline and I was only going to enter the industry if I could run a stand alone operation with no reliance on state or EU subsidies, what I caught governing whether I would sink or swim.

Would that other people had thought like that because today the Irish Government props up a failing industry due to political ignorance of how to manage effectively Ireland’s marine resource, political cowardice when it comes to the acceptance that the marine stakeholder brief is far wider than just those who choose to sea fish commercially and through State/EU funding continues to fuel an industrial sector that is mining itself into oblivion while stoking the raging bush fire of marine fisheries decline. By supporting the grossly undemocratic present marine fisheries development and management status quo the Irish Government and its servents are  denying my grandsons Myles and Dillan and their peers what is their natural heritage and birthright.

The industry talks about “Grandfather Rights”, well my two Grandsons have great great grandfather rights and it is about time that they were recognised. At this juncture there is little chance that either Myles or Dillan will be able to forge a career in marine sea fisheries either as commercial fisherman, charter skippers or sea angling guides such is the Irish Governments inadequate response towards rectifying the wanton destruction of what is arguably Ireland’s greatest natural resource. Myles, Dillan and their peers deserve better………….

Sea Kayaking off Dalkey

Saturday, November 2nd, 2013

Enjoyed a fine day out sea kayaking with Des Keaney and the team at Deep Blue Sea Kayaking, along with a group of invited marine scientists and staff members of Pew Charitable Trusts, in Ireland for the Pew Fellows annual conference based in the Grand Hotel, Malahide. Three days of presentations on marine environmental issues, to include an overview of the Irish sea with particular reference to fish stocks and the influence of commercial fishing by Professor Callum Roberts and Ed Fahy. Not for the feint hearted, a damning indictment of sea fisheries mismanagement, the science does not lie, its the politicians that do not listen.

Sea kayaking in Dalkey sound.

I digress, pre trip our group was fueled with a slap up meal of beef bourginon followed by chocolate fudge cake and cream all washed down with mulled wine at Deep Blue Sea’s base in Blackrock, Co. Dublin. Onwards to Bulloch Harbour, a safety check, assessment of experience and we were off paddling with the tide towards Dalkey Island. Des’s team of Sue, Sonja, Tom, and Padraig, were first class keeping tabs anonymously always feeling like they were just part of the group.

Group picture on Dalkey Island.

Circumnavigating Dalkey Island we were joined by a family of grey seals who bumped our kayaks, played with the loose toggles, and dived with a whoosh of spray and foam. Taking time out on the island Des gave the group a brief history of St Begnet, the martello tower and fort. Standing for a group photo, it was nice to think that people from Australia, British Columbia, Mexico, France, Mauritius, California, and Chicago would go home with pleasant memories of a wonderful afternoon spent paddling in Dublin Bay.

EU Discards Deal Looks Like A Fudge

Saturday, March 2nd, 2013

Sir,- Having witnessed over my lifetime (I am 52 years of age) a national resource plundered, the positive headline “EU agrees ban on fish discards” (Breaking News, February 27th), reads like a damp squib based on the detail outlined in the subsequent report.

With many hard pressed whitefish stocks on the brink of economic if not actual collapse, why a phased delivery to begin January 2016?

Also, what are the management plans for zero total allowance catch (TAC) species such as spurdog (rock salmon) and species that are restricted or commercially banned like bass are to Irish commercial fishers?

In principal it looks like these fish could be targeted and landed legally by default.  Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney described yesterday’s agreement as an “historic milestone”, unfortunately it reads like a fudge.

The failed history of EU and Irish sea fisheries management looks set to continue.

Yours etc,

Published in Letters to the Editor, Irish Times, 28th February, 2013.

Fish For the Future

Wednesday, November 7th, 2012

The EU fisheries policy may seem complicated, but it is actually pretty simple: we must fish less now so we can fish more tomorrow. The infographic below explains the Common Fisheries Policy in five minutes.

Important discussions are taking place in the European Parliament right now and there are divisions between MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) across all national delegations and political groups.

Fish For the Future is a cross-party group of MEP’s who want to end over fishing and rebuild fish stocks. They are fighting against those who prefer the short term benefit of allowing fishermen to catch the last remaining fish over ensuring European fishermen a long term future.

The following graphic explains quite clearly the present state of our marine fin fish resource, and offers real solutions for rehabilitation and future management.

Beginners’ Guide to the Common Fisheries Policy – Fish For the Future
Courtesy of: Fish For the Future

 

Fish Fight

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

The Irish Sea has lost 90% of its cod stock due primarily to commercial overfishing and the wasteful practice of discards. The worst offenders regarding discards are “Dublin Bay Prawn” Nephrops trawlers where the percentage of discarded marine life can top 50%+ of the overall catch.

Trawlers in harbour, Castletownbere, Co. Cork, Ireland.

BIM will say that there is a ban on cod fishing in the Irish Sea, however immature codling, whiting, slip sole, plaice, and a host of other key species are being hoovered up and dumped on a daily basis due to the wasteful practice of discarding, so limiting further necessary recruitment of juvenile stock.

A campaign to lobby against the practice of discards at sea has been set in train by River Cottage main man Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. To register your vote please log on to Fish Fight and further the cause for sustainable fishing and a rejuvenated and bio-diverse marine environment.

Click on: Marine Conservation