Joint statement
Oct 9, 2009 16:16:48 GMT -1
Post by SEAJUNKY on Oct 9, 2009 16:16:48 GMT -1
(Courtesy of European Anglers Alliance)
Joint statement
The Danish, German, UK and Scottish ministers responsible for fisheries, today expressed their joint desire to explore one way to improve the Common Fisheries Policy
The CFP is currently being reviewed, with the intention of improvements being introduced by the beginning of 2013.
CFP reform offers a real opportunity to ensure our shared fish stocks are safeguarded for the future, and therefore in turn, the economic livelihoods of our fishing communities.
The Green Paper poses many questions and recognises that the current CFP takes a top-down approach and needs to give the fishing industry more incentives to behave responsibly.
One change we all want to see, then, is a shift to a system reflecting results based management which incentivises good fisheries practices.
Such a system would contribute to giving fishermen more scope for conducting their fishery as an economic activity, but only if they take full responsibility for accounting for all the fish they remove from the sea.
We believe that a system which engages the industry and harnesses the innovation of fishermen can be an integral part of a better, more effective CFP. And we want the fishermen themselves to take responsibility for using their skills to fish more selectively and to take more responsibility for recording their total catches and not just the fish they choose to retain and land.
We believe there are strong arguments for making fishermen more accountable for their total catches.
It would improve information and management of removal levels of fish stocks and incentivise the development of selective fishing methods, gear and technology that can optimize the value of catches whilst significantly reducing the wasteful practice of discarding.
We therefore wish to explore the scope for testing voluntary and incentive-driven management mechanisms based on catch rather than landing quotas.
We would wish that fishermen choosing such an option carry the responsibility of documenting their total catches, and that the requirements for such documentation must ensure unequivocal reliability.
Our work to date on camera documentation and non-discard projects shows us that full documentation can be a feasible solution.
However, we also recognise that further work needs to be done more generally to provide the necessary evidence and confidence to support this possible change in approach.
We are therefore keen to work with the Commission and the Council - and with fishermen themselves - to
refine our ideas and explore the potential to apply them during 2010 and for them to be a valuable reference point in the development of a new and more effective CFP.
Signed in Aalborg 8 October 2009, by
Eva Kjer Hansen Huw Irranca-Davies Richard Lochhead
Joint statement
The Danish, German, UK and Scottish ministers responsible for fisheries, today expressed their joint desire to explore one way to improve the Common Fisheries Policy
The CFP is currently being reviewed, with the intention of improvements being introduced by the beginning of 2013.
CFP reform offers a real opportunity to ensure our shared fish stocks are safeguarded for the future, and therefore in turn, the economic livelihoods of our fishing communities.
The Green Paper poses many questions and recognises that the current CFP takes a top-down approach and needs to give the fishing industry more incentives to behave responsibly.
One change we all want to see, then, is a shift to a system reflecting results based management which incentivises good fisheries practices.
Such a system would contribute to giving fishermen more scope for conducting their fishery as an economic activity, but only if they take full responsibility for accounting for all the fish they remove from the sea.
We believe that a system which engages the industry and harnesses the innovation of fishermen can be an integral part of a better, more effective CFP. And we want the fishermen themselves to take responsibility for using their skills to fish more selectively and to take more responsibility for recording their total catches and not just the fish they choose to retain and land.
We believe there are strong arguments for making fishermen more accountable for their total catches.
It would improve information and management of removal levels of fish stocks and incentivise the development of selective fishing methods, gear and technology that can optimize the value of catches whilst significantly reducing the wasteful practice of discarding.
We therefore wish to explore the scope for testing voluntary and incentive-driven management mechanisms based on catch rather than landing quotas.
We would wish that fishermen choosing such an option carry the responsibility of documenting their total catches, and that the requirements for such documentation must ensure unequivocal reliability.
Our work to date on camera documentation and non-discard projects shows us that full documentation can be a feasible solution.
However, we also recognise that further work needs to be done more generally to provide the necessary evidence and confidence to support this possible change in approach.
We are therefore keen to work with the Commission and the Council - and with fishermen themselves - to
refine our ideas and explore the potential to apply them during 2010 and for them to be a valuable reference point in the development of a new and more effective CFP.
Signed in Aalborg 8 October 2009, by
Eva Kjer Hansen Huw Irranca-Davies Richard Lochhead