Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 40)
TUESDAY 22 OCTOBER 2002
MR MARK
TASKER AND
MS ANDREA
CAREW
Diana Organ
20. You have made it quite clear that you think
the way forward is with the Regional Advisory Committees because
you think it is a practical, pragmatic approach and you can have
a build up of trust between the fishermen. I am a little bit concerned
about that because are we just going to end up with it being no
more than what they call a dysfunctional talking shop where everybody
is there arguing the toss. We know, as my colleague Austin has
said, that fishermen resent very much being told by scientists,
because they will say that their evidence is that the scientists
do not have it right, they know from their practical experience
what is happening to fish stocks, etc, etc, and I am just concerned
that we might end up with having another layer, another talking
shop that does not actually take the whole process forward.
(Ms Carew) Coming away from a conference or a workshop
that we had sometime ago in Dun Laoghaire where a number of fishery
stakeholders were present, primarily from the industry and nature
conservation interests as well, as some political figureheads
too, it was agreed broadly, which is quite surprising, that everyone,
including the industry, were quite comfortable with the fact and
preferred that Regional Advisory Councils remain advisory, as
opposed to executive. Every one agreed as well that with the consultative
process, which could be facilitated through Regional Advisory
Councils, we have to be careful to not impose more complications
on top of the system that already exists. But I think what we
need to grasp on to is that it is an alternative that is appealing
to people, and, yes, we need to be very careful about how they
are constructed—membership, structure, function and so on—but
to not look at a concept like the Regional Advisory Council and
to make steps towards it I fear is to deny the need for stakeholders,
particularly the fishermen, to have a voice in fisheries management.
Yes, there are concerns and real fears out there about that, but
I think that if we are careful and do not stampede towards the
ideal without really thinking about what the consequences might
be, like a difficult and complex consultative process—and
we clearly want to avoid that—if we can achieve some clarity
at an early stage with respect to structure, function and membership,
then we can avoid those complexities that I think you are referring
to.
21. I am a little concerned that because, as
you say, it is going to be just advisory, after a little while—this
idea that we give the fishermen a voice—they are going to
latch onto the fact that: Yes, okay, you can come round to this
meeting but we are going to take no notice of what you say because
scientists have decided that, they have done this model and this
has to be the policy that is taken forward in the Common Fisheries
Policy, so you can come here and scream and shout as long as you
like but it does not get you anywhere. I just wondered how we
are going to take that forward so that people do feel that they
have a voice that actually is being listened to and is being acted
on rather than just an opportunity for them to be round the table.
(Ms Carew) If we ensure that the consultative process
is transparent and that that advice is fed up through the Commission
and we ensure that the Commission demonstrate that the advice
has been taken into account. Whether or not they agree to adhere
to it, I guess, at the end of the day will be their decision,
but as long as they can show that the advice has been taken into
account, and, where they have chosen not to adhere to it if their
reasons are clear and sound, then that is the best we can ask
for at this stage.
22. Taking it on from the Irish Sea case study
and what you have done there, what would you say is the pathway
to do that?
(Ms Carew) To begin at a very early stage and to begin
to draw the different stakeholders in and talk about what their
vision of a Regional Advisory Council is, what their ideas are
of the structure or the function and so on. I am concerned that
at a UK level that has only happened, as far as I can tell, through
the CCW workshop that was initiated in Dun Laoghaire. That is
a step in the right direction but it is not enough, more needs
to be done, and I would like to see the UK Government take a role
in moving this along a little bit further.
23. So you see the Irish Sea case study as a
building block for it but not the final look at what it is going
to be.
(Ms Carew) That is right. Certainly.
(Mr Tasker) If I may just chip in with a couple of
things that I think RACs add as well. One at the moment is that
we have got the Common Fisheries Policy that is `one size fits
all' policy. Now, try telling me that the Mediterranean is the
same as the Baltic. It is not. The North Sea is not the same as
west of Portugal, it is not the same as the Azores. And it is
not just ecologically, which, I understand, better, but also socially.
You know, 90 per cent of the Portuguese fleet is under 12 metres
in length. That is really a very different fleet to, say, the
one where I come from in Aberdeen in north-east Scotland. So part
of the point of an RAC is to get some of that regional devolution
(to use the right word) and blend it with the CFP. The other thing
is to take account of the variation in ecosystems responses. Ecosystem
responses, as we have talked about already, are very different
from what will happen if you fish round the Azores, from what
you have if you fish in the North Sea. The other thing that I
think the fishermen do need a better voice on . . . One of the
reasons why I think the fishermen may have gone wrong is because
I suspect they do not fully understand where the basis of the
advice is coming from, and the non-understanding of the basis
of that advice means that they tend to take less notice of it.
They tend to believe what they are doing and seeing. And—the
other way round—maybe scientists do not fully understand
what the fishermen are up to. So, actually, that talk shop, although
it may be just a talk shop, will have some benefits I think in
gaining understanding and, in gaining understanding, you may get
better adhesion to any rules. One of the real things that has
gone wrong with the Common Fisheries Policy is there has been
cheating left, right and centre.
24. I agree with you on that.
(Mr Tasker) I can quote all sorts of figures that
have come from various studies on that. If you are a fishermen
and you are at sea on a boat, you can more or less do what you
want unless there is the grey lady from the Royal Navy coming
over the horizon. And you can hide a hell of a lot, and you can
cheat a hell of a lot. But if you do not want to do that and peer
pressure stops you doing that, then it will not happen so much,
and certainly giving a voice to the fishermen I think will help
a great deal in that area.
Mr Borrow
25. That brings us on to the science of fisheries
management and the fact that there is uncertainty as to how you
count the number of fish and disagreement as to the state of the
fisheries stocks in various seas. Is our understanding of the
state of fish stocks and the way in which the ecosystem works
sufficiently good for us to develop a sound fishery management
system?
(Mr Tasker) There are two questions you have asked
there: Is our understanding of the fish stocks sufficiently good?
and: Is that for the ecosystem sufficiently good? I would say
yes to the former and no to the latter. That has implications
for the advice. In terms of fish stock, I guess you understand
roughly how they assess the fish stock size. You look both at
independent research survey work and you look at what has been
landed, and from that you can use fairly robust mathematical models
to derive the size of the fish stock. I have never seen a challenge
from a fishermen to those models. I have heard them say, "The
result is wrong" but no challenge to the models. That to
me tending to say, "Yes, we do know roughly what is going
on with the fish stocks." If one looks back in time, it is
fairly obvious there have been some biases in the model and, indeed,
I understand the ICES scientists are working on removing those
biases. But the biases unfortunately have been the wrong way—in
other words, have tended to be over-optimistic about the state
of stocks rather than pessimistic about it—and that is of
course part of the problem that has happened. I think we have
mentioned that in our evidence as one of the reasons. In terms
of understanding the ecosystem, it is a very, very complex thing
out there and we are running what effectively is one giant uncontrolled
experiment. No one has ever taken away this amount of predatory
fish from any system anywhere and we do not know what the end
result will be. Off Newfoundland, as Andrea has already referred
to, basically the fishery has switched over to being dominated
by crustaceans, by prawns and by shrimps, and there does not seem
to be much recovery of cod. It may well be that actually by switching
to crustaceans and prawns that is stopping the cod recovery. We
do not know. In terms of what that implies for management is that
it means we have to be extra careful, we should be yet more precautionary
than we have been, because we know that there is a good state
somewhere there that has the reasonable number of fish that we
can harvest, but we do not know what happens if we take all those
away and switch to another state. It is basically that our lack
of understanding or our lack of full understanding should point
much more heavily at being yet safer in the decisions we take
than we are being at the moment.
26. On the question of the information that
is available, in your own submission you say that it is "important
that scientists and managers make best use of the fisheries and
environmental data that is currently available" and that
"there are reasonable and cost-effective ways of meeting
the challenges" caused by the paucity of information available.
What do you regard as the "reasonable and cost-effective
ways" of actually doing that?
(Mr Tasker) There is a study which has been done in
north-east Scotland recently where they have gone around with
an independent interviewer to ask the fishermen just how much
they are discarding or just how much they are landing. This gives
you a very good handle on "the amount of cheating" that
is going on. That information is there. That information has been
there all the time and if you ask the fishermen the right way
and you do not incriminate them in anything, you will get it and
that makes your models that much better. If I understand it correctly,
in terms of cost-effectiveness, that was two people for a year
doing that work, which is very good value.
27. With the ecosystem approach to managing
fish stocks and the environmental modelling indicators and all
that side of things, how do you think that could be improved?
How do you think we can set indicators that monitor the environmental
components of managing fish stocks in a meaningful way. With any
system it is easy to come up with indicators, but at the end of
the day do they actually mean anything? Are they indicators we
can do something with?
(Ms Carew) If I can back up a little bit and just
look at an ecosystem-based approach. To our minds there are a
couple of things we are talking about. There is an ecosystem-based
approach which is something that is making people very, very nervous—and
perhaps with some justification. In broad terms, an ecosystem-based
approach is meant to be cross-sectoral: it is fisheries, it is
oil and gas, it is aggregate extraction, and the different sectors
that impose and impact upon the marine environment coming together
and taking account of these impacts that they have on the broader
environment and also striving towards a comprehensive understanding
of ecosystem functioning and process. And, quite frankly, we probably
will never achieve that, and for that reason people at a very
high level, even at the Commission, are getting very nervous,
with: What is an ecosystem-based approach? What are we saying?
Are we not setting unrealistic goals? I think we need to step
back from that and look at it from more of a sectoral point of
view, without being too reductionist about a broad definition
of an ecosystem-based approach and look at what the fisheries
sector can do to begin progressively moving towards an ecosystem-based
approach. It is our opinion really that if we embrace the CFP
reform proposals as they stand—and we do take issue with
some things that have come through in the proposals—we will
be moving towards an ecosystem-based approach. The fisheries sector
will be moving towards an ecosystem-based approach if it agrees
things such as enhanced technical measures, trying to get a handle
on reducing by-catch. These are a practical, pragmatic ways of
moving towards an ecosystem-based approach. Going back more specifically
to indicators that might help gauge our progress in progressively
moving towards an ecosystem-based approach, well, by-catch is
one of them. It does not have to be this difficult, inaccessible
concept. Now, indicators. There are some problems with them—and
I will allow my colleague to expand in a little more detail on
them—but I think the Commission has recently come out with
a communication with respect to by-catch and it seems that the
scope for considering by-catch outside merely commercial species
is a bit myopic really. We are not fully taking account of wider
ecosystem effects, we are just looking at by-caught commercial
species. What about sea birds? What about Cetaceans? If we can
begin to get a handle on that—yes, it will be difficult,
but if we can begin to develop those common indicators—it
would give us some indication of whether we are moving towards
that goal of an ecosystem-based approach.
Chairman
28. I think many people feel the failure of
CFP in the last couple of decades to be more to do with, not a
lack of scientific evidence or the lack of political will, but
member States have just been unable to take the rather tough economic
decisions and have come to the sort of crunch now. Do you believe
that there is now, with all the evidence before you and all the
doomsday scenario you have painted, that political will to take
those tough economic decisions this time around to move fishing
to that more sustainable basis?
(Ms Carew) I would like to think that the political
will would be there simply because of the evidence that is placed
before them. I would like to think that we in Europe could look
across the Atlantic and see the results of that lack of political
will, and then that political will kicking in—too little
too late. Am I convinced that the political will is here now?
Personally, no, and I think we have a lot to lose without having
that political will in place and I will let my colleague expand.
(Mr Tasker) I think, as a rider to that, there is
some political will there and I think your current minister for
fisheries, Elliot Morley, to whom you will be talking later, does
have political will. He has demonstrated that in relation to deep
sea fish stock decisions, in that he was on his own against virtually
everyone else in that case. I think the problem is actually further
south and west in Europe. Northern Europe I think now understands
that we have a real crisis here. I am not sure that southern Europe
understands that yet. I am not quite sure why—it is presumably
something to do with the social and economic impacts of closing
some of those fisheries—but I think we need to address those
as something separate. There is no point in carrying on fishing
if there is no fish there.
Diana Organ
29. You have sort of touched on my question
because you have made it clear that, shall we say, the northern
European states are aware of the crisis and possibly those that
are more Mediterranean coast or southern may be aware of it but
are ignoring the crisis. But that does not necessarily correspond,
I would say to you, with the political will to do something about
it, that some member states are more committed to having a fisheries
policy that will lead to a sustainable fishery for the future,
and I wondered if you would care to identify those which you think
are really committed to that and have the political will to make
these very hard economic decisions and those Member States that
will not go along with it and consequently may not be able to
deliver it.
(Mr Tasker) I hope the UK does have that political
will. Certainly Sweden has. It has closed its cod fisheries, as
I mentioned earlier. Germany, whose fisheries are rather small,
I think has the will. Denmark has certainly faced up to the facts
in other fisheries and has understood the problems and therefore
it has some will to say, "No you cannot do that," to
the fishing industry. But going south and west, we know that 80
per cent of Europe's funding for fisheries goes to Spain and I
think the will just does not exist there. Personally, I do not
know it well enough and I am not an expert in international politics,
I am more an environmentalist.
30. But there is a problem with that, is there
not, in that the fishery take is coming so predominantly from
Spain and Portugal and other Mediterranean countries and those
that might have, as you have said, small fisheries in Germany,
Sweden—
(Mr Tasker) The state of stocks, which is another
indicator, is just as bad everywhere. We have not done very well
in the past in the north either.
31. What is your estimate of the likelihood
that we could have in one/two decades time a sustainable fisheries
within the EU? Is your prognosis poor, good, fair?
(Mr Tasker) My personal prognosis is very poor. But
that is . . .
32. It is your judgment.
(Mr Tasker) It is not what I would like to see at
all. I would like the exact opposite. I think there is a possibility,
if the will is there, that you can get a win, win, win here, that
we can get better fish stocks, we can get better food, and we
can get a reasonable industry sector. But it needs proper political
leadership, it needs proper political guidance, and there is not
much evidence of it out there at the moment.
Mr Mitchell
33. You said that 80 per cent of the subsidies
have gone to Spain. It is therefore a bit one-sided for us to
argue, since we do not receive any effectively European subsidies,
that subsidies should be stopped. Would you argue that subsidies
should be stopped altogether? Would you say that subsidies should
be stopped for the catch side?
(Mr Tasker) Yes, I should, and we do certainly agree,
and we have said in our evidence, that the proposals to stop subsidising
new builds and modernisation from Europe should occur and we agree
with that. I think what would be very useful to tease out is the
difference between supporting fishermen and supporting the fishing
communities that are dependent on fish landings. In north-west
Spain, the Vigo area is highly dependent, as is Grimsby and various
other places. Just drawing a parallel from last week's news, I
think one of your colleagues was emphasising the problem that
occurred in Worksop after the closure of the collieries. There
it seems to me that effort should have gone in to support the
community there—not to support the mining industry necessarily
but to support the community. Where I think, if there are going
to be subsidies put in to compensate for this loss of fish landings,
is to the communities; it is not into the fishing industry itself,
because all that putting more money into the fishing industry
does is to catch yet more fish that are not there.
34. That is what happened with the loss of Iceland,
to a degree, not an adequate degree, because the new money was
actually precluded from going into fishing and put into other
areas. But Spain was able to negotiate itself and to insist on
a generous situation for its industry as part of the accession.
We now have a series of other new states coming in, several of
them with quite sizeable fishing fleets. What consideration has
been given to the effect of that on a Common Fisheries Policy
which is already overstretched
(Mr Tasker) There you are getting into areas which
I do not know very much about. I will be honest about that. I
think we have commented in the past that there does not appear
to be very much analysis in the CFP revision of expansion. My
understanding is that the only really big fishing nation there
is Poland and the other Baltic states are also already dealt with
in terms of quota share and so on within the Baltic. That is not
to say that fishing in the Baltic is any better than it is anywhere
else, but, so far as I understand it, there is not going to be
a great deal of expansion or any extra money going into that area.
I do not know if Andrea would like to add anything to that.
(Ms Carew) No.
(Mr Tasker) No, I think we may pass on the general
question there.
35. You have commented on the fact that there
was a threat to conservation of the stocks in 1992. The fisheries
policy was reformed in 1992. Since then it has all got worse.
Is the real problem not so much that it is political policy, a
series of negotiations, which people have demands to put, but
the fundamental nature of the CFP itself. It might be in a perfect
world, but we would be better, would we not, achieving the same
kind of thing that Norway and Iceland have achieved by controlling
our own waters?
(Mr Tasker) First of all, we ought to look at the
state of Norway and Iceland stocks. They are not actually as good
as everyone makes out. They are better than the further south
areas.
36. You might say are better.
(Mr Tasker) No. Norway's cod stocks are in pretty
bad shape. I would not say much better. Iceland also is an island
on its own. Their waters do not abut, they do not interact very
much with anyone else's. If we control our own, we would certainly
have to come to a whole series of bilateral agreements with our
neighbours—and I mean a whole series. That was more or less
what was there before—and still is there to a certain extent—in
terms of the six to 12 mile limit, so would it make a difference?
I doubt it—not now—because people would want to keep
the rough status quo, and negotiations would head towards that
status quo, and unless we pull right out of the common European
Community and European Union I do not think we could do anything
else.
37. The proviso is on not now because the vested
interests have been established, you say.
(Mr Tasker) Yes. While we are on about 1992, I would
point out that the Commission came forward in that year, when
I was also interested in fisheries policy, with some very, very
good proposals. They were also heavily watered down in the political
negotiations and basically we have gone exactly where we predicted
it would happen then.
38. Do you think, on the basis of what you are
proposing and what you would like to see come out of the negotiations,
with proper management and a proper settlement, that the fish
stocks can be revived to a sustainable catching level?
(Mr Tasker) I do not know. What I said earlier is
we have gone into a catastrophic experimental situation basically.
We do not know what will happen, but unless something is done
there is not a hope of coming back. If there is any hope of coming
back, we really do have to do something. And even if we do not
reform the CFP, the evidence that I was talking about earlier
that is coming from ICES is such that huge changes are needed
regardless of what happens with the reform. Forget ecosystem-based
approach, forget all the rest of it, we have to cut fishing effort
and very, very rapidly and very, very deeply.
39. So, given the fact that you say the sensible
proposals of last time, 1992, were considerably watered down and
given the fact that there is still political negotiation going
on and given the state of the stocks, your prognostication is
essentially gloom.
(Mr Tasker) Yes, and I am hoping that the evidence
I have given you will help put some more political spine into
the system.
Chairman
40. Thank you very much indeed for that. This
is the first meeting of three. We thank you for your evidence
and for the evidence you have submitted. There still will be time,
if you want to comment officially on ICES, when they have published
their report at the end of next week, please do let us have your
comments on that because that could be included. In the meantime,
thank you very much indeed for coming along and helping our inquiry.
(Mr Tasker) Thank you very much for inviting us.
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