Supplementary Memorandum by the National
Federation of Fishermen's Organisations
COD AVOIDANCE
PLANS: FROM
CONCEPT TO
IMPLEMENTATION
Background
1. Annex 1 to this paper is the NFFO concept
note which outlines the general concept of cod avoidance plans.
2. Cod avoidance plans are designed to address
the problem of fishing for economically important non-recovery
species whilst limiting the impact on the recovery stock, in this
case cod. An individual vessel plan will demonstrate how a vessel
will keep its catches to its allocated quota, with minimal discards
of cod. In aggregate terms, cod avoidance plans are a way of providing
some assurance that increasing the TAC will not be accompanied
by the increased targeting of cod or high grading. They are also
a way of incentivising fishing patterns that are aligned with,
rather than in conflict with management objectives. In this way,
cod avoidance plans can contribute to a further reduction in fishing
mortality.
3. The North Sea RAC and the North West
Waters RAC have both supported the idea of cod avoidance plans
and committed themselves to developing verifiable and practical
arrangements that would allow for their introduction
4. The Commission's non-paper A New Approach
to Effort Management Under Annex II of the TAC Regulation
suggests that the Commission is actively considering the approach
outlined in the NFFO concept paper:
"Given that a past history does not necessarily
determine future behaviour, what is being proposed now is a result-oriented
approach: the special treatment (not counting effort against the
KW-days allocation) is given only if the low-catch condition is
met and verified by observers."
"To benefit from these exemptions,(from
days at sea restrictions) vessels have to be involved into a specific
plan aiming at the avoidance of species subject to recovery, properly
designed and documented and including on-board observers and special
landing checks."
5. The Commission suggested, at its meeting
with the RACs and ACFA on 13 November, that what it meant by observer
coverage is a commitment by the vessel operator to accept an observer
rather than 100% coverage of every vessel.
6. During the recent EU/Norway negotiations,
which concluded on 26 November 2007:
The Community delegation informed the Norwegian
delegation of its intention of reducing the discard rate (ie the
proportion of the catch that is discarded) of cod to 10%. This
is to be implemented by three measures:
— Incentives to change the
behaviour of fishermen, such as through cod avoidance measures
to be developed at the industry's initiative and monitored with
observer coverage: or
— Introduction of technical
measures, to be tested in 2008 on a commercial scale with scientifically
qualified observers during the test phase and introduced on a
wide scale in 2009: and
— Where the two foregoing measures
cannot be applied, a further reduction in fishing effort for vessels
catching significant amounts of cod.
Cod avoidance plans: implementation
7. Although, for the purposes of illustration,
the NFFO concept note explains cod avoidance plans in terms of
an individual vessel, it may be desirable and would be perfectly
possible, to submit aggregate plans at fleet level covering 10,
20 or 200 vessels, so long as their characteristics and patterns
of operation are homogeneous enough to make the plans meaningful.
8. Annex II to this paper is a draft individual
vessel plan for the Whitby based whitefish/nephrops twin-rig trawler
Our Lass II. Its inclusion provides a basis for further discussion
and development, as well as a template that can be customised
for other types of fishing vessel.
9. Cod avoidance plans will only be acceptable
if they are transparent, robust and above all verifiable. To this
end, the following safeguards could be considered by each vessel
owner for inclusion in their plan. This should be regarded as
a menu because the circumstances of each vessel, or fleet, may
vary. However, the plan may include:
— CC TV coverage of deck area
(linked to winch activity);
— Prior Notification of landings;
— Full monitoring of landings
(subject to Authorities' resources);
— All cod sold through the auction;
and
— Agreement to increased inspection
at sea.
10. Sanctions: As cod avoidance plans will
offer a very substantial incentive (exemption from the effort
control regime) it is important that they are not abused. We would
suggest that a vessel found guilty of flouting the provisions
of its own cod avoidance plan should be obliged to revert to the
effort regime for the remainder of that year with appropriate
pro-rata reductions), and be disallowed from submitting a cod
avoidance plan in the following year.
11. Cod avoidance plans would be prepared
by the vessel or his agent (fish-selling agent, producer organisation
etc) in discussion with the local representative of the fisheries
management and control authorities.
12. Pilot: In order to test the practical
operation of cod avoidance plans, we propose a pilot exercise
in 2008 covering:
— two Whitefish vessels from Grimsby;
— two Whitefish/nephrops vessels
from the Yorkshire coast;
— two Saithe vessels from Hull;
— two Nephrops trawlers from North
Shields;
— two North Sea beam trawlers;
and
— two Irish Sea nephrops/whitefish
trawlers.
13. Each vessel in the pilot will submit
a cod avoidance plan that states the vessel's fishing intentions
for the coming year, the means to be employed to ensure that the
vessel fishes its quota allocation with minimal cod discards and
the safeguards/conditions to apply.
14. It should be possible to modify the
plan during the year in two respects:
— the management periods, where
the vessel might change its mode of fishing in year and or target
species with different conditions applying; and
— the vessel's quota allocations
of cod where these have been adjusted by quota sale, swap or transfer.
15. If at the end of six months, the pilot
demonstrates the cod avoidance plans can be implemented successfully,
applications could be invited from the rest of the fleet subject
to effort restrictions. At an aggregate level this would address
some of the concerns that:
— the increased "catchability"
of cod as a result of the 2005 year-class will lead to increased
targeting of cod;
— that effort control is too blunt
an instrument to effectively reduce discards; and
— further reductions in fishing
mortality are required to ensure the continuing rebuilding of
the cod stocks.
Discard reduction
16. Discards/High Grading: Cod avoidance
plans are designed to address the issue highlighted in ICES advice
for 2008 that the focus of management measures should be on the
total out-take of cod from the stock, not just on landings. Leaving
aside possible changes in natural mortality, during 2007 in the
North Sea a dramatic increase in discarding has been the consequence
of a low TAC for cod, along with a significant increase in the
abundance of cod and fleets which take cod mainly as a by-catch
to other economically important fisheries. Higher value grades
of cod have been retained on board whilst cod of marketable size
but lower value have been discarded. It is primarily this type
of discarding that cod avoidance plans will reduce.
17. Discarding undersized cod: Cod avoidance
plans will also discourage discarding of juvenile cod below the
minimum landing size. Measures to minimise this type of discarding
are most effectively addressed through:
— more selective fishing gear;
and
— real time closures of the type
being piloted in Scotland.
However vessels submitting cod avoidance plans
for approval would signal their intention to observe any voluntary
real time closures in place as a contribution to reducing discards
of undersized fish. In any event cod avoidance plans will discourage
targeting of cod aggregations
November 2007
Annex I
COD AVOIDANCE PLANS: A CONCEPT PAPER FOR
DISCUSSION
BACKGROUND
The Commission's non-paper on the future of
the EU cod recovery plan poses two mutually unpalatable alternatives.
In order to bring about a rapid recovery of cod stocks in European
waters the Commission argues that it is necessary to reduce fishing
mortality on cod much further than the measures in place appear
to have done so. This, it argued, can be done by suppressing effort
on cod by reducing TACs and effort allocations across all those
fleets which catch cod. Alternatively, fleets which catch only
small amounts of cod could be decoupled from cod fisheries
with separate, less restrictive effort ceilings. Although such
fisheries would face less severe restrictions, it is acknowledged
that decoupling would involve much more bureaucratic arrangements
than have applied hitherto, with sub-area and gear effort ceilings
and a much more restrictive regime on transfers of vessels and
effort across fleet boundaries.
COD AVOIDANCE
PLANS
As an alternative to these two approaches we
propose individual vessel cod avoidance plans. We envisage
that Cod Avoidance Plans would operate in the following way:
(i) The vessel operator would volunteer to
prepare a Cod Avoidance Plan;
(ii) Those vessel operators opting to prepare
a plan would discuss the matter with member state authorities
who could provide advice on the content of the plans. (Such guidance
would be the subject of a prior consultative exercise);
(iii) The vessel operator (with assistance,
if requested) would prepare a specific cod avoidance plan for
that vessel for the coming 12 months;
(iv) The vessel's Cod Avoidance Plan would
specify ways in which the vessel would operate in the coming year
to avoid catching cod above that covered by the vessels' legitimate
quota. This could be through:
— temporal/seasonal avoidance,
— or any other method devised by the
vessel operator.
(v) The vessel operator would undertake,
through these means, to keep cod catches within the vessel's quota
allocations and in any event, below 5% by weight over the course
of the year;
(vi) The Cod Avoidance Plan would be submitted
to the member state authorities for approval;
(vii) If the vessel's Cod Avoidance Plan
is approved the vessel would be exempt from effort control measures
for the coming year;
(viii) Conditions: vessels participating
in the cod avoidance plan scheme would undertake to provide enhanced
data on fishing activities, including estimates of discards;
(ix) Vessels breaching their conditions would
be required to operate for the rest of the year and the subsequent
fishing year, within the effort control regime;
(x) Safeguards: in order to provide confidence
that the cod avoidance plans would not be abused, a number of
safeguards would apply:
— An observer programme on a number
of vessels in the fleet,
— enhanced data reporting, including
self-sampling, and
— cross-checking of cod catches with
other similar vessels operating in the same area.
NOTES
1. Technical advances in the ability to
make fishing gear more selective have not been matched by an institutional
structure which incentivises the application of such gear. By
specifying and agreeing the outcome (low catches of cod) the ingenuity
and knowledge of fishermen will be directed to finding ways to
reduce catches of cod. At present no such incentive structure
exists.
2. Catches—Inclusive of landings and
discards. Acceptable bycatch limits to be agreed but probably
about a 5% maximum.
3. An approach based on Cod Avoidance Plans
would be consistent with:
— the objectives of the cod recovery
programme;
— the Commission's initiative
on discards; and
— improved selectivity—the
objective of the new revised technical conservation regulation.
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