Examination of Witness (Questions 240-248)
Dr Euan Dunn
26 MARCH 2008
Q240 Earl of Arran: Before getting
on to the important point on governance and getting back to basics
for a moment, in your opinion are seabirds at risk or suffering
as a result of CFP?
Dr Dunn: We have spoken about discards and I
suppose that is the other side of the coin. It has been a benefit
but not one that we applaud or welcome. Some seabirds are undoubtedly
disadvantaged by the way the CFP has managed its fisheries. The
most obvious example of that has been the sandeel fishery. For
seabirds that are dependent on sandeels as a stable prey, something
like 90-95% of their diet in the summer is sandeels. I am speaking
about surface feeding birds like the kittiwake, a small, dainty
gull, and some of the tern species that nest in places like Orkney
and Shetland. These populations have been in relentless decline.
The studies that have been done in Scotland in the Firth of Forth
have shown that the impact of climate change, sea warming—and
I described its impact on sandeels a few moments ago—and
the industrial fishing for sandeels by the Danish fleet just offshore
from the Firth of Forth have been a double-whammy for those seabirds.
You can show incontestably that those factors have been implicated
in the decline of those seabird populations. I am happy to say
that as a result of a lot of advocacy and changes in thinking,
the sandeel fishery is now much better managed, but I have to
say that has probably come about largely because the fishing industry
itself has been so undermined by climate change that they have
had to pull in their horns and rein in their fisheries. Yes, some
seabirds are; others are not.
Q241 Earl of Arran: Thank you. That
is helpful. Moving on to governance and, in particular, the Regional
Advisory Councils—of which I think you are on two at the
moment, are you not?
Dr Dunn: Yes.
Q242 Earl of Arran: These have fairly
recently been set up.
Dr Dunn: Yes.
Q243 Earl of Arran: In your paper
you mention constraints and obstacles as regards their success.
How do you think this can be overcome and improved?
Dr Dunn: First of all, I am a supporter of the
Regional Advisory Councils (RACs) as a governance tool. I think
that is a very, very important issue. Really what we have now
is regional advice to the European Commission from different regional
seas, the North Sea, the North Western Waters and the South Western
Waters and so on. I will come to your question in a moment, and
I hope you will bear with me while I do this little preamble.
The Commission are fundamentally changing their structure as we
speak. It will be announced formally, probably in the next few
days or weeks, but the Commission has been restructuring itself.
DG Fisheries has been restructuring itself to reflect the regional
needs of its management outreach. At a meeting only a couple of
weeks ago in the Edinburgh Parliament, the chap from DG Fisheries
who is responsible now for the North East Atlantic and relations
with Norway was there in his new role, as overseeing the part
of the European Union Community waters which are most important
to us. This whole regionalisation of the Common Fisheries Policy
has legs and it is not just being reflected in the creation of
the RACs but is going to change the institutional structure of
DG Fisheries. In fact, I think they are even going to change the
name. I think they are going to be called DG MARE or something
instead DG Fisheries and Maritime Affairs. What needs to be done
to make the RACs work better? A few things. In my view, there
is still too much focus on the short-term issues, like TACs and
quotas. I think the RACs agenda needs to preoccupy itself with
the long-term management issues. That is where they will give
added value, because the fishing organisations like the Scottish
Fishermen's Federation and the National Federation of Fishermen's
Organisations are already piling into the TACs and quotas every
year and you wonder if the RACs can add much to what is already
being done at national level. What, after all, are the RACs? They
are an international forum. They can deal with boundary issues
and trans-boundary issues and they should be looking at the big
picture, the long-term management plans. I also think they need
to focus more on that. I think they need to be able to do their
own research. They are far too dependent on hand-outs and the
goodwill of a few Member States. I have to say that the North
Sea RAC and the North Western Waters RAC benefit hugely from the
support of Defra. Defra have piled in and given a good account
of themselves. They are almost unique in the amount of support
they have given—with the possible exception of Denmark to
the Baltic RAC—so I applaud that. They can provide facilities
for meetings, they can provide expertise and know-how, but I think
the RACs need to be able to commission their own research and
they have such a huge agenda and such a lot of work to do and
they need to be better informed than they are. My own view is
that some of the RACs are too big. I know that they were probably
divided up in a fairly pragmatic sort of way but the North Sea
RAC is pretty good. It has a tight little nexus of eight Member
States, functions well, there is very good dialogue, there is
a lot of momentum. The North Western Waters RAC covers a huge
area and a huge number of different languages: English, Portuguese,
French, Spanish. There are hugely difficult problems of trying
to work out what the most important issues are. The southern Member
States have a different agenda from west coast Scottish fishermen,
for example, and trying to find something that holds all that
together is difficult. The South Western Waters RAC, to a degree,
as well. At some point the size and boundaries of the RACs may
have to be looked at again but for the time being those are the
main things I would observe.
Q244 Earl of Arran: At the moment
they are advisory, are they not? Do you think there is a danger
in them becoming executive?
Dr Dunn: I do not think there is a danger in
the sense of them sliding imperceptibly from an advisory to an
executive decision-making role. Really the RACs are, if you like,
on trial. The Commission are observing them extremely closely.
The Commission feel they are getting good advice, on the large,
and it is improving advice from the RACs. The Commission will
also—I have sensed this at times—be looking at their
own backs a little bit: they do not want to cede power to bodies
like the RACs on anything other than a highly systematic stakeholder
debate basis. I think we are in for a long haul really there.
If the RACs prove themselves, I can see them playing a bigger
role than they have, but, at the moment, I would not recommend
that they have anything other than the role they have, partly
because I think there is still a lot of business as usual. The
issues are very traditional, the ones the fishermen focus on,
the short-term issues, not a lot of interest in the ecosystem
approach and so on. You are going to get the two-thirds fishing
majority view on those things, with the likes of myself struggling
to get a view in that consensus. Perhaps that is institutionally
something that is going to be hard to ever break out of, but,
however it plays out, I would not go further than the role they
have at the moment. But it is working. I think it is very good
and the dialogue is improving between stakeholders. It was unimaginable
ten years ago for me to sit down with the national fishermen's
organisations and have the sensible, measured discussion that
we have nowadays. It has taken a lot heat out of the "greens"
versus the fishermen. It is a more grown-up debate and I think
that is very, very healthy.
Earl of Arran: My other question you
have already answered. It was about the future and short-termism
against long-termism. You have expanded on that, so that has been
helpful. Thank you.
Q245 Viscount Ullswater: In part
of your answer you say that you feel TACs and quotas are going
to be with us for some time to come.
Dr Dunn: Yes.
Q246 Viscount Ullswater: As basic
building structures. Are we going to have to have the annual Council
with the sort of horse trading that goes on every December in
order to get those settled or can the RACs somehow take the place
or give the advice that would obviate the need for that sort of
Council?
Dr Dunn: I think the RACs will play a stronger
role. Things are changing already. One of the reasons for the
lunacy of the December Council, where fishing ministers are dead
on their feet at four in the morning and making decisions that
affect us all, is that the scientific advice is now going to be
coming much earlier. In fact this year for the first time ICES
will begin to give its advice in June. That period of reflection
and negotiation and consultation is invaluable because it will
cut out a lot of the frenetic approach. Just as an NGO, I know
that the December Council is the worst time of the year for me
and it probably is for everybody. Nobody looks forward to that
period between October and December. I think the frontloading,
as it is called, will greatly improve it. I would like to see
us move to a situation where, with long-term management plans,
you have the fisheries ministers more locked into what they can
and cannot agree. I would like to see them be less able to put
a socio-economic spin on the scientific advice and I would like
to see them more constrained in that way. I would like to see
them more adopting proposals that have already been almost signed
off before they get to them. The evolutionary process to me suggests
that that may be the way that we are beginning to go. I also think
that the lack of integration between DG Fisheries and DG Environment
has been lamentable and hugely damaging to the timely implementation
of an ecosystem approach. They simply do not work together and
they still do not work together. DG Fisheries has, as I said right
at the beginning, scarcely any capacity for environmental issues.
They have one or two people in DG Fisheries who deal with environmental
issues as a bespoke part of their work programme. That is deeply
worrying. I am not sure I would go this far, but some people even
would like to see the whole fisheries regulatory process under
the aegis of DG Environment rather than DG Fisheries. That would
be a long haul but at the very least I think we need to see much
better institutional integration between the two if we are going
to have an ecosystem approach worthy of the name. There is no
point blaming the Commission; it is down to the Parliament. If
we want DG Fisheries or DG MARE or whatever it is called to have
better capacity, the European Parliament needs to make that case.
In relation to that, the fact that under the new Treaty the European
Parliament will have co-decision on all fisheries issues except
for TACs and quotas could make quite a big difference. They will
have to be taken more seriously. It should theoretically or hopefully
increase the democratisation of the process, so that will be helpful.
Q247 Chairman: You have mentioned
the problem of DG Fisheries and DG Environment. Do you have any
views on the relationship between the Common Fisheries Policy
and things like the Marine Directive, the Habitats Directive and
the Birds Directive and the way in which those environment-driven
legislative frameworks are relating to this Common Fisheries Policy?
Dr Dunn: Perhaps I could take the Directives
first. The meeting that the joint RACs held in Edinburgh on 5
and 6 March, just a few weeks ago, was to explore how the fishing
sector engages with the emerging network of offshore marine protected
areas. Member States have to submit their initial tranche of proposals
for offshore sites by September of this year. These are the so-called
Special Areas of Conservation under the Habitats Directive. This
has been a huge thing coming. The industry have not really attended
to it. I think they always thought it was something that was away
in the distance, but now it is here. We had a very good meeting.
DG Fisheries was there and DG Environment, and they both gave
presentations. We were exploring how we designate those sites,
how we make sure that different Member States manage them in an
equitable way—this level playing field thing again—how
we adapt the fishing activity to ensure that these sites are adequately
protected to meet the conservation goals. It was a very constructive
meeting and the fishing sector I think dealt with it very well
and I was very heartened by it. It was a meeting that was organised
by the Spatial Planning Working Group of the North Sea RAC. The
synergy, if you like, between the Habitats and the Birds Directives
and the CFP in operational terms is now being worked out, and
the Commission have some ideas and are in the thick of it. And,
I think, so far, so good. On the bigger maritime policy, the Marine
Strategy Directive is going to be something that is going to slowly
creep up on us all and affect issues like the Common Fisheries
Policy, although it is hard to know at the moment quite how deeply.
The Marine Strategy Directive which was adopted at the end of
last year requires Member States to achieve something called "good
environmental status" by the year 2020. That Marine Strategy
Directive is the environmental strand across all European policies.
It is not just the Common Fisheries Policy; it is anything else
that affects the seas, like the CAP, through fertiliser run-off
or whatever. For the first time, it makes firm links between environmental
legislation and the Common Fisheries Policy, so that, if fisheries
present a problem for achieving that good environmental status,
the Commission and the Member States are required to act within
the framework of the CFP to resolve that problem. It is going
to bind in the CFP more strongly than it is capable of doing of
itself through its ecosystem-based approach. It is going to bind
it into a bigger regulatory structure. We wait and see. There
is some quite strong language in the Marine Strategy Directive
that reflects directly on the Common Fisheries Policy. Perhaps
I might just read one. Recommendation 39: "To achieve good
environmental status, measures can be taken within the context
of the CFP based on scientific evidence, including the full closure
of certain areas to safeguard inter alia spawning and nursery
grounds as well as to enable ecosystem integrity, structure and
function to be maintained or restored." That is quite clear,
powerful language and it gives a direct lightening rod from the
Marine Strategy Directive to the CFP to say: fishery closures
are something that will be expected to be part of your arsenal
of tools to achieve good environmental status if that is what
the objectives require. There are a number of others which make
similar strong linkages to the CFP. It is difficult to see quite
how powerful it is going to be, particularly in the context of
maritime policy. The Marine Strategy Directive is also the environmental
strand for the maritime policy which is a real catch-all for all
human activities at sea: shipping, oil and gas and all the rest.
But I would say one more thing. To come back to my role as chair
of the Spatial Planning Working Group in the North Sea RAC, the
reason we started with marine spatial planning in the North Sea
RAC is that fishing is hedged in on all sides now by a proliferation
of human activity in the North Sea and elsewhere, whether it be
wind farms, oil and gas exploration, aggregate extraction, and
fishing has not put its mark on the map. It is in danger of being
buffeted about and forced into compromising positions by these
powerful industries which are very well versed in how to get a
foothold. I think the Marine Strategy Directive is very important
in putting marine spatial planning at the heart of its intent.
It is to try to work out how the fishing sector, along with these
other sectors, can be managed in a conflict-free way to the extent
possible in Community waters. That is going to be perhaps one
of its most important impacts as a policy because we are going
to have to attend to this increasingly. We may say we were already
long overdue to attend to it but it is something that we are going
to have to deal with very, very firmly and systematically in the
next years running up to the next CFP review.
Q248 Chairman: Thank you very much
indeed. That was an absolutely first-class, comprehensive, thorough
evidence session. We are very much in your debt. Thank you.
Dr Dunn: Thank you for the opportunity. I really
appreciate it.
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