The Scottish Pelagic Fishermen’s Association (SPFA) has criticised a new Blue Marine Foundation (BMF) report for its failure to acknowledge the progress made towards the sustainable management of north-east Atlantic mackerel
Hannah Fennell, CEO designate of the SPFA said the report – Apocalypse Now: the True Cost of Overfishing – was misleading because it did not provide an overarching picture of the real situation.
She said: “The BMF report is misleading and cherry-picks figures. For example, it fails to mention that the agreed 2026 TAC of 299,010 tonnes comes directly from an ICES catch scenario which results in a spawning stock biomass with less than a 3% difference from the actual headline advice.
“Saying that the UK has prioritised short-term gain over long-term sustainability ignores the pivotal work carried out by the UK industry. The UK has played a vital role in spearheading agreements between coastal states to dramatically reduce fishing pressure by 20% over three years and continues to encourage a comprehensive sharing arrangement. The UK is also leading initiatives to expand survey work to improve the understanding of mackerel stocks, and has introduced Remote Electronic Monitoring on all UK pelagic vessels.”
She also pointed out that the UK pelagic fleet adheres to the best-practice guidelines for its mackerel fishery:
- The UK has never set unilateral mackerel quotas.
- All UK mackerel is caught inside UK waters.
- UK catches are for human consumption, not fishmeal.
- The UK supports:
- a 10% cap on quota carry-over between years
- limits on high-seas catches
- juvenile protection areas
- stronger monitoring and traceability
- The UK pelagic fleet is also opposed to trans-shipping at sea because of weak control measures.
Hannah Fennell also criticised the assertion in the report that the consolidation of the pelagic fleet in recent decades was detrimental to fishing communities.
“This is complete nonsense,” she said. “There are around 300 people directly employed on pelagic boats, with high quality and often sophisticated and technical jobs, which offer good salaries that are spent in local communities. All crew are local to their area.
“The pelagic industry supports a large onshore Scottish processing sector and during the peak season around 2,500 people are employed in factories based mainly in the north-east of Scotland and Shetland, creating a major economic boost to our fragile coastal communities.
“As well as the direct employment in both fishing and processing, there are many other support jobs dependent upon pelagic fish, including in engineering, ship repair and maintenance, logistics, and other port services.
“This importance of pelagic activities to port infrastructure also helps support the wider fishing industry, including whitefish and prawn fleets and the numerous under-10 metre vessels operating out of Shetland and north-east Scotland. Without locally owned and locally based pelagic vessels, many of the marine supply, electrical engineering and other support services that currently underpin the viability of operations for smaller vessels would cease to exist.”