24 June 2021
Next Monday 28th June, our Minister for
Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue will decide, jointly with
his European peers, how fishing activities must be monitored and controlled to
ensure their compliance with fisheries sustainability rules.
Twenty NGOs, including 10 from Ireland, have recently encouraged
the Minister to ensure that Ireland plays a positive role in this revision of
the EU’s fisheries Control Regulation.
The EU fisheries control system was created to ensure
appropriate monitoring, inspection and enforcement of fishing operations in EU
waters and activities of the EU fleet worldwide. The idea is a solid one – by
having better fishing controls, we can end overfishing, and help bolster ocean
health in the face of climate change.
The NGO letter highlighted how a robust Fisheries Control
Regulation is crucial to deliver sustainable fishing activities in Irish and EU
waters, and how Ireland can, and must take leadership on improving how our seas
are fished.
These recommendations come at a time when the Irish fishing
industry is in disarray and the international reputation of Ireland’s fisheries
controls is at an all-time low, following the European Commission unprecedented
decision
to revoke Ireland’s “control plan” which allowed the Irish fishing industry to
weigh their catch in processing factories, rather than at port.
This drastic step comes after fifteen years of reports and
audits into the failings of Irish fisheries control.
The most recent of which highlighted “severe and significant
weaknesses” in the Irish control system, in particular unquantified illegal
landings; suspicious vessel modifications; tampering with weighing operations;
the lack of effective enforcement and sanctioning of noncompliance; and the
complete lack of control or enforcement of the illegal targeting, capture and
landing of bluefin tuna.
In response, a spokesperson for the Killybegs Fishermen’s
Organisationaccused
Ireland’s Sea Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA), which is responsible for
enforcing the Control Regulation, of being “a dysfunctional organisation that
is not fit for purpose”. The Irish Fish Producers Organisation also called
the SFPA “totally dysfunctional”.
These accusations come off the back of a recent independent review
of the SFPA which found that the fisheries control authority “is not working
effectively and requires urgent attention.”
Only the tip of the
iceberg
The European Commission appear to have lost faith in the
Irish authority’s ability to monitor our own fishing activities.
In addition to tearing up Ireland’s control plan, Ireland
may have to “pay back” thousands of tonnes of illegal landings – through reduced
annual quotas – while €40m in funding from the European Maritime Fisheries Fund
is already being withheld.
This may only be the tip of the iceberg, as the Dutch
Government recently disclosed that the Commission intends to initiate an
infringement procedure against North-western EU member states (including
Ireland) after a recent audit found serious faults with the implementation of
the EU’s ban on discarding fish at sea.
The revision of the EU’s control
regulation presents a ‘golden opportunity’ to tackle many of the deficiencies
that have led to Ireland’s current crisis.
For example, the Commission has
proposed that modern Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM) tools, such as
closed-circuit television and sensor data, should be introduced to support the
monitoring and control of high-risk vessels.
The use of these tools has already
been proven to be superior to conventional controls, such as at-sea and in-port
inspections, in terms of its cost-effectiveness and potential coverage.
By supporting the adoption of these
tools, Minister McConalogue could boost Ireland’s efforts to revolutionize the
management and monitoring of commercial fisheries. Digitalization and new
monitoring tools will provide better data to inform science, management and
conservation.
By taking a progressive position in
favour of a strong control regulation could see Ireland go from laggard to a
leader in ending illegal fishing activities, to the benefit of our marine
environment and the Irish fishing communities who depend on it.
Fintan
Kelly is the Policy Officer at BirdWatch Ireland
The post Opinion: Minister must take control of Ireland’s illegal fishing activities appeared first on Green News Ireland.
