News / Fishermen welcome withdrawal from convention on rights to UK waters
SHETLAND Fishermen’s Association has backed the UK’s decision to withdraw from a convention governing rights to fish in waters between 6-12 miles off the British coast.
The move, announced by UK environment secretary Michael Gove on Sunday, sparked strong criticism from opposition politicians and environmental groups concerned at the potential impact on fish stocks following Brexit.
The Marine Conservation Society (MSC) said there could be “real economic benefits” for the British fleet once vessels from France, Belgium, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands – which will no longer be entitled to fish in waters between 6-12 miles off the UK coast – are subject to restrictions in UK waters.
But Samuel Stone of the MCS said the organisation was edgy about the potential consequences of pulling out of international agreements.
Simon Collins of the Shetland Fishermen’s Association said its members “absolutely” backed a statement from the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation saying any suggestion that withdrawing from the 1964 London Convention would “instantly herald a return to the old days of overfishing is preposterous and, frankly, insulting”.
SFF chief executive Bertie Armstrong said Brexit would “lead to a redistribution of quotas, and not an increase”.
Collins said organisations that feared overfishing “imply that the British people are incapable of managing their own natural resources and need Brussels bureaucrats to help them – a bizarre and insulting view to take”.
He told Shetland News: “We believe that our fisheries can be managed far more sustainably without Brussels – after all, the Norwegians do not ask the EU for advice on this matter and have a far better record!
“For Shetland, like Norway, sustainability is a no-brainer, and we look forward to working with our Norwegian counterparts.”
Gove, who described leaving the EU as creating a “sea of opportunity” for the UK fishing industry, made his announcement on Sunday as a precursor to the UK regaining control over foreign access to territorial waters up to 200 miles out to sea – or to the median line with neighbouring states such as France and Ireland – when it leaves the EU.
Collins said he was not concerned about the possibility of UK boats losing the opportunity to fish in other states’ waters.
“EU vessels currently take an average 1.2 million tonnes of fish and shellfish from our waters each year, worth an average £1.2 billion,” he said. “As UK vessels catch only 90,000 tonnes per year from other EU countries, worth an average £110 million, we would not require access to what remains of EU waters if we had a fair crack at our own.”
Northern Isles MP Alistair Carmichael noted that the London Convention was “of fairly limited significance” in comparison to the Common Fisheries Policy, but he saw the logic of designing a new system “with a blank sheet of paper”.
“I hope it doesn’t mean that we are drawing away from cooperating with other fishing countries, because there’s a lot of important historic rights that we have with other countries that we would see a benefit to keeping,” he said.
“Whether it returns us to an era of overfishing or not is entirely within our own control. I’ve never heard any fishing industry representative argue for overfishing, because frankly it’s not in their interests.
“A sustainable fishery is something the fishing industry themselves have always wanted, so the convention in itself does not regulate the extent to which stocks are taken out of the sea or not. All the convention does is regulate who has access or entitlement to take the stocks out of the sea.”
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