GIVE BACK OUR BASS
It seems incredible and unfair, but the bass fishery has been privatised – for the benefit of commercial fishers only…
I’d like you to picture this scene: you are out on the beach, teaching your son, daughter or grandchildren how to fish. Suddenly, there is an excited cry when a rod tip nods and line starts tearing out. “Dad, it’s a fish,” they shout.
You encourage them to carefully reel in the fish and, after a few minutes, there is a bright bar of silver flapping in the shallow water. It’s a good one too!
“Wow, can we take it home to cook?” they ask, crowding around to watch you carefully remove the hook. “No, the law says that we have to let them all go,” you reply, as you revive and release the bass, watching it flare its gill covers and then dart off with a few powerful strokes.
At that moment, you look up to see a small fishing boat chugging into the bay to put nets out close to the rocky outcrop that you know is a prime hunting ground for bass.
“But dad, the fishmonger was selling them yesterday, so why couldn’t we take our fish home?” they ask. You reply, but struggle to explain: “Well, that’s an excellent question.”
NUMBERS GAME
The law, as it currently stands, stops the public from taking home a single bass in 2018. Yet commercial hook and liners can target and land five tonnes of bass, and fixed-netters can take 1.2 tonnes as unavoidable by-catch.
It seems incredible, but the bass fishery has been privatised. The public’s right to a public good has been curtailed, and if we want to eat bass we have to pay a commercial fisherman to catch it for us. How has this happened, and what can we do about it?
The first issue is that in October, scientists had an attempt at estimating the bass mortality attributable to the public.
They concluded that the public killed 1,501 tonnes of bass in 2012 and that this went up to 1,627 tonnes in 2016, exceeding the amount landed by commercial fishing. Yet in the same period, the bass stock shrunk by 40 per cent and new laws restricted us to one fish per day for just six months of the year and increased the minimum landing size to 42cm.
The scientists agree with us that the numbers don’t make sense and they are reconsidering their calculations and will issue a new assessment in April.
The EU Commission and the EU Fisheries Ministers will use this new assessment to reconsider fishing opportunities in 2018, including for the public.
FISHERY ACCESS
The second issue is why has the EU Commission pushed for the public to be banned from taking bass to eat in 2018, while at the same time allowing the commercials to land and sell bass?
EU law has a few things to say about who should have access to a fishery:
■ “Access to a fishery should be based on transparent and objective criteria including those of an environmental, social and economic nature. Member States should promote responsible fishing by providing incentives to those operators who fish in the least environmentally damaging way and who provide the greatest benefits for society.”
■ “The CFP shall ensure that fishing and aquaculture activities are environmentally sustainable in the long term, and are managed in a way that is consistent with the objectives of achieving economic, social and employment benefits, and of contributing to the availability of food supplies.”
GREATER BENEFITS
Recreational sea anglers fish in the most environmentally sound manner, and our bass fishing delivers greater benefits than commercial bass fishing. A 2014 report (“Defining the Economic and Environmental Values of Sea Bass”) found that public bass fishing in Sussex was worth more than three times the value of commercial bass fishing, and employed three times more people.
It also measured the benefit per tonne of bass removed, and the difference was astonishing: one tonne removed by public bass fishing created £1.6m to £3m of final economic output and 18-34 full-time employees. By comparison, commercial bass fishing delivered £40,000 and 0.45 full-time employees. It is clear that the social and economic benefits from the 915 tonnes of bass available to be landed in 2018 can be maximised by allocating it to the public.
TAKE ACTION
Can there be any more fundamental food supply than a member of the public going out on to a beach and catching a bass to put on the family table? Yet the EU Commission said: “In order to mitigate the social and economic impact of the above measure, only limited fisheries with certain gears could be permitted”.
It makes no sense to us that fixed-netters and hook and liners have been given priority to land bass over the public, this must be challenged robustly. If the fishery can support any bass being landed, they should be allocated to the public first.
We have a chance in April to get our bag limit back. For that, we need as many people as possible to make as much noise as possible. To get your voice heard, head over to Save Our Sea Bass, where we have made it easy for you to send emails to the EU Commission, our Fisheries Minister George Eustice, and your own MP.
While you are on the Save Our Sea Bass website, please remember to sign the petition too.