THE English Channel is full of cod but fishermen on local under-10m boats are excluded by the quota system from catching it, threatening their survival, a visit to Hastings, East Sussex, by a Fishing News correspondent showed.

IN A voluntary initiative skippers of north east Scotland’s midwater trawlers have fitted jigging machines to sample mackerel before they start fishing. This saves catching unwanted juvenile fish and using fuel catching fish that cannot be marketed.

DANISH fishermen are taking part in an experimental fishery to prove that camera monitoring can be used to help fishermen stop discarding of fish under the quota system, Eva Kjer Hansen, Danish fisheries minister, told the European Council of Ministers.

THE national shareout of fishing quotas among EU states might have to be ditched and replaced with a rights-based system to ensure fishermen have a vested interest in conserving stocks, a senior official of the European Commission told fishermen’s leaders.

THE up to 1m tonnes of fish dumped back into the North Sea under the EU quota system “is a waste of a precious resource on a monstrous scale” and Scotland was ready to identify solutions, Richard Lochhead, Scottish fisheries minister, said in an exclusive interview with Fishing News.

IT IS vital to catch the full allocations for the valuable nephrops fishery this year to head off an attempt by the European commission to cut nephrops quotas for next year, said Iain MacSween, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Organisation.

A “catch less, land more” policy for cod is advocated by Mike Park, executive chairman of the Scottish White Fish Producers Association, to secure sustainable and economic cod fisheries for the white fish fleet.

THE UK cannot escape from the need to reduce its fleet capacity by 30% to qualify for extra help with fuel costs from the European Fisheries Fund (EFF).