Dutch government vows to bring back pulse fishing
2nd October 2024
The newly formed Dutch government – a sea change for the country after a new party, the Freedom Party, swept the polls on a platform with similarities to that run by Reform in the UK general election – has set out in its manifesto for government the intention of restoring pulse fishing for the Dutch fleet.
The government plan, published in September, states that it will work to overturn the EU ban on pulse fishing, which was introduced in June 2021. The ban is estimated to have cost Dutch vessel owners over €25m in lost investment.
Vessel owners also said that the ban on pulse fishing, which saw the use of much lighter gear, with much smaller fuel bills as a result, cost the average crewman in the fleet €11,000 a year in lost income. Analysis of fuel usage across the fleet suggested that each vessel forced to return to standard beam trawls after the ban emitted an extra 565t of carbon each year due to the extra fuel consumption.
At one stage before the ban, around a third of the Dutch beamer fleet were working pulse gear, despite an initial derogation that allowed just a fraction of this number to take part in limited trials of the gear. Electro- fishing still remains illegal, in theory, across all EU fisheries.
The EU ban was widely seen as a significant diver to a post-Brexit €155m decommissioning scheme that saw 80 Dutch vessels apply to be broken up, partly due to a reduction in quota availability after Brexit.
The Dutch government’s plan, read out to parliament by the king, said of pulse fishing: “Fisheries involve harvesting sufficient and high quality food from nature, in balance with the ecosystem from healthy seas and oceans. That is why we are strongly committed to making the pulse possible again. For this, we will create support in Europe, and we will work on abolishing obstructive EU solutions.”
The government plan also included a commitment to ‘restructuring of the shrimp fleet’, although plans for a second decommissioning scheme are not expected to be published until 2025.
The realities of the Dutch government being able to overturn the pulse fishing ban are debatable. Former NUTFA director Jerry Percy, who remains a director of LIFE, the EU group representing small-scale fishermen, and who campaigned relentlessly for an end to pulse fishing, said that overturning the ban would not be straightforward.
He added: “Irrespective of what the EU decides to do, having already banned the method before, it is absolutely vital that our government stands up to pressure by the EU to allow any of the circa 1,800 EU vessels that remain licensed to fish UK waters to use this method.
“It is bad enough that Defra still hasn’t curtailed the continuing damage done by the fly-seiner fleet in the Channel and elsewhere – the thought of pulse boats being allowed to wreak havoc with our stocks yet again is a bridge too far.
“On an EU basis, LIFE and others will be ready to challenge any reintroduction in European waters.”
Pulse fishing is widely seen across the UK industry as being responsible for huge negative impacts, not just on the sole fishery but on the wider ecosystem, with many UK sole fishermen continuing to report that grounds fished by the pulse vessels until 2021 have failed to recover since the ban was put in place.
ICES has recommended a significant increase in the 2025 sole TAC, a move questioned all along the English North Sea coastline, where fishermen continue to report 2024 as one of the worst sole seasons ever. Inshore fishermen off the Dutch coast, by contrast, are reporting a healthy increase in landings in the inshore gill-net fishery this summer.
A spokesperson for Defra told FN: “Pulse trawling is not permitted within the UK’s territorial waters or exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which stretches up to 200 nautical miles from the coast.”
This story was taken from the latest issue of Fishing News. For more up-to-date and in-depth reports on the UK and Irish commercial fishing sector, subscribe to Fishing News here or buy the latest single issue for just £3.50 here.
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