letter from david miliband

[treeboa]

if scotland throws it then you just know that we will go through, end the day its a lucrative bit of easy money to be made and now they have buggered the revenue up from the fags they need to recoup it from elsewhere, the problem is if scotland do dump it then that part of the uk could be barren for fishing as that could be the only area unprotected, though the tourist industry would love it initially, till it was realised that scotland was fished out, some of the lochs are near barren, was it loch fyne that used to have a good head of cod and haddock till the trawlers moved in ??, no ifs or buts something drastic has to be done, but untill the trawlermen are stopped from dictating policy nothing will change, also untill there is effective policing abuse will continue, this is part of my concerns, rarely do you see anything to do with illegal fishing taken to court, its reported often enough but they cant do anything because they dont have the manpower, or so they claim, yet we have a fleet of navel vessels and nimrod aircraft that could and should be involved, the aircraft are always out training anyway so why they cant is beyond me, it does not take a destroyer to pull over a fishing boat, nursery areas need to be setup and enforced and total loss of the boat for anyone caught trawling or longlining the area, a minimum distance from all shores in place and total loss of the boat if caught in that distance fishing, no silly fines that can be paid off by the next catch landed, no dumping of dead undersize fish, that alone is not helping the situation, the trawlers claim that resrictions are ruining thier livlihoods, however they are slowley cutting off the head of the golden goose themselves, global warming has been cited to be part of the problem with uk fishing, i think uk attitude has more to do with it

[davem2005]

Treeboa,
Since the creation of regional pariaments you can effectly consider the uk as four seperate countries in terms of decision making as far as fish are concerned. Bradshaw makes the decisions for the uk and ross finnie makes em for Scotland. If you need any info on the scottish problem I sugest you contact Ian Burett the SACN regionalco-ordinator.

The white paper is a proposal for english waters. The Scots will get their own paper. Its a very confusing minefield of who controls and legislates over what.

With regard to the enforcement of fisheries legisltion in our region it is the sole responsibility of the local sfc to ensure that rules are not broken from the low water mark out to six miles. Its not the navy or the airforces job but an organisation funded by the local councils.

I will start another thread with regard to the fisheries enforcement in the NSFC region, which for those who dont know is from berwick to a line drawn east of N Shields peir. The entire enforcement capicity is a patrol boat called the St Oswald with a sea launchable rib on board and a towed rib for mobile inshore work. Nimrods and destroyers...fat chance.

I have just been reading a report requesting that all enforcement officers be issued with stab vests. I am pleased to say the the chief fisheries officer did not think it was appropriate for our region for all officers but felt it may be wise to have a couple of vests available should the need arise.

I have fish many times around St mary's and personally have never seen a patrolboat. This may be because of the figures I have seen for the number of times they are at sea that the odds are in my favour of never meeting my local fisheries enforcement officer.

Cheers
Dave

[treeboa]

hi dave, as you are prob aware lossie is a nimrod base, so as they conduct countrywide`training` flights , it would not be 100% outside of thier normal training to patrol and check out boats, they have the equipement on those aircraft to do a lot of things, though i doubt the govenment would let them drop a fish on an errant trawler ( shame), the other night i was reading about fisheries protection vessels but as something cropped up i left the publication in the unit, must remember to look for it again tuesday when im back in, however you would think that as the royal navy protects our coasts that fisheries protection should be part of the deal, especially as it seems they are cutting back on jobs in the forces, ideal way of keeping sailors off the dole i would have thought
as for the 4 regions, in some ways this has been a step forward but in others its going to create problems, the north sea covers a lot of ground and if say a protected area was made in scotland but not england then the trawlers could still destroy the fish stocks upto the imaginary line

stab vests, now theres a good one, if the need arises, poor old jocks now in a pool of blood because the couple of vests are miles away, whos to say that they need it and when, a mate of mine an ex game keeper had his arm half blown off chasing poachers, ok a stab vest would not have saved his arm but it could have been a knife to the chest rather than a shotgun blast, at the end of the day fisheries enforcement officers will be doing a similar job to gamekeepers, however they will have more chance of meeting what in essence will then be a `poacher`

the fact that you have never seen a patrol boat nor do you feel that the odds are against you meeting mr fisheries enforcement proves somewhat then that the whole system needs an enema, yet to expect the sea angler to pay for it is taking the urine, football fans dont pay extra for policing of matches, cyclists dont pay for cycle lanes, boat owners dont pay to use the open sea and if not fishing still wont, yet we it seems are expected to accept that lots of good things will come AFTER we pay for it, i wonder if the betting shop will give good odds, yes i realise that the fishing licience is only part of the proposed bill but its the main thing thats getting up anglers noses, especially when you look at the credibility of the labour govenment