Atlantic low impact fishers demand a fair distribution of fishing rights

Posted by Rukayah Sarumi — 8 October 2015 at 2:19pm - Comments
All rights reserved. Credit: LIFE

Madrid is landlocked, so it wouldn’t be the first place you would expect to find fishers! However, this weekend Madrid was met with the presence of more than 50 low-impact fishermen who came from Belgium, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the UK. The meeting was a notable achievement on the cusp of LIFE’s (Low Impact Fishers of Europe) first anniversary.  Last Saturday’s meeting was the second in its series, the first having taken place in the Baltic Sea area. In both workshops, fishermen gathered to share experiences and demand a greater voice in the development of fisheries policy at national and European levels.

Workshop on Low Impact Fisheries in the Atlantic and North Sea: Challenges and Solutions! from LIFE Platform on Vimeo.

Throughout the weekend, fishers were genuinely excited by the opportunity to discuss their shared challenges and interesting ways to solve them. By the end of the workshop, they had successfully agreed a process to achieve these ends.  Previously, small scale artisanal fishers have faced real difficulties meeting to share information and establish a joint agenda. The day-to-day challenges of their work at sea mean that many fishers are unable to take time off for collaborative work. Take for instance the fact that a number of fishers because they simply couldn’t afford to take the days off. A fisherman, who travelled by bus all night to come to Madrid, told me: “It’s not easy but we need to do it. Yesterday my 4-year-old daughter asked me why this Saturday - the only day I don’t work-, I could not be with her. I told her: “Dad needs to go to Madrid to defend the rights of low impact fishers, because I want you and your generation to be able to enjoy the ocean life in the future and continue eating fish”.

These meetings strengthened the unity among low impact fishers and enabled them to recognise their collective power to bring about change. Low impact fishers make up the majority of the fishing work-force. They represent 80% of the fleet in Europe and generate almost 50% of employment in the catching sector; generally, they recognise that fishing sustainably is imperative for a sustainable future. Their survival is important for the future of Europe’s oceans.

In a common statement, that captures the outcome of this meeting, all the fishers, agreed unanimously to send a strong and consolidated message to the EU and their individual countries. Amongst other things, they pledged to ask their governments to implement the new Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) – and in particular Article 17, which for the first time in history, obliges governments to use transparent and objective environmental, social and economic criteria to allocate fishing quota. Implementing Article 17 will no doubt result in favourable changes for low impact fishers who meet all three tenets of the criteria. Applying this new rule is essential if we are truly interested in ensuring that our oceans are healthy; consumers have greater access to sustainable fish and local fishing communities are able to flourish.  

The meetings held in the Atlantic and Baltic areas are just the beginning of the journey. Fishers will continue to work together with LIFE to push the EU and relevant nation states to offer low impact fishers an equitable share of fishing quota, prioritise sustainable fishing practices and ultimately protect the ocean. It is encouraging to see that fishermen are determined to be at the fore of this effort, and are committed to leveraging their potential impact to change the course of their futures.

Written by Celia Ojeda Martínez, Oceans & Fisheries Campaigner at Greenpeace Spain

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