Thursday 14 March - The Dutch owners of a controversial monster trawler banned from Australian waters have been revealed as a dominant force behind Yorkshire’s top fishing organisations.
The revelation, contained in a Greenpeace investigation, comes after the 142-metre Margiris, the world's second largest fishing vessel, formerly known as the Abel Tasman, was slapped with a two-year fishing ban by the Australian government (1) due to concerns over its environmental impact.
It has been forced to leave Port Melbourne in Australia today.
Holland-based fishing giant Parlevliet & Van der Plas (2) - which co-owns the Abel Tasman through a subsidiary called Seafish Tasmania Pelagic - has been named by Greenpeace as one of a handful of Dutch and Icelandic interests controlling the vast majority of North East’s two most powerful fishermen's organisations – the Fish Producers’ Organisation (FPO) and the North Sea Fishermen’s Organisation (North Sea FO).
"Yorkshire people will be wondering why on earth we're allowing foreign multinationals, including the owners of a black-listed monster trawler, to make millions from using UK fishing quota, when many small-scale, more sustainable British fishermen are going bust often because of lack of quota," says Greenpeace campaigner Ariana Densham.
The details are part of a Greenpeace investigation (3) showing the extent to which overseas operators are profiting from UK fishing quota, while bringing little benefit to the British economy.
The Government's own estimates indicate that Dutch-controlled boats land less than 1 per cent of their fish in the UK. A 2009 Whitehall report concluded that the ‘true economic value [brought to the UK economy by foreign-controlled fishing vessels] could be close to zero’. (4)
“Ministers should put an end to this absurd situation by giving preferential access to fishing quota to those fishermen who ply their trade sustainably and sustain the economy of their coastal communities,” said Ariana Densham.
Greenpeace researchers used a range of shipping and company registers to trace the ultimate owners of vessels affiliated to the FPO and the North Sea FO – the two largest holders of fishing quota in Yorkshire, who manage about ten per cent of the fishing rights in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, an asset likely to be worth millions of pounds (5).
The investigation found that 88 per cent of the fishing capacity within the FPO and nearly 82 per cent of that represented by the North Sea FO are controlled by Dutch and Icelandic fishing interests. These boats have UK fishing licences and hold British fishing quota, and many are owned by UK subsidiaries of Dutch companies (6).
Among the overseas interests behind the two organisations there is, as well as the Dutch Parlevliet & Van Der Plas, another one of Europe’s fishing giants, the Iceland-based Samherji – the Nordic country's largest fishing company and a multinational with operations spanning three continents (7).
The North Sea FO and the FPO are two of eight fish producer organisations forming the backbone of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations’ (NFFO) membership. Through two of its Dutch directors the overseas interests within the North Sea FO have a strong presence on the executive committee of the NFFO.
A Greenpeace report published last month, A Wolf in Shrimp’s Clothing, revealed that over half of the fishing capacity represented by the NFFO is in the hands of large, foreign-controlled vessels. The federation, who claims to be ‘the representative body’ for British fishermen outside Scotland (8), is the fisheries minister Richard Benyon’s main industry advisory body on fishing policy.
"Through the NFFO, the foreign fishing barons behind the biggest and most powerful vessels in our fleet can exert enormous influence on those in charge of UK fisheries policy,” says Ariana Densham. “The fisheries minister needs to reassure the British public that he is not taking his cue from a one-sided industry body, and is committed to putting sustainable fishing at the heart of the new policy, as well as rescuing our seas from overfishing.”
ENDS
For more information contact Kathy Cumming in the Greenpeace press office - 07801212959
Notes to Editors
(1) http://bigpondnews.com/articles/National/2013/03/07/Super-trawler_leaves_Australia_852281.html
(2) Parlevliet & Van Der Plas is a Netherland-based fishing multinational operating a fleet of 12 freezer-trawlers hunting pelagic and bottom fish in the fishing grounds of the North Sea, Gulf of Biscaye, around the United Kingdom and Ireland, Iceland, West-African waters and in the South Pacific. As well as the Margiris, the world’s second largest trawler, they own another notorious vessel, the 141-metre Maartje Theadora, which was recently stopped in the Channel with €1.2m of illegally-caught fish in freezers and subsequently fined €600,000, one of the largest penalties ever imposed for illegal fishing in the EU. Estimates put the company’s turnover at about €350 million.
(4) http://archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/fisheries/documents/policy/saif-econlinkreview.pdf
(5) According to figures obtained by Greenpeace from the Scottish government, the FPO holds 230,000 fixed-quota allocation units, and the North Sea FO 137,000. Their combined quota allocation, 367,000 units, is about 12% of the overall quota available to fishing organisations in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland (3,082,000 units).
(6) A list of vessels including information about their owners is available.
(7) Samherji HF is an Iceland-based multinational with subsidiaries in several EU countries, including the UK, and operations spanning three continents (Europe, North America, and Africa). It generated a turnover of €271 million (£188 million) in 2007, which made it the largest fishing company in Iceland.
