Download Presentations | View Gallery I Proceedings of TCM Workshop, Sept '07

KFO Holds Successful International
Workshop on Stock Sustainability

Killybegs Fishermen's Organisation (KFO) hosted a major international workshop in Dublin on September 13th and 14th 2007 which was addressed by senior representatives of the European Commission, several of the acknowledged leaders in the field of fishery science, gear technologists, fishery managers and active fishermen drawn from the North Eastern Atlantic and North Sea fishing industry. Commenting on the successful conclusion of the workshop, KFO Chief Executive, Sean O'Donoghue, said "This workshop has highlighted the value of taking an unusual and bottom-up approach to the very important subject of Technical Conservation Measures. Progress is vital in the area of sustainable fisheries and I anticipate an improved atmosphere for all parties going forward resulting in an effective and user-friendly Technical Conservation Measures regulation."

The workshop, with the theme "Technical Conservation Measures", was held as part of the Sixth Framework Programme PROFET Policy* project and was the third of nine such workshops scheduled to be held throughout Europe. During the course of the workshop M Ernesto Penas-Lado and M François Theret of DG Fish outlined the Commission position on the current state and future direction of Technical Measures. They admitted the failure of existing measures to protect fisheries as intended and this situation has prompted a thorough review of the legislation. It is essential to clarify and simplify the regulations, to ensure regulations going forward reflect the new era of environmental awareness and that all stakeholders are involved in both the drafting and implementation of such control measures.

The fishing industry welcomed the contributions from the Commission but pointed out that, whereas simplification and clarification are very desirable, this is easier said than done. The real changes need to be made in the detail of the regulations and this can only be achieved with improved dialogue between all parties. Fishery managers must commit to providing real and tangible incentives to encourage responsible fishing and, in return, fishermen must respond and cooperate in the uptake of new measures. KFO, itself, in collaboration with the Irish Fish Producers Organisation and Bord Iascaigh Mhara, are currently supporting an innovative venture for Irish fishing with the Environmental Pelagic** Gear Project.

Technical Conservation Measures take many forms and some of the most recent investigations into fishing gear adaptations such as devices to reduce the by-catch of cod, deter the entry of dolphins into nets and protection of the sea-bed were described. It is not enough to improve the design of gear, it must also be shown to be effective and the ability to predict the effectiveness of fishing gear is vitally important to both fisherman and scientist. The impressive line-up of fishery researchers at the Technical Conservation Measures workshop covered all these topics and more and the point was made that fishermen are the single most important link in the chain of good fishery data collection. Going forward, research needs to be more closely tailored to specific problems and, it being one of the aims of the PROFET Policy project, all research findings need to be made available to all the stakeholders. Events such as the KFO Technical Conservation Measures workshop, the production of user-friendly Technical Leaflets to explain research projects and promotion by the trade media, Regional Advisory Councils (RACs) and fishing organisations will go a long way to address this problem.


* The Technical Conservation Measures Workshop is part of the PROFET Policy Sixth Framework Programme project set up to provide an information platform where policy-driven EU-funded research projects can be assessed, summarised in user-friendly format and made available as a series of Technical Leaflets both printed and on-line. In addition, PROFET Policy has planned 9 trans-national workshops throughout Europe, of which Dublin will be the third, providing a forum for an exchange of views between national and European policy makers and stakeholders. Extensive information on PROFET Policy, its history and other partners is available on the web-site profetpolicy.info.
** Pelagic fishes include such species as mackerel, herring, horse mackerel and blue whiting