A Recent Uk Joint Initiative To Revise Technical Conservation Measures Regulating The Design Of Mobile Gears

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The demersal fisheries in ICES Sub-areas IV (North Sea) and VIa (West of Scotland) (Fig. 1) are of particular importance to the UK industry. Of the countries fishing these areas, the highest proportion of the three main roundfish species - cod (Gadus morhua), haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) and whiting (Merlangius merlangus) are landed in the UK (Table 1). Landings from sub-areas IV and VIa accounted for 81% of the total UK landings of these three species in 1997. In the last decade, priority has been given to developing and promoting technical conservation measures (tcm’s) which control gear design and aim to reduce the catching and discarding of juveniles. The fisheries for cod, haddock and whiting within these two sub-areas are currently regulated by a minimum mesh size of 100 mm. There is a by-catch in the flatfish and Nephrops fisheries which are subject to minimum mesh sizes of 70 and 80 mm and generate significant discarding of undersized roundfish. There are additional controls on codend design, limiting the number of meshes round the codend, twine thickness and codend attachments. EU enforcement of total allowable catches and regulation of exploitation rate are based on monitoring landings in port. This is in contrast to the Norwegian system of regulating and monitoring catches, which effectively prohibits discarding of small fish. The EU system allows discarding. There are differing opinions on the effectiveness of the Norwegian system in reducing the catch of juveniles. With the EU system skippers themselves have to change their strategy if discarding is to be minimised. When high discarding occurs even though viable quantities of marketable fish are being caught, a change of grounds may avoid the capture of small fish, or a change of gear may ensure small fish escape. Any gear design regulation intended to improve selectivity must be economically acceptable to the fishing industry and to individual skippers.