Time to get rid of the Bass Nets Fishing Opportunities 2017 Bass Briefing - November 2016

Executive Summary Bass stocks are in deep trouble due to commercial overfishing and the failure to follow scientific advice on the need for effective conservation measures. The Angling Trust and B.A.S.S. fully support the EU Commission’s proposals for bass fishing opportunities in 2017, as do other commercial and recreational bodies across Europe. The proposal allows only sustainable fishing in 2017: recreational and commercial hook and line fishing – no gill nets which cause not only damage to fish stocks but to seabirds and cetaceans. The proposal lays the foundation for a sustainable bass fishery, delivering superior long-term socioeconomic returns to society. Commercial hook and line and recreational bass fishing will deliver both conservation objectives and a better economic return. The economic impacts of last year’s disproportionate restrictions on anglers have been extremely damaging to a sport that delivers up to 40 times the economic and employment impacts of the commercial bass fishery. It is critical that EU Fisheries Ministers agree the proposals in full, without watering them down as they did last year – to the dismay and anger of recreational anglers and other conservationists. There are four weeks left before the EU Fisheries Ministers meet to consider the proposal. The Angling Trust and B.A.S.S. will be working hard throughout this period to put pressure on the decision-makers and to facilitate anglers, businesses and livelihoods reliant on providing anglers with goods and services, and other conservationists getting their voices heard.

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Background Up until the 1980s sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) – which are present in the central and southern North Sea, Irish Sea, English Channel, Bristol Channel, and Celtic Sea – were primarily a recreational species and subject to very little commercial exploitation. Since then the stocks have been over-fished with little attempt to control and manage the fishery, despite repeated warnings from scientists and conservation bodies. The decline was inevitable and entirely avoidable. Organisations like the National Federation of Sea Anglers, now part of the Angling Trust, and the Bass Anglers’ Sportfishing Society (B.A.S.S.) have been campaigning for the introduction of bass conservation measures for more than 20 years. Things looked hopeful in 2004 when the Net Benefits report by the Cabinet Office recommended that fishery managers look at making bass a recreational-only species. This was followed up by the publication of a Bass Management Plan by B.A.S.S. in October 2004. Sadly, the reports stayed on the shelf, bass stocks continued to be over-fished and the unsustainable minimum size limit of 36cm remained in place until last year’s long overdue rise to 42 cm – the absolute smallest size at which bass reach maturity and are able to reproduce.

Bass stocks are now in real trouble EU scientists said in April 2015: “The spawning stock biomass is declining towards the lowest historically observed level.” In 2016, we reached an all-time low for the spawning stock biomass: 7,320 tonnes. The sea bass spawning biomass estimate for 2017 is even worse, just 6,219 tonnes. That represents just one and a half years of commercial landings (2010-13 average commercial landings = 4,136 tonnes).

These current estimates are well below Blim, which is 8,075 tonnes. This means the scientists now think there is a high probability that the stock’s ability to regenerate itself will be impaired due to insufficient egg production. The risk now is that, even if fishing is much reduced, the stock fails to recover as expected and remains depleted for an extended period. Scientific advice issued by the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) in June 2014 recommended an 80% cut in bass fishing mortality across the EU area for 2015. This followed the 2013

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advice for a 36% cut which was ignored. In 2014 bass landings by UK vessels rose by 30% (from 772 tonnes to 1,004 tonnes). There is no doubt that inshore gill-netting has played a significant part in the decline of bass stocks. For example, in 2014, UK gill netters landed 646 tonnes of bass – more than the ICES 2016 Northern Stock advice of 541 tonnes for whole of the EU. Recreational angling bodies are not in the least surprised that ICES is now recommending a total moratorium for most fishing methods in 2017. For several years, we have warned that unless EU Fisheries Ministers started taking heed of the scientific advice and began radically reducing the commercial catch limits, then the solutions proposed by ICES would get ever more draconian. The ICES advice for 2017 can be viewed here.

Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) There are two major factors which are dramatically reducing bass stocks at present: fishing mortality is reducing stocks; and the lack of recruitment from the disastrous 2008 to 2012 spawning years means those fish harvested are not being replaced. The lack of recruitment to the stock will continue for at least another two years (until the 2013 year-group start to mature). This fact, together with the adult stock now being below the danger level, means precautionary measures are needed and the MSY approach should cease to apply until the stock recovers to a sustainable level. The MSY approach involves the largest caches that can be taken over the long-term without causing the population to collapse. The legal requirement is to keep the stock above a level that can produce the MSY by 2015 and, in exceptional circumstances, by 2020 at the very latest. With the lack of recruitment to the adult fishery, achieving these legally binding targets will require a very significant reduction in historic catch levels.

Vessel Catch Limits have not worked Vessel Catch Limits (VCLs) were introduced in June 2015 and the December 2015 Fishing Opportunities meeting amended them for 2016 (increasing them for some gear types). When we checked to see how much impact the 2016 VCLs would have had if they had been introduced in 2014 in the UK, we were shocked to see that they would impact only 6% of all vessels landing bass and only 3% of per vessel monthly landings. The UK’s Devon & Severn IFCA recently noted: “with only a few possible exceptions, commercial fishing vessels landing to designated ports within the Authority’s district would not have got close to, let alone exceeded the 2016 monthly catch restrictions during the previous year, suggesting that this Northwest Atlantic wide measure will not have much effect locally.” And “Analysis of MMO data identified one vessel in Plymouth exceeded the proposed 1.3 tonnes limit in one month during 2015. Not all ports as yet analysed but Plymouth represented the largest landings of bass in the District.” The EU’s Science Technical & Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) estimated in December 2014 that a one fish bag limit would cut UK recreational retained catches by 52%. Recreational anglers can be forgiven for asking how this can be fair. The one fish bag limit for RSA has little conservation value while VCLs remain so high – recreational anglers are being forced to release bass only for them to be caught commercially.

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The following graph shows the impact of VCL cuts on landings. To deliver a cut of 70%, monthly VCLs would need to be just 140kg or lower.

Feeding Britain - or not? The claim that the commercial sector fishes for bass to “put food on British family’s tables” while recreational fishing is just a 'hobby' doesn't stand up to the facts. The full 2015 UK Catch Data are avalable here. It shows that:   

Imports of bass to the UK were 8,500 tonnes. Landings of bass into the UK were 600 tonnes Exports of bass from the UK were 400 tonnes

Of the 8,700 tonnes of bass consumed in UK just 200 tonnes (2.3%) were derived from the UK catching sector. Two thirds of all bass landed in the UK by commercial vessels were sold abroad as a cash crop.

Gill nets versus Hook and Line The selectivity of monofilament gill nets has been exaggerated. As hanging ratios have declined, and twines have become finer and more supple, selectivity has declined.

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The previous minimum legal size for bass of 36cm, introduced in 1990, was supported by a minimum mesh size of 90mm following Cefas studies. The current size limit of 42cm was implemented with no increased minimum mesh size. Cefas studies show 90mm mesh size nets will mostly catch bass below 42cm. Even 100mm mesh gill nets will potentially catch a high proportion of bass below 42cm. In March 2016, the Cornwall IFCA’s Principle Scientific Officer reported that during nine days of fishing in Falmouth Bay (Winter 2015/16) a vessel that used 100mm mesh gill nets caught 680 bass, of which 82% were below the 42cm minimum landing size.

Time to remove the bass nets “It would make excellent economic sense to switch the sea bass fishery to hook and line fishing only. This transition would yield the biggest economic reward, it would reduce fishing pressure, solve the problem of overfishing and allow rebuilding of the stock to healthy levels.” Professor Callum Roberts, Professor of Marine Biology, York University, 2014 We, and others, have long argued that the nets must be removed from the European bass fishery to rebuild stocks and to allow the more sustainable and economically valuable commercial hook and line and recreational fishing sectors to flourish. Hook and Line fishing is the most sustainable form of harvesting of bass and allows undersized (and oversized) fish to be returned alive. It accounts for around 20% of all bass caught commercially in the UK. Hook and line fisherman cannot target spawning aggregations of bass in the damaging way practiced by gill netters. With over 90% of bass sold in the UK coming from farmed sources abroad, there is an opportunity to create a premium British hook and line caught product.

“If commercial fishing were to continue, says BLUE, the most environmentally sound and highest value way of catching it would be hook and line as the fish could then be sold for a premium relative to farmed bass.” Charles Clover, Chairman, Blue Marine Foundation, 2014

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A report published by the New Economics Foundation in 2015 concluded that bass fishing gear with hooks performed better compared to drift/fixed nets and demersal trawl/seine gears on 11 out of 14 criteria including; employment; the economic value chain; bycatch; the dependency of the fleet and the dependency of the port.

[New Economics Foundation - 2015]

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Time to end the bycatch of seabirds, cetaceans and other marine mammals It is imperative that mitigation methods are introduced that prevent or reduce seabird bycatch (Melvin et al. 2001, Bull 2007)

Concerns about the impact of bass netting are not just about selectivity for different sizes of bass. It’s also about the impact on other sea creatures. Cetaceans, seals, sea-birds are regularly caught up in inshore nets, with lethal results. Seabirds Both the RSPB and the Wildlife Trust in Cornwall have called for action on nets that have trapped seabirds. On just one day in early January 2012, an estimated 200 birds were found in a net to the north of St Ives and others washed up on local beaches. The Cornwall Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority (CIFCA) had to use a local bylaw to close part of the fishery due to birds being caught in nets nearby. http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/seabirds-cornwall2012.html#cr Studies by Birdlife International show that significant numbers of some species of seabirds are captured in gillnets. http://datazone.birdlife.org/sowb/casestudy/gillnets-are-catching-significant-numbers-of-someseabird-populations Cetaceans and other Marine Mammals The European Cetacean Bycatch Campaign has cited the damage caused by gillnets to dolphins, seals and other sea mammals. http://www.eurocbc.org/page2.html “In a 5-week period at the beginning of 2002, the dead bodies of over 100 dolphins were found on the beaches of southern England, and over 400 on the beaches of France. At the end of March, the figure had risen to over 1000.” On bass nets they state: “Nets set for bass have caught large numbers of diving birds (mostly razorbills and divers), and in one incident in the UK, an estimated 900 auks were caught over 8 days in nets set below seabird colonies.”

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Why bass nets are particularly harmful A typical bass net, with 100 mm mesh size set at a 50% hanging ratio and 50 meshes deep, will fish approximately 4.3 meters vertically in the water column at slack tide. Bass are generally targeted in shallow water, between four and ten meters in depth. So, a sinking bass net may effectively act as a barrier covering between 100% and 45% of the depth, meaning there is a high propensity for seabirds and /or cetaceans to collide with bass nets.

Diving seabirds are particularly vulnerable to gill nets set for bass in shallow inshore water Sea birds are attracted to bait fish such as sandeels and sprat. So are fish. In shallow water, fish can drive bait to the surface where their presence attracts high densities of feeding birds. Diving birds are naturally attracted from long distances to such events to participate in the abundant availability of food. Where such events occur in the vicinity of gill nets, the potential for large bird kills escalates. Zydelis et al. 2013 - Global review of seabird bycatch in gill-nets.

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Recreational Angling Sea bass are an iconic sporting species, a top target for anglers with a recreational value of £200m to the UK economy alone. Thirty years ago bass were considered primarily a recreational species and were subject to very little commercial harvesting [MAFF 1987].

Millions of pounds are spent each year by members of the public fishing recreationally for bass

Estimates as to the impact of recreational angling on bass stocks vary from 10% to 25% of all landings. Recent evidence from CEFAS and the Eastern IFCA illustrates how ‘official’ commercial landings data is massively understated, suggesting the true figure for recreational angling is much closer to 10%. Many anglers would argue that it is even lower. The threatened collapse in bass stocks, and the resultant total moratorium on all forms of bass fishing, would be disastrous for the economy of recreational sea angling and coastal communities. Sea Angling 2012, the study of Recreational Sea Angling carried out by CEFAS for Defra, shows: 

There are 884,000 sea anglers in England who directly pump £1.23 billion p.a. into the economy (£2.1 billion including induced and indirect impacts)

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10,400 full time jobs are dependent on sea angling (23,600 jobs including induced and indirect impacts)

The VAT alone which is collected from sea anglers dwarfs the entire value of all commercial fish landings in England.

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Blue Marine Foundation Report In December 2015, the Blue Marine Foundation published a report entitled “Defining the Economic and Environmental Values of Sea Bass”, focusing on Sussex. This report compared the economic values and biological impact of recreational and commercial bass fishing on a like for like basis. It found that: “The final economic output per tonne of bass retained in Sussex is almost 40–75 times higher for recreational bass fisheries than for commercial bass fisheries. The employment generated per tonne of bass retained is 39–75 times higher for the recreational bass fisheries than for the commercial fisheries.” It also found that sea angling has a lower environmental impact than any commercial fishing method other than hook and line. The research conducted by respected fisheries consultancy, MRAG, showed that sea anglers fishing in Sussex spent £31.3 million on tackle, charter boats and hotels to catch bass in 2012 and created 353 full time jobs, whilst retaining only 15 tonnes of bass. In comparison, commercial sea bass landings in Sussex generated only £9.25 million and 111 full time jobs, whilst landing 247 tonnes of bass. NOTE: The Blue Marine Foundation report can be found here.

Impact of the 2016 measures on RSA and coastal economies

Recreational anglers outside George Eustice’s office earlier this year protesting about the 2016 bass fishing measures

The introduction this year of zero and one fish bag limits on RSA, while netters saw their allocations increased, was unfair and disproportionate. It caused widespread anger and protests. Three separate surveys were carried out among charter boat skippers, bass guides and sea anglers to determine the true socio-economic impacts of 2016 measures for recreational bass angling. The conclusions point to a significant loss of revenue for small businesses and coastal communities. Angling charter boat skippers in England have seen revenues slashed by more than one-fifth and coastal towns are losing up to £3 million pounds in valuable tourism revenue as anglers stay away.

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Businesses, such as fishing tackle shops, have been forced to close as a result of the measures restricting anglers

The survey carried out by the Professional Boatman’s Association (PBA) showed that an estimated £2.87 million is projected to be lost by charter boat businesses, which take anglers to sea to fish recreationally for bass and other species. The losses amount to more than 50 per cent of the total value of commercial bass landings in the UK, with individual charter skippers reporting an average of 22 fewer bookings and losing more than £8,000 in revenues. Full summary available here.

Lessons From Abroad

The recreational striped bass fishery in the USA is now worth $6.5bn and supports over 63,000 jobs

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Fishery Ministers and Fishery Managers must learn from previous stock collapses and act now to protect the stock and thereby avoid a future complete moratorium on all forms of bass fishing.

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The Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act 1984 saw the federal imposition of a moratorium on striped bass harvest in states that failed to implement effective management plans. These measures saw populations of striped bass and number of angling trips increase by over 500% from 1982. Recreational expenditure on striped bass fishing increased from $85 million in 1981 to $560 million in 1996.

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The American Striped Bass recreational fishery now attracts anglers from all over the world and makes a current estimated economic contribution in excess of $6.6 billion.

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We must learn from good practice in the USA and elsewhere, which delivers agreed resource sharing by species in line with fishery management advice, best scientific evidence and key economic objectives.

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There are jurisdictions in the British Isles with fishery management policies that operate in favour of the most sustainable forms of bass fishing and the conservation of stocks. Bass have been a recreational only species in Ireland since 1990, delivering an estimated €52 million to the Irish economy annually and supporting over 1,200 jobs.

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The Isle of Man is introducing legislation covering sea bass to include a ban on all commercial bass fishing within 12 miles of the island's coast, a new minimum landing size of 50cms (compared to 42cms in the EU) and a maximum landing size of 60cms (to allow big breeders to survive).

European Commission's proposals for 2017 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=COM:2016:698:FIN&from=EN The Commission proposals published on October 27 state: 

On the basis of social and economic impacts limited fisheries using hooks and lines should be permitted, while providing for a closure to protect spawning aggregations.

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Additionally, due to incidental and unavoidable by-catches of sea bass by vessels using demersal trawls and seines, such by-catches should be limited to 1 % of the weight of the total catch of marine organisms on board.

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Catches of recreational fishermen should be restricted by a monthly limit.

RSA response to the Commission’s proposals Angling organisations and commercial Hook and Line groups across Europe have welcomed the announcement by the European Commission that should see the removal of damaging gillnets from the bass fishery in the North Sea, English Channel and North Atlantic. If the proposals are adopted by the Council of Ministers at the forthcoming Fishing Opportunities meeting in December, commercial bass exploitation will be restricted to hook and line fishing only for ten months of the year, with a closure in February and March to protect spawning aggregations. Recreational anglers will be allowed to retain ten fish a month during the ten-month open season – as opposed to one fish a day for just six months as is currently the case. Specifically: "On the basis of social and economic impacts limited fisheries using hooks and lines should be permitted, while providing for a closure to protect spawning aggregations.”

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The Angling Trust and partners support the Commission’s proposals to limit fishing opportunities to hook and lines only. There is no doubt that fixed and drift nets have played a significant part in the decline of bass stocks. For example, in 2014, UK gill netters landed 646 tonnes of bass – more than the ICES 2016 northern Stock advice of 541 tonnes for whole of the EU. Studies by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) provide overwhelming evidence of how, in the UK, gears with hooks perform best against trawl/seines and drift/fixed nets on: employment; economic value chain; bass discards; other discards; spawning season mortality; bycatch; ecosystem damage; ghost fishing; fleet dependency and port dependency. The Angling Trust and partners support the two-month closure to protect spawning aggregations but insist that it must apply to all sectors equally. “Additionally, due to incidental and unavoidable by-catches of sea bass by vessels using demersal trawls and seines, such by-catches should be limited to 1 % of the weight of the total catch of marine organisms on board.” The Angling Trust and partners support the limitation of by-catches from demersal trawls and seines to 1% and welcome the addition of a cap of up to 1 tonne per month. Industry proposals to increase the by-catch to 5% do nothing to help reduce fishing mortality. We suggest by-catches are further reduced by improvements in selectivity as well as considering avoidance measures, real time closures and moving-on provisions.

“Catches of recreational fishermen should be restricted by a monthly limit."

The Angling Trust and partners support the proposal for a monthly bag limit of no less than 10 fish per month. We believe a ten fish per month limit will not increase mortality overall. Our proposal was adopted by the Commission in response to the negative social and economic impact of the zero and one fish limits in 2016 on the struggling angling and charter boat trade.

The monthly bag limit is intended to a) provide members of the public fishing recreationally with more flexibility on when and how many fish can be retained without increasing overall fishing mortality; and b) help the charter fishing industry who have incurred significant losses as a result of the one fish a day bag limit in 2016. An estimated 20 per cent in revenue is projected to be lost by the UK charter fishing sector alone due to anglers cancelling fishing trips aboard charter vessels due to the ban on retaining bass from January-June and one-fish a day bag limit from July-December 2016. These measures have also severely impacted other businesses dependent in part, or in whole, on providing products and services to the recreational angling sector.

Enforcing A Monthly Bag Limit The Voluntary Approach Enforcement is often raised as a concern in fisheries management, however it is self-evident that the most effective regulations are those which enjoy a very large degree of voluntary compliance. This applies equally to both the commercial and recreational sectors. There are nearly 900,000 sea anglers in England and about 4 million fishing trips per year (Sea Angling 2012). Because of limited enforcement resources, existing high workloads and a risk-based, prioritised approach to enforcement, the number of direct checks on anglers will always be extremely small.

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Therefore, direct enforcement should be a very minor consideration in the structuring of an effective recreational bag limit. The recreational limits imposed in 2016 were widely regarded as being unfair and discriminatory. A 10 fish monthly bag limit will gain much better acceptance amongst the angling community and should therefore result in high levels of compliance. Defra are on record as supporting a voluntary approach to the regulation of recreational sea angling. “If Sea Angling 2012 and similar surveys in Europe highlight circumstances where anglers should play an important role in conserving vulnerable or overexploited stocks, Defra would seek to agree voluntary measures to avoid having controls imposed from Brussels.” https://www.gov.uk/government/news/biggest-ever-national-sea-angling-survey-to-boost-sport The UK Government’s Better Regulation Framework aims to “give people greater freedom and personal responsibility”. It states: "There will be a general presumption that regulation should not impose costs and obligations on businesses, social enterprises, individuals and community groups unless a robust and compelling case has been made". This principle underpins the approach of UK fisheries management: you first try voluntary measures to achieve an objective and only move to regulation if the voluntary measures fail. You only go straight to regulation if the risk of non-compliance is high and the result of non-compliance is very serious. So, the EU Commission’s proposal for a monthly bag limit, with no specified enforcement measures, is entirely consistent with the UK’s own approach to regulation. Conversely, rejecting the 10 fish per month bag limit for anglers because there isn't a recording system to enable enforcement, goes against the Government’s own regulatory framework. It is also worth remembering that any regulation should be even-handed and unbiased. Licensed commercial fisherman are able to sell as many bass as they want directly to the public (provided each transaction is less than 30kg) without making any record of their landings/sales and therefore not having them count towards their vessel catch limit. We therefore have a huge loophole for one stakeholder group which shows no signs of being addressed, while it is being suggested that another stakeholder group should be subject to much tighter regulation. One might well raise an eyebrow and wonder how this disparity could possibly encourage compliance from recreational anglers. If, despite the points made above, enforcement remains a concern, especially with regard to IUU fishing, a simple interim solution, already proposed by at least one IFCA, would be to set a 5-fish daily cap as well as a 10-fish monthly bag limit. This has the advantage of simplicity and clarity. It would discourage rulebreaking and make enforcement easier without adversely affecting conservation benefits.

Recording and Monitoring Options A number of options exist for how a monthly bag limit could be enforced effectively as an alternative approach to seeking voluntary compliance. Examples of where systems currently operate do exist – catches of Bluefin tuna by recreational anglers in the Mediterranean are already managed through a monthly quota system. All control measures (commercial and recreational) present some kind of challenge in terms of enforcement (monthly vessel limits, prohibited gears, etc.). We are seeking agreement by the EU Council for the principle of a monthly bag limit to be agreed in advance of further discussions about how individual Member States wish to record and monitor a monthly bag limit, if necessary. The Angling Trust, through our partners at the European Anglers Alliance, is exploring various options, such as electronic logbooks, apps and tagging systems, which could be used to report catches as part of a

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monthly bag limit system. We are in the process of asking experts in the field of recreational catch data recording to present various options to the EU Council Working Group members tasked with implementing the Commission’s proposals for the monthly bag limit. It is essential that a daily bag limit system runs in parallel to the monthly system. This will ensure those members of the public fishing recreationally who do not wish (for whatever reason) to register and provide catch data can continue to retain bass under a daily bag limit system which does not require registration and reporting.

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Other responses to the Commission’s proposals Calls for stricter bass conservation measures and support for the Commission’s proposals have come in from a wide range of organisations including:

Commercial Fisherman Low Impact Fishers of Europe Platform (LIFE) have stated: The state of Bass stocks in the North Sea, English Channel and western waters creates ongoing concerns for many fishermen, which many see as catastrophic. For some key ports around Lorient in southern Brittany, members reported that catches from hook and line fisheries were only 20% of those even a year ago, and as many as 60% of these small Bass dependent enterprises have gone out of business in 2016…. Fisheries managers should give serious consideration to providing incentives to all fishers to avoid Bass wherever possible. The Platform of Small Artisanal Fishing French Liners We welcome the awareness on the part of the European Commission regarding the specificity of the bass liners’ business. The recognition of the very high dependency of liners on this species, their low impact on resource, and the economic, social and environmental advantages is an unprecedented advance in European fisheries management. Hopefully these provisions constitute a pillar in the construction of multiannual management plans for the different bass stocks in the future. The proposed annual quota instead of a monthly quota is a response truly adapted to the constraints of the liners’ business. For these reasons, we ask the French government to support the proposal of the European Commission. However, it must be remembered that these measures, favorable as they are to our fishermen, do not assure them of a short-term exit from the crisis. The overexploitation of the stock has been pushed to an unfortunately high level and its recovery will take several years. It is essential that the measures that are adopted during this period prevent, to the maximum, discards caused by other trades. South West England South West commercial fishing groups have registered their support for zero netting of bass in representations to Defra. UK charter boats Ian Noble, Chairman of the Professional Boatman’s Association: "We fully support the proposals by the EU for 2017 Bass fishing as the first step towards an equitable solution for both recreational anglers and the commercial sector, whilst addressing the declining fish stock scenario."

UK and European tackle trade Robin Morley, President of the European Fishing Tackle Trade Association (EFFTA): “We are working hard with the ATA through the EAA on this very important issue concerning the Bass stocks and totally support the Bass conservation and sustainability initiatives taking place. We stand firmly behind the Angling Trust and BASS campaigns to ensure that our bass stocks are available for enjoyment by recreational anglers and the Commission’s proposals are fully implemented."

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Naidre Werner, Chair of the Angling Trades Association (ATA) UK: “The ATA and its members are strong supporters of the principle of sea fishing sustainability, and stand firmly behind the Angling Trust and BASS campaigns to ensure that our sea fish stocks – a public resource are available for enjoyment by recreational anglers. Research into the economic worth of those species captured by recreational anglers shows that the economic activity associated with recreational angling exceeds that of commercial fleets. “Diluted policies would jeopardise not just anglers’ sport; they would also affect the livelihoods of charter boat skippers, coastal hotels and B&B’s, tackle shops, tackle manufacturers and all the other industry sectors who rely on plentiful fish stocks and the freedom to catch them.”

Next Steps RSA groups will be campaigning in favour of the European Commission's proposals for 2017 and against any attempts by European politicians to water-down a sensible set of measures which will allow the bass fishery to recover and protect the coastal economies by promoting only sustainable forms of bass harvesting and recreational fishing. Our key aim is to create a net-free fishery in order to allow bass to spawn in sufficient numbers to replenish the dwindling stocks. We will be working with the tackle trade and the charter boat sector to lobby ministers and other decision makers ahead of the Fishing Opportunities meeting in December. We will work through the EAA and EFTA to build a pan-European alliance in favour of the EU Commission’s proposals. http://www.eaa-europe.org/news/10082/commission-proposals-for-2017-sea-bass-fishingopportunities.html We are promoting a national petition to the UK government:

Save our Bass: Do Not Water-Down The Proposal to Ban Nets "We are calling on George Eustice, the UK Fisheries Minister, to support the Commission's proposals and not to cave-in to commercial pressure like last year, to the anger and dismay of anglers and other conservationists. Commercial netting has hammered the bass stock. It is now so dangerously low that it may not recover for years. Anglers and conservationists argue that we must get rid of the nets. The EU Commission agrees and has proposed banning nets from the bass fishery from next year. These nets also kill sea-birds, seals, porpoises and dolphins. Getting rid of the nets, but retaining recreational fishing and commercial hook & line, will mean a bright and vibrant future for a sustainable bass fishery."

Angling Trust & BASS November 2016

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