1 00:00:08,109 --> 00:00:10,510 Welcome to the Marine Biologist podcast. 2 00:00:10,710 --> 00:00:14,190 Join us to discover the latest ocean topics from leading marine 3 00:00:14,190 --> 00:00:17,750 scientists and conservationists. The podcast accompanies The 4 00:00:17,750 --> 00:00:21,230 Marine Biologist, the magazine for members of the Marine 5 00:00:21,230 --> 00:00:25,630 Biological Association, and is presented by the editor, Guy 6 00:00:25,630 --> 00:00:28,470 Baker. We hope you enjoy this episode. 7 00:00:35,120 --> 00:00:37,560 In this episode, we're discussing inshore and small 8 00:00:37,560 --> 00:00:39,960 scale fisheries, with a particular focus on England. 9 00:00:40,480 --> 00:00:43,080 Joining us is Sarah Coulthard, one of the founders of the 10 00:00:43,080 --> 00:00:45,400 Inshore and Small Scale Fisheries Consortium. 11 00:00:45,920 --> 00:00:49,440 Welcome, Sarah. Hi Guy, I'm delighted to be 12 00:00:49,440 --> 00:00:51,840 here. Thank you so much for inviting 13 00:00:51,840 --> 00:00:55,120 me. I'm I'm Doctor Sarah Coulthard 14 00:00:55,120 --> 00:00:58,720 from the Centre for Rural Economy, based at Newcastle 15 00:00:58,720 --> 00:01:04,319 University and I'm the sort of Newcastle University component 16 00:01:04,319 --> 00:01:07,280 of the Insure and Small Scale Fisheries Consortium. 17 00:01:07,800 --> 00:01:13,040 The Insure and Small Scale Fisheries Consortium is a group 18 00:01:13,040 --> 00:01:19,480 of concerned individuals who have come from eight different 19 00:01:19,480 --> 00:01:22,800 organisations and you can see that on them. 20 00:01:22,840 --> 00:01:25,240 I think you're going to put some website details about the 21 00:01:25,240 --> 00:01:27,520 consortium work accompanying this. 22 00:01:27,520 --> 00:01:30,480 So I'm not going to list them all here, but the individuals 23 00:01:30,480 --> 00:01:35,560 involved in this really have come together in common concern 24 00:01:35,560 --> 00:01:38,800 about the decline we're currently experiencing in our 25 00:01:38,920 --> 00:01:41,360 insurance small scale fishing fleet. 26 00:01:41,760 --> 00:01:45,920 So we're delighted to have with us today the Ballyfill and 27 00:01:45,920 --> 00:01:49,080 George Lamplugh, who I believe have both just got off their 28 00:01:49,080 --> 00:01:50,800 fishing boats. Is that right, George? 29 00:01:52,040 --> 00:01:57,160 Yes, that's, that's correct. So I've started at 4:00 this 30 00:01:57,160 --> 00:02:00,760 morning, managed to jump in and out the shower and come in and 31 00:02:00,760 --> 00:02:03,760 see you. As you said, my name is George 32 00:02:03,760 --> 00:02:05,840 Lamplow. I've, I've been a sheer 33 00:02:05,840 --> 00:02:11,240 fisherman for the past 15 years or so and I've recently become 34 00:02:11,240 --> 00:02:16,920 involved in the small scale fisheries consortium and it's, 35 00:02:16,920 --> 00:02:18,360 it's really great to speak to you today. 36 00:02:18,360 --> 00:02:24,080 One thing that's to me is really important is having better lines 37 00:02:24,080 --> 00:02:29,320 of communication between the fishing industry and science. 38 00:02:30,200 --> 00:02:33,160 It's it's something that I'm always happy to see. 39 00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:37,280 And it really does. It does me well to, you know, to 40 00:02:37,280 --> 00:02:40,960 talk to you guys And, you know, if there's only marine 41 00:02:40,960 --> 00:02:45,480 biologists that want to, you know, learn a bit more about the 42 00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:47,920 fishing industry, talk to a fisherman. 43 00:02:47,960 --> 00:02:51,200 We're not ogres. Please, please feel free. 44 00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:53,120 We're not ogres. Despite how I look, I'm not a 45 00:02:53,120 --> 00:02:54,240 monster. I won't eat. 46 00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:57,480 Yeah. Come talk to a fisherman and 47 00:02:57,480 --> 00:03:02,840 I'll pass on to that. Yeah, obviously I couldn't see 48 00:03:02,840 --> 00:03:04,200 everything George has said there. 49 00:03:04,200 --> 00:03:07,920 It's a great to get this opportunity to engage with a, 50 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:10,080 with a wider audience. So my name is Bally Phelp. 51 00:03:10,080 --> 00:03:13,360 I work as a fisherman based on the Isle of Skye in Scotland and 52 00:03:13,360 --> 00:03:16,040 I coordinate a group called the Scottish Keel Fisherman's 53 00:03:16,040 --> 00:03:19,000 Federation. I'd like George today I wasn't 54 00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:20,640 fishing. The weather up here was abysmal 55 00:03:20,640 --> 00:03:22,360 today. So although I have just come 56 00:03:22,360 --> 00:03:25,640 from the boat, I was doing maintenance and that's one of 57 00:03:25,640 --> 00:03:27,360 that's one of the lots of the small scale fishermen. 58 00:03:27,360 --> 00:03:29,480 Unfortunately, we have to do all our own books, our own 59 00:03:29,480 --> 00:03:32,440 maintenance and our own accounting and so on and so 60 00:03:32,440 --> 00:03:37,760 forth, and our own interviews too, and there's always plenty 61 00:03:37,760 --> 00:03:39,720 to keep us immused. But it's been really great to 62 00:03:39,720 --> 00:03:41,960 have an opportunity to come here today and tell you about the 63 00:03:41,960 --> 00:03:44,680 work of the Insurance Small Scale Fisheries Consortium. 64 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:46,280 OK. Welcome everyone. 65 00:03:46,280 --> 00:03:49,320 It's great to have you here. Sarah, could you could you 66 00:03:49,320 --> 00:03:52,640 introduce the work of the Insurance Small Scale Fisheries 67 00:03:52,640 --> 00:03:56,240 Consortium for us? Yeah, thank you. 68 00:03:56,440 --> 00:03:59,560 Good afternoon, Guy. George Bailey, great to see you 69 00:03:59,560 --> 00:04:00,720 all. Great to be here. 70 00:04:01,160 --> 00:04:04,560 We're really grateful to you, Guy, as editor of the Marine 71 00:04:04,560 --> 00:04:08,440 Biologist for, for reaching out to us to produce a special issue 72 00:04:08,440 --> 00:04:11,480 and for all of the contributors from the consortium who have 73 00:04:12,400 --> 00:04:17,600 spent time writing their various articles, which we will see in 74 00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:19,640 in the edition when it's finally published. 75 00:04:20,279 --> 00:04:23,560 And yeah, hugely grateful for this opportunity to talk a 76 00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:27,800 little bit about, I suppose the unseen stories around the 77 00:04:27,800 --> 00:04:31,160 fringes that we don't always write about in the publications, 78 00:04:31,160 --> 00:04:34,760 but I think are really nice and helpful to reflect upon about 79 00:04:34,760 --> 00:04:38,120 where the consortium emerged from. 80 00:04:38,240 --> 00:04:41,800 And you know, why we're doing what we're doing around the, the 81 00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:45,080 work that we're doing to try and secure ensure fishing 82 00:04:45,080 --> 00:04:49,600 livelihoods in particular, and, and why, why that's so important 83 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:53,480 for marine biologists. And, and yeah, pretty much 84 00:04:53,520 --> 00:04:56,360 anyone I would argue to, to engage with and, and, and 85 00:04:56,360 --> 00:04:59,240 reflect upon. So if I may, I'd just like to 86 00:04:59,240 --> 00:05:02,840 start a little bit about the, the background of where this 87 00:05:02,840 --> 00:05:07,000 work came from, because it this unusually for a scientist, this 88 00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:10,640 wasn't a large bid that we pulled together to try and get 89 00:05:10,640 --> 00:05:12,920 funding to do a piece of work. This has really organically 90 00:05:12,920 --> 00:05:15,840 grown out of nothing. And we've been, we've been very 91 00:05:15,840 --> 00:05:20,280 fortunate to get funding as we've moved, moved along in 92 00:05:20,320 --> 00:05:22,960 particular from the Esme Fairburn Foundation who have 93 00:05:22,960 --> 00:05:24,880 been incredible supporter of this work. 94 00:05:25,600 --> 00:05:28,800 And also more recently the association of Ifkas and 95 00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:31,960 fishmongers who have come in to fund some of our more more 96 00:05:31,960 --> 00:05:35,120 recent and planned events. It's always important to 97 00:05:35,120 --> 00:05:38,080 remember to acknowledge your funders to begin with in these 98 00:05:38,080 --> 00:05:41,080 things. But if I may, I'd just like to 99 00:05:41,080 --> 00:05:44,880 go back to the sort of seed and the, the origins and the seed 100 00:05:44,880 --> 00:05:49,280 of, of this work. And it really for me, starting 101 00:05:49,280 --> 00:05:52,000 as a sort of marine social scientist working on the 102 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:55,680 Northumbrian coast, I can actually pin it down, at least 103 00:05:55,680 --> 00:05:59,720 in terms of my involvement down to one conversation with a 104 00:05:59,720 --> 00:06:03,160 fisherman in Northumberland on a different project. 105 00:06:04,360 --> 00:06:07,320 I was talking to him about, you know, how how's life going 106 00:06:07,320 --> 00:06:11,120 generally in fisheries. And he just really opened up and 107 00:06:11,120 --> 00:06:15,680 explained the challenges of how the fishing community are 108 00:06:15,840 --> 00:06:22,200 perceived often by others who don't fish around the sometimes 109 00:06:22,200 --> 00:06:28,440 very negative assumptions around how how destructive fishing can 110 00:06:28,440 --> 00:06:30,800 be to the environment. A lot of concern about how 111 00:06:30,800 --> 00:06:33,840 sustainable it is or isn't depending on the context. 112 00:06:34,480 --> 00:06:37,600 And he was explaining that he'd been following quite a lot of 113 00:06:37,600 --> 00:06:41,680 chat on social media about some of the impacts of trawling in 114 00:06:41,680 --> 00:06:45,200 particular because this fisherman runs a a small scale 115 00:06:45,200 --> 00:06:50,160 under 10 metre trawl vessel. And he said to me at this, 116 00:06:50,160 --> 00:06:52,880 during this, this conversation, he said, you know, you know, The 117 00:06:52,880 --> 00:06:56,200 thing is, Sarah, is that we, we as fishermen, we used to be seen 118 00:06:56,200 --> 00:06:59,840 as providers of food, but now we're just seen as destroyers of 119 00:06:59,840 --> 00:07:03,040 the sea. And so this really sat with me 120 00:07:03,040 --> 00:07:06,480 for a long time and I just, I felt really sorry for him. 121 00:07:06,480 --> 00:07:09,600 Actually. I just thought how how sad and 122 00:07:09,840 --> 00:07:13,400 unfair in, you know, not always unfair, but in this case I felt 123 00:07:13,400 --> 00:07:16,720 it was pretty unfair to, for, for, you know, hard working, 124 00:07:16,720 --> 00:07:22,240 very proud fishermen to we feel so just so invalued for the work 125 00:07:22,240 --> 00:07:27,200 he's doing and almost demonised for it in the context of, you 126 00:07:27,200 --> 00:07:30,520 know, the, the anti trawling debate that seems to be sort of 127 00:07:30,520 --> 00:07:33,000 sweeping the country in recent years. 128 00:07:33,400 --> 00:07:36,840 So I start with this for some time and then about six months 129 00:07:36,840 --> 00:07:41,800 later I noticed the Pride in our Seas photograph exhibition from 130 00:07:41,800 --> 00:07:45,120 the Scottish Fisherman's Federation that was touring 131 00:07:45,120 --> 00:07:48,360 Scotland. And I saw what they were doing 132 00:07:48,360 --> 00:07:51,720 with that work in terms of raising awareness in the 133 00:07:51,720 --> 00:07:55,320 Scottish Parliament at the time of the importance of the fishing 134 00:07:55,320 --> 00:07:58,920 fleet as a whole. I know we have Bali on the call 135 00:07:58,920 --> 00:08:01,160 as well. And you know, certainly also 136 00:08:01,160 --> 00:08:03,400 the, the work that he's been involved in through the 137 00:08:03,400 --> 00:08:06,520 Aristides Coalition and the Coastal Testimonies Photograph 138 00:08:06,520 --> 00:08:11,000 exhibition, which has also been on to, I think both of these 139 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:16,080 exhibitions really pointed to me the power of umm, photograph 140 00:08:16,080 --> 00:08:19,000 exhibitions. So at that time I, I got a bit 141 00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:21,680 of funding from Newcastle University together to do an 142 00:08:21,680 --> 00:08:23,600 English fisheries version of that. 143 00:08:23,640 --> 00:08:27,440 And it was really that the production of that exhibition, 144 00:08:27,440 --> 00:08:30,520 which umm, the Scottish Fish Fisherman's Federation very 145 00:08:30,520 --> 00:08:32,840 kindly allowed us to use the same name. 146 00:08:32,840 --> 00:08:35,360 It's pride in our seas too, the English coast. 147 00:08:36,320 --> 00:08:40,320 We, we produced that over a few, a few months and it was the 148 00:08:40,320 --> 00:08:44,840 going out with the photographer Ian Georgeson and listening to 149 00:08:44,840 --> 00:08:48,560 fisherman's stories. And I noticed very quickly there 150 00:08:48,560 --> 00:08:52,680 was a common concern about the future of the fishing industry. 151 00:08:52,680 --> 00:08:55,160 You know, sense of there's not enough people coming into it. 152 00:08:55,160 --> 00:08:59,240 New recruits were really dwindling, all sorts of 153 00:08:59,240 --> 00:09:02,960 pressures around the increased administration and, and other 154 00:09:03,280 --> 00:09:06,440 challenges that fishermen are facing this day, these days. 155 00:09:07,160 --> 00:09:10,240 And I'll talk, obviously, let George and Bally speak more to 156 00:09:10,240 --> 00:09:15,200 the what these challenges are. But at that time that really 157 00:09:15,200 --> 00:09:18,840 motivated me as a scientist to try and get a handle on, well, 158 00:09:18,920 --> 00:09:20,400 you know, where's the data on this? 159 00:09:20,600 --> 00:09:23,440 You know, are we in the, you know, is the industry in 160 00:09:23,440 --> 00:09:25,000 decline? What does it look like? 161 00:09:26,080 --> 00:09:29,520 Do we have that, that knowledge? We have that evidence base and I 162 00:09:29,520 --> 00:09:33,120 did some research and there are some articles that are in 163 00:09:33,240 --> 00:09:38,040 already published that have have snapshots of periods of time and 164 00:09:38,040 --> 00:09:40,680 explanations about what's happening in the fleet. 165 00:09:41,160 --> 00:09:44,000 But these felt a little bit buried in the academic 166 00:09:44,000 --> 00:09:46,880 literature as things often become. 167 00:09:47,800 --> 00:09:52,800 So I felt there was perhaps a space there to to write a new 168 00:09:52,800 --> 00:09:56,640 article working with the data that we have from the Sea Fish 169 00:09:56,640 --> 00:09:59,720 fleet survey. So if to those people that don't 170 00:09:59,720 --> 00:10:03,960 know that sea fish annually they produce a survey across the 171 00:10:03,960 --> 00:10:08,320 fleet in the UK and this is hugely important as a data set, 172 00:10:08,320 --> 00:10:13,120 but it it generally describes fishing activities in the fleet 173 00:10:13,640 --> 00:10:15,960 activities in that particular year. 174 00:10:16,440 --> 00:10:20,720 There hadn't yet been any sort of any long term analysis of 175 00:10:20,720 --> 00:10:24,520 change over time. So what we did with the team at 176 00:10:24,520 --> 00:10:30,200 Newcastle was we we pulled together the data over time from 177 00:10:30,200 --> 00:10:36,200 2008 to 2022 to look at changes in the fleet composition and 178 00:10:36,200 --> 00:10:39,080 numbers of active boats, number of numbers of employed fishermen 179 00:10:39,080 --> 00:10:41,960 and things. And, and we found very clearly 180 00:10:41,960 --> 00:10:45,200 that there was decline across the whole fishing sector, but 181 00:10:45,200 --> 00:10:49,040 that this decline was particularly accentuated in the 182 00:10:49,040 --> 00:10:52,000 under 10 metre fleet. So that's a small scale fishing 183 00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:55,520 fleet which at that time constitutes and, and, and still 184 00:10:55,520 --> 00:10:59,240 to this day it constitutes about 3/4 of our whole fleet. 185 00:10:59,240 --> 00:11:02,080 So it's not a minority of boats we're talking about. 186 00:11:02,080 --> 00:11:03,800 We're talking about the majority of the fleet. 187 00:11:04,400 --> 00:11:09,160 We saw that the small scale boats were declining at a faster 188 00:11:09,160 --> 00:11:12,440 rate, almost twice the rate as those over over 10 metres. 189 00:11:13,640 --> 00:11:17,440 And also they were they also really seem to be declining as a 190 00:11:17,520 --> 00:11:21,200 sector on, on, on numerous indicators. 191 00:11:21,200 --> 00:11:26,320 So for example, nearly 50% reduction in days at sea. 192 00:11:26,320 --> 00:11:30,120 So opportunities for fishing experienced by the under 10's 193 00:11:30,120 --> 00:11:34,920 and also 50, around 50% of a of a loss of employment of full 194 00:11:34,920 --> 00:11:39,960 time fishermen in that sector. Now at that time and, and, and, 195 00:11:40,040 --> 00:11:45,160 and still today I'm working with two brilliant post grad 196 00:11:45,160 --> 00:11:49,800 researchers, both PhD students at Newcastle University, Phoebe 197 00:11:50,160 --> 00:11:54,320 Lewis and Ainsley Hat. And they just really took this 198 00:11:54,520 --> 00:11:57,480 analysis to a new level of how it's communicated. 199 00:11:57,480 --> 00:12:02,920 So, so Phoebe, in particular, she managed to design this heat 200 00:12:02,920 --> 00:12:06,000 map, which was in one of your earlier, one of the earlier 201 00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:09,640 papers in, in the marine biologist showing the hotspots 202 00:12:09,640 --> 00:12:13,720 of decline that really helped us understand that this decline in 203 00:12:13,720 --> 00:12:17,040 the fleet is not being experienced equally in different 204 00:12:17,040 --> 00:12:19,080 regions. And there's huge disparity 205 00:12:19,080 --> 00:12:22,120 actually. So it was such a, an innovative 206 00:12:22,120 --> 00:12:23,640 thing to do. I mean, I think, I think often, 207 00:12:24,520 --> 00:12:28,400 well, you know, really always I think research groups are, are 208 00:12:28,400 --> 00:12:31,320 just so grateful for their early career researchers. 209 00:12:31,320 --> 00:12:34,160 And, and in this case in particular, you know, Phoebe and 210 00:12:34,160 --> 00:12:37,720 Ainsley have really been the the rocket fuel behind so much of 211 00:12:37,720 --> 00:12:40,320 this work. So that heat map got quite a lot 212 00:12:40,320 --> 00:12:43,240 of attention. We published it in fishing news 213 00:12:43,240 --> 00:12:45,160 saying, you know, these are the hotspots of decline. 214 00:12:45,160 --> 00:12:48,720 These are areas that we might want to think about how to 215 00:12:48,720 --> 00:12:52,480 engage with more, more actively to find out what's going on. 216 00:12:54,000 --> 00:13:00,760 And this was also the beginning of our a writing of a paper with 217 00:13:01,120 --> 00:13:04,560 20 co-authors that was eventually published in fishing 218 00:13:04,560 --> 00:13:07,240 fisheries at the beginning of 2024. 219 00:13:07,720 --> 00:13:11,080 And those co-authors really spanned a whole range of 220 00:13:11,080 --> 00:13:14,360 different interests. We had many different scientists 221 00:13:14,360 --> 00:13:18,960 involved, but we also had members of from from the fishing 222 00:13:18,960 --> 00:13:21,600 industry represented represented. 223 00:13:21,880 --> 00:13:26,520 We had members of environmental NGOs on in the author, in the 224 00:13:26,520 --> 00:13:30,480 authorship and it took a long time to write that paper because 225 00:13:30,480 --> 00:13:33,040 we had many meetings where we were trying to find the common 226 00:13:33,040 --> 00:13:36,160 ground, you know, about what what do we actually agree on? 227 00:13:36,160 --> 00:13:39,680 And the common ground very quickly emerged that there was a 228 00:13:39,680 --> 00:13:44,560 common concern about the decline in particular in the small scale 229 00:13:44,560 --> 00:13:47,640 fishing sector. And that's really what binds 230 00:13:47,800 --> 00:13:50,200 this work together. And that's something that 231 00:13:50,560 --> 00:13:54,960 everyone can agree is something to to think about and and be 232 00:13:54,960 --> 00:13:59,160 concerned about. Internationally, we know that 233 00:13:59,160 --> 00:14:02,440 small scale fisheries is in trouble in many countries. 234 00:14:02,440 --> 00:14:05,160 So it's not just something that's facing the English fleet. 235 00:14:05,160 --> 00:14:08,280 So it's very important to work with people like like Bally 236 00:14:08,280 --> 00:14:11,440 Phelps, who's who's part of the Low Impact Fishers of Europe, 237 00:14:11,760 --> 00:14:15,640 which is also looking at securing small scale fisheries 238 00:14:15,640 --> 00:14:19,120 in countries around Europe but also beyond Europe. 239 00:14:19,120 --> 00:14:22,520 This is something that that we're increasingly recognising. 240 00:14:22,520 --> 00:14:25,920 For example, the FAO have their own guidelines of voluntary 241 00:14:25,920 --> 00:14:29,440 guidelines on securing small scale fisheries, which all play 242 00:14:29,440 --> 00:14:31,800 into this. So this is really trying to find 243 00:14:31,800 --> 00:14:35,360 space within the English context to contribute to those 244 00:14:35,360 --> 00:14:39,840 international debates more so than we have done in the past 245 00:14:40,680 --> 00:14:45,480 and to to reflect, you know, within, within the UK context 246 00:14:45,480 --> 00:14:48,840 about, well, what do we do now that we know that our small 247 00:14:48,840 --> 00:14:52,360 scale fisheries are, are showing signs of struggling? 248 00:14:52,360 --> 00:14:55,000 You know, how how do we address that? 249 00:14:55,000 --> 00:15:00,080 And, and so the yeah. And just to say as well, I mean, 250 00:15:00,960 --> 00:15:04,240 obviously it's important to recognise existing efforts that 251 00:15:04,240 --> 00:15:07,280 are happening in, in which fisheries are very, very 252 00:15:07,280 --> 00:15:09,680 complex, diverse area to work in. 253 00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:12,720 There's never a dull moment. There are lots of different 254 00:15:12,720 --> 00:15:17,680 initiatives going on out there. I suppose as a scientist my 255 00:15:17,680 --> 00:15:21,920 engagement with with Defra and the MMO was often from within 256 00:15:21,920 --> 00:15:24,760 the context of fisheries management plans, which are the 257 00:15:24,760 --> 00:15:28,320 government's vehicle to, to produce the objectives of the, 258 00:15:28,440 --> 00:15:32,560 the, the Fisheries Act. So often I would attend meetings 259 00:15:32,560 --> 00:15:37,240 around the fisheries management plans, the FMPS and I remember 260 00:15:37,640 --> 00:15:42,120 in 2023 going to an event in London that was really well 261 00:15:42,120 --> 00:15:44,840 attended. There was about 60-70 people in 262 00:15:44,840 --> 00:15:49,320 the room and for each of the individual fisheries management 263 00:15:49,320 --> 00:15:54,160 plans, we had big boards up asking for us to annotate them 264 00:15:54,160 --> 00:15:58,200 about perceived evidence gaps. And so to where are the gaps in 265 00:15:58,200 --> 00:16:00,600 how what we understand about this particular fishery. 266 00:16:01,800 --> 00:16:06,040 And I noticed that the vast majority of people in the room 267 00:16:06,280 --> 00:16:09,200 were not social scientists talking about livelihoods. 268 00:16:09,200 --> 00:16:12,160 They were very much stock in environmental fisheries 269 00:16:12,160 --> 00:16:14,160 biologists talking about the stocks. 270 00:16:15,320 --> 00:16:19,840 And I think it just dawned on me that, you know, each fishery 271 00:16:19,840 --> 00:16:23,960 stock is itself so incredibly complex that it just takes up so 272 00:16:23,960 --> 00:16:27,720 much time and effort to to think about how to manage stocks in a 273 00:16:27,720 --> 00:16:30,680 sustainable way and without harm to the environment. 274 00:16:31,520 --> 00:16:33,560 There's sometimes the livelihoods component of 275 00:16:33,560 --> 00:16:35,840 fisheries seems to fall by the wayside. 276 00:16:35,920 --> 00:16:39,840 And this was really brought home to me at this event in London 277 00:16:39,840 --> 00:16:43,240 because I remember somewhere in the room there was a fisherman 278 00:16:44,080 --> 00:16:47,080 who almost whispered to himself in one of these breakout groups 279 00:16:47,080 --> 00:16:49,200 where I heard him. And I, I can't for the life of 280 00:16:49,200 --> 00:16:51,960 me remember who it was, but I wish I could remember because I 281 00:16:51,960 --> 00:16:53,600 would go and thank him for saying it. 282 00:16:54,160 --> 00:16:57,960 But he said, he said, you know, it's all very well making sure 283 00:16:57,960 --> 00:17:01,320 that there are enough stocks in the sea for a sustainable 284 00:17:01,320 --> 00:17:04,079 fishery, but if there's no one left to do the fishing, then we 285 00:17:04,079 --> 00:17:08,119 also don't have any fishery. I just thought that's exactly 286 00:17:08,119 --> 00:17:10,359 right. But who's picking up that 287 00:17:10,359 --> 00:17:13,839 element of sustainable fisheries right about the, the, what's 288 00:17:13,839 --> 00:17:16,280 happening to the people and their capacity to fish? 289 00:17:17,440 --> 00:17:23,119 So this then lead on to sort of all fed into the, the paper that 290 00:17:23,119 --> 00:17:26,440 we eventually published in fish and Fisheries, which really 291 00:17:26,440 --> 00:17:29,040 detailed the decline. It, you know, it had all the, 292 00:17:29,040 --> 00:17:32,640 the evidence in there that the, the numbers that that's needed 293 00:17:33,680 --> 00:17:37,440 almost a, a, we saw a decline over a 14 year period in the 294 00:17:37,440 --> 00:17:40,080 fleet as a whole of almost a 1/5. 295 00:17:40,640 --> 00:17:44,960 And it showed this, this aspect of regional disparity and the 296 00:17:45,000 --> 00:17:49,680 accentuated decline amongst the under 10 metre fleet, the, the 297 00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:53,800 smaller scale boats. And so then we thought, well, is 298 00:17:53,800 --> 00:17:56,600 that it? And what can we do next with 299 00:17:56,600 --> 00:17:58,960 this? Do we just leave it as a paper 300 00:17:58,960 --> 00:18:00,920 in fish and fishery? There's this great journal. 301 00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:02,920 We're all pretty happy with it when it, when it finally got 302 00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:08,040 published, or do we do more? And at that point, we had the 303 00:18:08,040 --> 00:18:11,560 idea to go to the Esme Fairburn Foundation to see if they would 304 00:18:11,560 --> 00:18:16,920 fund some workshops so that we could take the data to the 305 00:18:16,920 --> 00:18:20,440 actual fisherman and say, look, can you help us explain what's 306 00:18:20,440 --> 00:18:23,240 going on here? So what, why is the fishing 307 00:18:23,240 --> 00:18:26,640 fleet in such decline and what could be done to mitigate the 308 00:18:26,640 --> 00:18:29,440 decline and make your livelihoods more secure? 309 00:18:30,440 --> 00:18:34,760 So at that point this was really the beginning of the consortium 310 00:18:34,760 --> 00:18:40,520 as it is now and we had a smaller number of of co-authors 311 00:18:40,520 --> 00:18:43,360 who came together representing that they're different 312 00:18:43,360 --> 00:18:45,920 organisations. We've got about 7 organisations 313 00:18:45,920 --> 00:18:52,160 now and we came together to start to to plan these two 314 00:18:52,760 --> 00:18:56,080 workshops, one of which was in Poole, one of which was in 315 00:18:56,080 --> 00:19:01,920 Whitby in autumn in 2024. To just really provide the 316 00:19:01,920 --> 00:19:05,080 platform to bring together scientists, to bring together 317 00:19:05,080 --> 00:19:08,320 the regulators and the fishermen to talk about what is happening 318 00:19:08,320 --> 00:19:10,840 to the decline in our fishing fleet. 319 00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:14,360 And what what is what we didn't know and what we're still trying 320 00:19:14,360 --> 00:19:17,800 to understand better is what is it that makes a smaller boat 321 00:19:17,800 --> 00:19:20,280 particularly sensitive to some of these challenges? 322 00:19:20,280 --> 00:19:23,200 You know, so why are we seeing this accentuated decline in the 323 00:19:23,200 --> 00:19:26,280 under 10 sector? That's something we still just 324 00:19:26,280 --> 00:19:29,520 don't know, you know, because vulnerability is seen across the 325 00:19:29,520 --> 00:19:31,600 whole fleet. But the way that it affects 326 00:19:32,440 --> 00:19:35,760 different types of fishery, different sizes of boat is is 327 00:19:35,760 --> 00:19:39,840 very can, can, can really vary. So we just don't have enough 328 00:19:39,840 --> 00:19:42,680 information about that. So these two workshops are 329 00:19:42,680 --> 00:19:46,320 really an opportunity to have those discussions. 330 00:19:46,320 --> 00:19:48,480 And it was a bit of an experiment. 331 00:19:48,480 --> 00:19:52,640 You know, it's quite a challenge to get the right people in the 332 00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:54,360 room there. To be honest, we didn't know if 333 00:19:54,360 --> 00:19:56,440 it was going to work. We thought that, you know, 334 00:19:56,440 --> 00:19:59,160 sometimes, you know, fishermen will say that we'll come to 335 00:19:59,160 --> 00:20:01,360 something, but then it's a good fishing day and they, you know, 336 00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:04,480 understandably they can't come. And so it was all a bit of an 337 00:20:04,480 --> 00:20:06,960 experiment. But we ran these two workshops, 338 00:20:07,320 --> 00:20:10,320 which I think George and Bally are going to reflect on for it. 339 00:20:12,400 --> 00:20:15,000 And they were just hugely successful, you know, that we, 340 00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:19,040 we managed to distil from those some priorities to help secure 341 00:20:19,040 --> 00:20:24,160 the inshore fleet. And through those workshops and 342 00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:27,920 the, the future work that we're now planning, this consortium of 343 00:20:27,920 --> 00:20:32,360 organisations has now come together a bit more, a bit more 344 00:20:32,360 --> 00:20:36,360 solidity to, you know, we meet regularly on a weekly basis. 345 00:20:36,360 --> 00:20:40,600 We're thinking about, you know, how do we, how do we promote and 346 00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:44,840 embed these priorities, you know, these these voices that 347 00:20:44,840 --> 00:20:47,320 we're we're hearing from the internal fleet about what they 348 00:20:47,320 --> 00:20:51,160 think is important to address. Yeah. 349 00:20:51,160 --> 00:20:55,080 So that is, is where we are now. I would also say that over the 350 00:20:55,080 --> 00:20:59,400 summer we were actually able to go out, sorry, this summer, last 351 00:20:59,400 --> 00:21:00,920 year that the summer that's just gone. 352 00:21:01,240 --> 00:21:04,480 We were able to get a bit more funding from the Association of 353 00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:08,600 IFKAS and again from the Esme Fairblan Foundation to take 354 00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:12,400 these outputs from these two workshops about the priorities 355 00:21:12,400 --> 00:21:15,280 of the inshore fleet, about what would make their livelihoods 356 00:21:15,280 --> 00:21:16,960 more secure. We took them around the 357 00:21:16,960 --> 00:21:22,800 coastline and we, we had, we had a opportunity to go to several 358 00:21:22,800 --> 00:21:27,680 fisheries events in Cromo and Whitby N Shields and Hastings. 359 00:21:27,680 --> 00:21:29,400 And we have more planned for this summer. 360 00:21:29,920 --> 00:21:34,760 So we, we take the, the outputs from those workshops and we 361 00:21:34,760 --> 00:21:36,600 discussed them with fishermen in those areas. 362 00:21:36,600 --> 00:21:39,400 So a sense of not just keeping us all within workshops, but 363 00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:42,960 then doing some outreach work so that we can talk to communities 364 00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:44,920 who weren't at, you know, weren't able to come to those 365 00:21:44,920 --> 00:21:47,280 workshops because obviously you, you're limited in terms of 366 00:21:47,280 --> 00:21:50,600 numbers. But we did, we, yeah, we, we, 367 00:21:50,600 --> 00:21:53,400 we, we did that kind of Rd it's like a summer roadshow. 368 00:21:53,480 --> 00:21:57,440 And, and we also talked a lot with the public, the general 369 00:21:57,440 --> 00:22:00,560 public in the, in those areas to understand how they also feel 370 00:22:00,560 --> 00:22:04,120 about it. So I think I will stop there. 371 00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:06,080 That was a really you said this is going to be a short 372 00:22:06,280 --> 00:22:08,680 introduction. That's a really long winded 373 00:22:08,960 --> 00:22:12,120 introduction, but it's but that's where it came from. 374 00:22:12,120 --> 00:22:16,000 So it's an interesting one because it's not, it's just 375 00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:18,720 really grown organically. It's not that someone has sat in 376 00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:21,480 an office somewhere and written out a big research bid, which is 377 00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:23,560 how I would normally do things as a scientist. 378 00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:27,160 It's just we're really learning and doing as we're learning and 379 00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:32,440 you know, as we move along. And so, yeah, that so far there 380 00:22:32,440 --> 00:22:35,520 seems to be momentum and buy in from lots of different 381 00:22:35,520 --> 00:22:37,960 organisations. Now the fishermen who support 382 00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:41,120 this and who come to these events are just incredibly 383 00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:43,400 important. And we couldn't, we couldn't do 384 00:22:43,400 --> 00:22:47,000 any of this without them. So to have the buy in from the 385 00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:49,400 from the fishing community is really valuable. 386 00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:54,680 And we are now in the position where in February, which was 387 00:22:54,680 --> 00:22:57,480 what in February, in about 3 weeks time in February, we're 388 00:22:57,480 --> 00:23:01,840 going to have our a national insure and small scale fisheries 389 00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:05,600 symposium held in Newcastle. And we've got nearly 120 people 390 00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:09,600 signed up to that, fifty of which are in shore fishermen. 391 00:23:10,280 --> 00:23:15,760 And so I'd also just say about why we, why we are calling this 392 00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:19,480 in shore and small scale rather than just small scale fisheries. 393 00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:24,280 So that we had this discussion in, in the workshops in Poole 394 00:23:24,280 --> 00:23:27,200 and Whitby and it was really trying to understand how in 395 00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:29,880 shore fishermen themselves wanted to be known. 396 00:23:30,760 --> 00:23:35,280 And they very clearly said we prefer the term inshore because 397 00:23:35,360 --> 00:23:38,120 it's very difficult to define what small scale is, you know, 398 00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:42,720 and this has been a, a debate that rumbles on and I think has 399 00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:49,760 really inhibited action to, to recognise small scale fisheries 400 00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:52,720 over the years when it, you know, I don't think we can allow 401 00:23:52,720 --> 00:23:54,840 that to, to continue in, in some ways. 402 00:23:54,840 --> 00:23:58,800 You know, the inshore fishermen said very clearly they preferred 403 00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:03,560 the term inshore fishermen to allow for there to be less of a 404 00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:07,040 clear cut boundary around what is small scale and what isn't, 405 00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:11,080 but to recognise their dependency on inshore waters. 406 00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:15,200 So within 6 nautical miles. OK, so that was one reason. 407 00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:18,160 But also they, they said that nobody really knows what small 408 00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:20,160 scale means. You know, it sounds like it's 409 00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:23,600 somehow small and, and important, whereas inshore 410 00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:26,920 sounds more, you know, coastal and that maybe is more 411 00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:30,520 recognising. But the the coastal connections 412 00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:33,920 and contributions that small scale fisheries deliver that 413 00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:37,000 they're connected to place along our coastline. 414 00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:42,480 And so we're very keen to use that term inshore fisheries. 415 00:24:43,280 --> 00:24:46,360 And at the same time, we include the small scale because we're 416 00:24:46,360 --> 00:24:49,240 also recognising that generally speaking, these are smaller 417 00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:52,600 inshore vessels. And we also want to keep this 418 00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:57,480 work connected with this global debates and progress that are 419 00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:01,120 being made to secure small scale fisheries because they don't use 420 00:25:01,120 --> 00:25:03,960 the term inshore fisheries in other parts of the world. 421 00:25:03,960 --> 00:25:08,720 You know, so it's quite specific to to England and where you have 422 00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:12,160 this divide between inshore and offshore in terms of 6 nautical 423 00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:15,280 miles. So that's where we have two, the 424 00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:18,080 two, the two phrases just to clarify that there is a 425 00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:21,920 rationale behind that. Yeah, it might not be that in 426 00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:22,920 the future, I don't know. We have to. 427 00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:26,320 We have to see, OK. Great. 428 00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:28,120 Thank you, Sarah. That's a that's a great 429 00:25:28,120 --> 00:25:32,560 introduction and it's really useful to hear why something is 430 00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:37,360 called what it is rather than just being taking it as a as 431 00:25:37,360 --> 00:25:38,960 given. It's good to hear the background 432 00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:44,680 of why I remember Robert Clark of the Association of IF because 433 00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:48,640 I was talking to him and he told me that this country is fairly 434 00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:51,360 unique, England fairly unique and having still having an 435 00:25:51,360 --> 00:25:55,240 ensure fishing sector. That's that, you know, despite 436 00:25:55,240 --> 00:25:57,520 all the difficulties facing it, we still have it and I think 437 00:25:57,520 --> 00:25:59,960 that's really worth sort of remembering. 438 00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:04,680 Bally and George, you have any sort of reflections on that 439 00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:08,400 introduction about the formation of the consortium or how the 440 00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:12,360 workshops work for you? So the, the, our sort of 441 00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:15,800 approach to this is maybe slightly different or our 442 00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:18,200 experience, this is slightly different from Sierra's. 443 00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:21,160 So I work with the Scottish Kale Fisherman's Federation and we, 444 00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:24,160 we've been running for about 12 years in Scotland and we 445 00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:29,600 specifically focus on this small scale ensure and static gear 446 00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:32,240 fleets in Scotland. And it's a, it's a criteria of 447 00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:35,920 membership that generally speaking, we, we restrict our 448 00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:39,440 membership to under 12 metre static gear boats and we try and 449 00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:43,320 promote low impact fisheries as part of our, our fundamental 450 00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:46,200 makeup. And, and we're like Sarah 451 00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:48,640 mentioned earlier, we're members of low impact fishers of Europe, 452 00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:50,720 which have a similar sort of constitutional makeup. 453 00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:54,600 And then, and again, low impact fishers of Europe generally 454 00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:56,880 restrict their membership to under 12 metre boats using 455 00:26:56,880 --> 00:26:59,520 static gear only, although there are exceptions. 456 00:26:59,840 --> 00:27:01,680 Interestingly, low impact fishers of Europe are just 457 00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:04,120 joined by a Norwegian association with 500 boats, 458 00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:08,760 fifteen of whom are well over 12 metres up to 15 metres and a few 459 00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:12,120 of which are using mobile gears. But they've still signed up to 460 00:27:12,120 --> 00:27:17,200 the idea that we promote specifically the the values and 461 00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:22,520 the management that optimal for the small scale and and low 462 00:27:22,520 --> 00:27:24,760 impact fleets. And it's interesting to see I 463 00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:27,240 mentioned there, there are controversies around the use of 464 00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:31,480 words like small scale Fisher and low impact fishers and, and 465 00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:33,880 ensure fishers. And you know, this is a 466 00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:35,800 perennial debate. I don't think we'll, we'll, 467 00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:39,240 we'll ever finish with it. But you know, there is a bit of 468 00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:41,480 a background to those terms as well, which is probably worth 469 00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:43,840 mentioning. So the sustainable development 470 00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:47,200 goals, which the UK have signed up to specifically state that we 471 00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:49,960 must protect access to fishing opportunity for small scale 472 00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:51,440 Fisher. But then unfortunately, it 473 00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:54,280 doesn't define small scale Fisher, which which leaves that, 474 00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:56,320 you know, which leaves that a little bit of a mess when it 475 00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:58,560 comes to trying to push that forward. 476 00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:04,440 And the Fisheries Act in the UK specifically compels us to try 477 00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:07,320 and incentivize lower impact fishing, But again, that's not 478 00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:09,800 defined. It's it's vaguely defined as 479 00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:12,600 fishing which produces better social, economic and 480 00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:15,560 environmental outcomes than a competing alternative. 481 00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:19,520 But then that that's you still can't tell if something is a low 482 00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:23,080 impact fishing until you start contrasting it and comparing it 483 00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:26,000 with something else. Nevertheless, there's there is a 484 00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:29,840 lot of consensus that that smaller scale fisheries need 485 00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:31,800 more protection. They're more vulnerable the 486 00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:35,200 inshore fisheries because of the restricted geographical range 487 00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:39,000 and size in need that protection as well. 488 00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:41,240 And also that the generally smaller scale and lower impact 489 00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:44,840 fisheries produce and this is a generalisation, so it's not in 490 00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:47,120 every single case produce better social, economic and 491 00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:49,880 environmental outcomes when compared to say larger 492 00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:52,160 industrial fisheries. Often they, they offer more 493 00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:56,320 employment per kilo cot, higher value per kilo cot and generally 494 00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:59,520 speaking, and this again is not a rule, but often lower 495 00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:01,680 environmental impact per kilo cot as well. 496 00:29:01,680 --> 00:29:04,920 And because of those things, these are the, the very reasons 497 00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:07,960 that the sustainable development goals compel us to try and 498 00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:10,680 protect access to fishing opportunity for that fleet 499 00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:13,240 segment, because that fleet segment does produce those 500 00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:16,880 disproportionate benefits to society and to the fishing 501 00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:19,120 communities that they work from. So it's, it's really important 502 00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:21,880 to protect these fleet segments. And I'll maybe come back a 503 00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:24,040 little bit on what, what Sarah was saying about, about the 504 00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:27,520 unique challenges that are faced by the small scale fleet. 505 00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:30,360 Although we're still working through the unique challenges 506 00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:33,840 faced in, in, in the English ports and, and, and the, the 507 00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:37,560 vary between fishery and, and geographical location. 508 00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:40,360 A lot of the challenges faced by the small scale fleet are the 509 00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:44,040 same in in Scotland, England and, and arguably across the 510 00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:45,760 world. And that is that when you're a 511 00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:49,640 small scale owner operator, you're, you're the skipper of 512 00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:52,480 your boat, you're the, the boss of your crew, you're the 513 00:29:52,920 --> 00:29:57,320 accountant, you're the mechanic, you're the engineer, you're the 514 00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:00,600 grant applicant, You're the, the problem is that it's, it's not 515 00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:04,160 easy to do all of the things that are necessary to run a 516 00:30:04,160 --> 00:30:06,560 small scale fishing boat. And especially when you consider 517 00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:09,960 a lot of people got into into fishing in the 1st place because 518 00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:13,920 the the particular maybe didn't do fantastically well at school 519 00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:16,840 or they were frustrated by the humdrum of normal day-to-day 520 00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:18,600 life. And so you tend to find the 521 00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:21,800 skill sets for grant applications, mechanics, 522 00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:25,160 engineering or whatever aren't the kind of things that 523 00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:26,800 fishermen get taught. They're the kind of things they 524 00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:29,440 have to learn on the hoof. And that means that a lot of 525 00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:33,280 fishermen, they're just juggling a lot of jobs and the main thing 526 00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:36,040 they want to do is get out in a good day of weather and get a 527 00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:37,960 decent catch and pay the crew a decent wage. 528 00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:40,840 But there's all of these competing demands on their time. 529 00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:45,000 And it means that they're they're rarely optimising their 530 00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:48,600 contribution to fisheries management or their ability to, 531 00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:51,360 to attract the subsidies that may be available. 532 00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:55,440 And you tend to find this across the board that that there's 533 00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:57,520 under representation of small scale fishers and fisheries 534 00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:01,080 meetings, that there's an A lower uptake of grants and 535 00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:04,240 subsidies into in the small scale fishing fleets and so on. 536 00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:06,560 And it's not because the small scale fishers aren't interested 537 00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:09,200 in fisheries management or don't want grants and subsidies. 538 00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:11,520 It's because the minute that you engage in these things, you're 539 00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:14,640 forfeiting your ability to go to sea and earn a livelihood. 540 00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:18,600 So I think, I think although the challenges are unique in each 541 00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:23,000 fishery, in each port, generally speaking, it's not easy to be a 542 00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:27,320 small scale Fisher and thrive in the kind of environment that 543 00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:28,520 that we've designed for fisheries. 544 00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:30,840 A lot of the environment has been designed for fisheries 545 00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:34,760 suits, larger scale operators who have individual people 546 00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:36,640 commissioned to do each of these tasks. 547 00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:40,160 So I think, you know, we, we start at a disadvantage and 548 00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:43,040 there's many other disadvantages I think which, which are faced 549 00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:46,840 by, by small scale fishers. Generally speaking, they're more 550 00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:48,680 vulnerable to weather than large boats. 551 00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:50,840 And so they lose more days at sea to weather. 552 00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:54,640 They're more if you're only a A2 crew, you know, a skipper and a 553 00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:58,520 crew and a boat, then you're more vulnerable to, to loss of, 554 00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:01,560 of access to crew than a boat that maybe it's 5 or 6. 555 00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:04,440 If, if somebody doesn't turn up in the morning, the boat can 556 00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:06,640 still go to sea. But if you're working on a 2 man 557 00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:08,800 boat and your crew doesn't show up or you're having difficulty 558 00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:11,640 recruiting a crew, then that means you're tying up your boat 559 00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:15,240 potentially for quite a while. So I think I think there are, 560 00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:17,760 you know, there are a lot of factors in that that 561 00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:19,440 disproportionately impact small scale fishes. 562 00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:21,560 I mean, another one is just the general health of the marine 563 00:32:21,560 --> 00:32:24,880 ecosystem and, and the status of the, of the stocks that you're 564 00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:27,320 targeting. Because often these small scale 565 00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:30,760 boats, they're restricted to fishing on day trips within 12 566 00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:33,200 or so miles of land. And although again, there are, 567 00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:36,760 there are many exceptions, that generally means that you, you're 568 00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:40,320 highly dependent on the, on the health of the, the marine 569 00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:41,960 ecosystem in your local environment. 570 00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:45,520 And if a large nomadic fleet comes in or poor fisheries and 571 00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:49,280 management decisions have left that area denuded of your target 572 00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:52,880 species, then you're quite screwed compared to a big boat 573 00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:56,160 that can just go elsewhere. And so all of those things I 574 00:32:56,160 --> 00:33:00,400 think conspire to mean that that it's harder to be a small scale 575 00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:01,600 Fisher than a large scale Fisher. 576 00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:04,520 I would argue for, for all of those reasons. 577 00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:08,720 And, and, and that accounts to a huge extent for the, the 578 00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:12,640 declines and, and the challenges small scale fishers are facing. 579 00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:15,480 We've been working on this for quite a long time in Scotland. 580 00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:18,040 And as I say, it's, it's, it's common right across Europe. 581 00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:21,320 But interestingly, the Scotchgy fisherman's Federation hadn't 582 00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:24,080 worked much in England up until a few years ago. 583 00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:28,240 England had a dedicated small scale voice in in nut voucher, 584 00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:30,760 which was the new under 10 metre fisherman's association. 585 00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:35,720 And that folded a few years ago. And that's left England in a 586 00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:37,960 position where there isn't a dedicated voice for its small 587 00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:40,280 scale and ensure fleet. And I think one of the exciting 588 00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:42,920 things about the consortium, one of the things that that we 589 00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:46,120 really enjoy seeing happening in the consortium is the consortium 590 00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:51,000 starting to, to help promote that voice, identify the issues 591 00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:53,200 and and try and get the challenges addressed. 592 00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:57,960 And so we've gone from working in Scotland and in Europe, but 593 00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:00,560 sort of bypassing England to now being able to engage with 594 00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:03,560 England and seeing England, England small scale fleet regain 595 00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:05,360 its voice again. And, and that's a really good 596 00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:10,520 thing for us because as I say, I think the future is, is 597 00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:13,639 promoting and maximising the the benefits that we already see 598 00:34:13,639 --> 00:34:16,480 from small scale fishers, having as much or as many small scale 599 00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:19,719 fishers as possible and only allowing larger scale industrial 600 00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:23,400 fishers to encroach where there isn't the opportunity for small 601 00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:26,440 scale fishers, because otherwise, you know, we forfeit 602 00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:30,159 jobs or revenues or the marine environment unnecessarily. 603 00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:32,920 So I think whenever possible, we should always try and promote 604 00:34:33,159 --> 00:34:35,960 the low impact option on the small scale Fisher option. 605 00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:38,760 I think from the point of view of society and the fishing 606 00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:41,080 industry, that's where we get the best bang for our buck. 607 00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:46,880 I think there's a, there's quite a few, few other individual 608 00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:48,360 issues that we can go in and in more detail. 609 00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:50,080 But I think at this point it's probably worth letting George 610 00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:53,320 come in and, and tell us a little bit about his experience 611 00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:55,360 and what that's meant for wet beer, what he thinks that means 612 00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:57,800 for, for a small scale fleet in England. 613 00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:00,280 He's more qualified than me to talk on this one, that's for 614 00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:04,960 sure. Yeah, thank you very much, Bali. 615 00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:07,960 I'm probably going to keep things a bit shorter. 616 00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:12,920 I've been up since 4:00 this morning and I'm not sure I can 617 00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:17,720 speak so well as Sarah and Bali just have now. 618 00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:23,680 To me I think that it has to be said that the fishing industry 619 00:35:23,720 --> 00:35:27,880 as a whole, both the small scale and the larger scale fishes are 620 00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:33,160 are to an extent victims of some some pretty bad PR at times. 621 00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:38,480 I mean we've we're not these monsters trying to rape and 622 00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:41,760 pillage to see if it's last anything. 623 00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:46,680 We're not these cash obsessed lunatics waiting to destroy the 624 00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:49,520 world. We're, we're making a living. 625 00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:53,400 We're providing a very low carbon food. 626 00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:56,720 We're providing something clean, something healthy. 627 00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:00,680 And that often gets forgotten, You know, to this, to this myth 628 00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:04,640 of the, the demonic Fisher flag in the oceans. 629 00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:08,520 Now, certainly on the high seas, it might be a different 630 00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:11,600 conversation in, in British waters we are very heavily 631 00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:16,720 regulated and you know, we, we do get some bad press. 632 00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:20,680 But you know, obviously we're talking about the small scale 633 00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:23,280 and a lot of the things do disproportionately affect us. 634 00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:25,760 Unfortunately, one of them things is when, when the large 635 00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:29,680 scale fisheries move on. So when we're talking about 636 00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:32,640 things like access to a market, it's it's unfortunate. 637 00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:37,440 But take for instance, last week I was down in Brixham, fantastic 638 00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:41,400 fishing port. They're certainly set up for a 639 00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:44,720 larger scale of Fisher, but this benefits to small scale 640 00:36:44,720 --> 00:36:47,920 fishermen. So say for instance, right now 641 00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:52,200 for for diesel, we're paying around about 75 pence a litre. 642 00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:55,880 The guys down in bricks on the even on the smaller vessels are 643 00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:58,760 paying 50 pence a litre. You know, due to the volume of 644 00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:01,000 fuel that's being used in that port. 645 00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:06,120 It also means that they can have a wider composition of catch 646 00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:11,160 because if they have, you know, the beamers moving 100 boxes of 647 00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:14,880 place or, or what have you, if they come in with half a box, it 648 00:37:14,880 --> 00:37:17,080 still has value and the merchants will still buy off 649 00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:19,760 them. Whereas where we are here in 650 00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:23,160 Whitby, we don't have that larger scale fleet and the 651 00:37:23,160 --> 00:37:26,920 buyers aren't set up to, to buy that same half a box of place 652 00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:31,080 offers. So it's, it's, it's, it is 653 00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:34,600 important to look at the decline of the, the small scale fishery. 654 00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:36,440 It's, it's a horrible thing to see. 655 00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:39,960 And I think we're, we're suffering disproportionately, 656 00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:44,320 but we, we certainly should look at the value of the, the larger 657 00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:48,440 scale fishery as as part of the conversation as as a whole. 658 00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:52,160 So, you know, that's just something I felt, you know, 659 00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:53,880 worth putting in there to begin with. 660 00:37:55,280 --> 00:38:00,200 Now, when I became involved with the, the consortium here, when, 661 00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:06,800 when they came up to Whitby and it's, I'd like to make it was 662 00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:09,440 absolutely fascinating and fantastic. 663 00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:14,400 So I've, you know, academics and pardon me, it was absolutely 664 00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:19,080 fantastic to have academics and have scientists in the room who 665 00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:25,960 were engaged and positive about fishing rather than talking 666 00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:28,440 about the great demons that we are. 667 00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:33,400 So, you know, that that for me made it something that I would, 668 00:38:33,640 --> 00:38:36,680 you know, I felt that I wanted to get involved with. 669 00:38:37,720 --> 00:38:41,640 And, you know, more time I've spent with with Sarah, with 670 00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:48,720 ballet, with Phoebe and Ainsley, with all these guys, It's it's 671 00:38:48,720 --> 00:38:51,920 made me think nothing but, you know, positive about the idea. 672 00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:59,080 So, yeah, All in all, I think it is it is really important to 673 00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:01,720 develop that voice. And as as ballet said, and I'll 674 00:39:01,720 --> 00:39:04,200 certainly think it's a message that needs to be hammered home. 675 00:39:05,200 --> 00:39:09,600 Oscars on the in the smaller side, in the smaller sector, we 676 00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:14,520 do not have the the representation of the larger 677 00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:17,120 fleet. It's very hard for us to go and 678 00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:20,920 fight our corner because for us to go and fight our corner, we 679 00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:25,280 have to lose a day's work and travel, fund accommodation. 680 00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:30,800 Sometimes you have to to, to go to an event, to go to a meeting, 681 00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:32,920 to talk to people. It goes, it goes into the 682 00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:37,200 hundreds of pounds that we lose just to go there and, you know, 683 00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:40,960 try and represent ourselves to try and be heard, to try and, 684 00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:45,040 you know, create a voice for our, our sector. 685 00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:48,280 And unfortunately that's, that's not feasible. 686 00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:51,520 I mean, fishing is a fantastic job. 687 00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:54,920 It's a wonderful job, It's a great job, but I can assure you 688 00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:57,760 it's not one of the most well paid jobs in the world. 689 00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:04,640 And the idea of taking time off to to go and do what? 690 00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:08,920 What has to be done, what's, what's essential to, to go and 691 00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:11,840 represent and fight for your, you know, fight for your sector, 692 00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:16,320 fight for your, your corner. It's, it's, it's, it's 693 00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:18,320 impossible. Sometimes it really is. 694 00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:22,040 And it's, you're banging your head against the wall. 695 00:40:22,040 --> 00:40:26,120 So in again, in this sort of thing, the having a consortium 696 00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:30,000 and and working together and creating more of a singular 697 00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:32,000 voice, it can only be a good thing. 698 00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:34,880 I'm not quite sure what else to say. 699 00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:37,600 So I'm going to turn my microphone off and you know, 700 00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:39,840 we'll, we'll get back to chit chattering. 701 00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:43,760 Can I come back in just a little bit on, on what George was 702 00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:46,680 saying about, about the dishes and fishing? 703 00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:49,560 It's quite interesting because within the consortium, the 704 00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:52,640 consortium is focused very much on, on small scale and ensure, 705 00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:55,400 you know, even though those terms aren't clearly defined and 706 00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:59,040 can even be divisive on their own within the clear federation 707 00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:02,120 and, and low impact of Europe, we add another label over and 708 00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:04,960 above those two, which is the low impact label. 709 00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:07,320 And, and it's, it's an interesting one because 710 00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:10,000 obviously we think that that that's, you know, the future of 711 00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:13,240 fisheries is, is, is, is making it selective and low impact and, 712 00:41:13,240 --> 00:41:16,200 and high value as possible. That's the way to sort of 713 00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:19,240 optimise those social, economic, environmental outcomes. 714 00:41:19,240 --> 00:41:22,040 But it does often lead to the challenge where, where it 715 00:41:22,040 --> 00:41:25,680 introduces another divisive term again into the whole debate. 716 00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:28,080 And so are you small scale enough? 717 00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:30,400 Are you insured enough? Are you low impact enough? 718 00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:33,120 These are often the, the kind of conversations we have and, and, 719 00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:36,800 and it can be quite divisive and, and you know, and this is 720 00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:40,040 even within our own fishing communities and fraternities. 721 00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:43,720 And then when you have this larger public discourse, the, 722 00:41:43,720 --> 00:41:45,800 the nuance of those terms is lost in the public. 723 00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:48,880 And the public are focusing on the few things they know about 724 00:41:48,880 --> 00:41:50,880 fishing. And, and often the only thing 725 00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:54,920 the public knows about fishing is this idea of overfishing at 726 00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:58,680 once what it once was better, or it's not as good as it used to 727 00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:01,640 be because the fishermen have overfished it or the fishermen 728 00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:04,240 have done XYZ. And it's very frustrating for me 729 00:42:04,240 --> 00:42:08,280 as a fisherman because often fishers don't have any real 730 00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:11,800 input into how their fisheries are managed, that that's done at 731 00:42:11,800 --> 00:42:14,080 the science level and at the civil service level. 732 00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:17,960 And, and if, if and when there is overfishing, it's very rarely 733 00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:19,560 the individual fault of the Fisher. 734 00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:22,320 I mean, that's maybe not true if you've done some sort of illegal 735 00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:26,480 or unregulated fishing in masses as part of a huge industry, but 736 00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:29,400 that kind of thing has hopefully been eliminated from the most of 737 00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:31,200 the UK for the last 50 or so years. 738 00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:35,000 So the kind of overfishing that the, the public are often 739 00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:37,920 associating with fishers and fishermen in the fishing 740 00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:41,800 industry is, is largely the responsibility of the people who 741 00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:43,960 manage fisheries and not the fishermen themselves. 742 00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:47,080 It, it can be very frustrating as a fisherman when you campaign 743 00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:51,560 for good regulations, better minimum landing sizes and highly 744 00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:54,520 selective gear. And, and, and then the public 745 00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:57,720 demonise you, like George says, because the, the associate 746 00:42:57,720 --> 00:42:59,520 fishing with poor environmental outcomes. 747 00:42:59,920 --> 00:43:02,240 And, and very, you know, I, I just like to emphasise that very 748 00:43:02,240 --> 00:43:04,320 rarely is that the responsibility of the individual 749 00:43:04,320 --> 00:43:07,040 fishers, whether it's small scale or large scale fishing, 750 00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:10,480 the individual fishers are doing their best to make a good living 751 00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:11,880 within the rules that we're given. 752 00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:15,400 And, and more most frustratingly for us is often the rules we are 753 00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:18,760 given really don't lead to good outcomes. 754 00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:22,920 And I wish the public were a little bit more well educated on 755 00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:24,880 the subject of fisheries management, because it's 756 00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:27,640 fisheries management that's responsible for how many fish 757 00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:30,720 the fishermen are or are not meant to leave, leave in the 758 00:43:30,720 --> 00:43:32,480 sea. And, and what we're, we're 759 00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:36,680 finding in, in this day and age is, is a lot of the, the, the 760 00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:39,040 basis upon which fisheries management has formed has, has 761 00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:43,240 not been credible. So for example, we, we often 762 00:43:43,240 --> 00:43:45,840 allocate how much fish you can catch using a system called 763 00:43:45,840 --> 00:43:49,160 maximum sustainable yield. But we're now told that, that we 764 00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:50,640 need an ecosystem based approach. 765 00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:53,520 And, and if you look at how much of our historical fishing was 766 00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:56,120 done out with the ecosystem based approach, you realise that 767 00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:58,440 again, it wasn't, wasn't the fisherman not following the 768 00:43:58,440 --> 00:44:00,880 rules that was the problem. It was that the rules weren't 769 00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:02,800 fit for purpose. So I, you know, I would just 770 00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:05,480 like to make that clear that a lot, a lot of the things that 771 00:44:05,720 --> 00:44:09,080 the public are inclined to blame fishermen for not actually the 772 00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:15,360 responsibility of fishermen. Could I just come in just there 773 00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:18,520 about just returning to the experience of the workshops in 774 00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:22,560 Poole and Whitby, because in the special issue we have an article 775 00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:26,520 led by Emily Bullard, the Association of Ithacas, who's 776 00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:31,120 been very central to coordinating these workshops as 777 00:44:31,240 --> 00:44:33,520 as we all have as as a consortium. 778 00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:38,160 It it was interesting at the time when we were setting them 779 00:44:38,160 --> 00:44:41,720 up, there was some discussion about whether these platforms 780 00:44:41,720 --> 00:44:44,640 should just be for the inshore fleet to come together on their 781 00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:47,440 own without input from regulators. 782 00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:49,720 You know, the if goes the MMO just to have that space to 783 00:44:49,720 --> 00:44:52,840 discuss things. And I think, well, what I've 784 00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:56,280 certainly have really learned since running those workshops 785 00:44:56,280 --> 00:45:00,440 and through that experience is the value of creating really 786 00:45:00,440 --> 00:45:05,240 quality time for regulators and policy makers to sit with, with 787 00:45:05,240 --> 00:45:10,280 the fishing community and share knowledge, exchange their 788 00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:13,960 different versions of the realities in which each of those 789 00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:18,680 different stakeholders operates. And that, and I think we often 790 00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:22,680 talk about trust in, in the in fishing and how do we regain 791 00:45:22,680 --> 00:45:25,880 trust as scientists, as, as policy makers. 792 00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:28,640 And I do feel that those workshops were a really 793 00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:32,200 important platform to start to try and rebuild trust where it 794 00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:35,520 had been broken. And I think you know that that 795 00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:38,560 ability to have those three days, because, sorry, I should 796 00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:40,400 have said each workshop was three days. 797 00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:42,560 So we had new evenings together as well. 798 00:45:42,560 --> 00:45:47,160 And, and, and that type of format just enables you to 799 00:45:47,160 --> 00:45:49,840 interact with each other in a way that just isn't possible 800 00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:52,440 through online consultation or Zoom meetings. 801 00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:55,960 And it's really making sure that that quality time was there. 802 00:45:55,960 --> 00:45:59,600 And I think one thing, one moment in one of the, I think it 803 00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:02,400 was the whip, It was, it was the Whitby workshop. 804 00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:07,200 At the end of that workshop, there was a really, really a 805 00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:11,680 moment that stuck in my mind when one of the IFCA chief 806 00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:15,240 officers, who I know, and I won't say which one, I won't say 807 00:46:15,240 --> 00:46:19,480 which Ifka they, they were from, but he came up to me afterwards 808 00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:23,400 and said that after three days of discussion and one of the 809 00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:26,760 fishermen on his on his table, he was actually from a different 810 00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:28,320 regions. He wasn't part of his Ifka. 811 00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:31,200 He'd come up to him afterwards and said, I'd like to shake he 812 00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:34,440 by the hand because he's completely changed my perception 813 00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:36,960 of Ifkas. And I just thought, God, you 814 00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:39,880 know, that's, that's what we're aiming at here, you know, as 815 00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:44,160 well as trying to make, you know, tangible and, and viable 816 00:46:44,160 --> 00:46:47,600 action points to improve things. I think there's also, you know, 817 00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:51,680 if we can rebuild relationships that are so frayed at the 818 00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:55,360 moment, you know, through the, through the, you know, the 819 00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:59,440 course that we've taken since Brexit and a lot of mistress is 820 00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:01,880 out there. I think just having the space 821 00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:05,560 that these workshops provide to reconnect has been really 822 00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:10,040 valuable. I don't know if either of you 823 00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:12,720 wanted to talk a bit about the workshop experience. 824 00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:17,080 Well, actually I was, I was hoping to just say a little bit 825 00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:20,480 on the, the trust side of things with, you know these 826 00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:25,760 organisations. Now personally it is, it's my 827 00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:29,440 belief that the onus is on the likes of death for MMO if 828 00:47:29,720 --> 00:47:35,760 etcetera to rebuild that trust. I feel like as you know, as an 829 00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:41,400 industry, time and again, we've, we've, we've done our best to 830 00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:43,120 be, you know, to play fair with them. 831 00:47:43,120 --> 00:47:47,760 We've done our best to, you know, to try and get treated 832 00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:49,200 fair. And time and again we have 833 00:47:49,680 --> 00:47:51,800 we've, we've ended up being disappointed. 834 00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:56,240 And this is this again, is a big concern at the minute with 835 00:47:56,240 --> 00:48:02,200 things like the FMPS coming out where the, the hope is that 836 00:48:02,400 --> 00:48:05,720 things are, you know, going to be done in a, in a better way. 837 00:48:05,720 --> 00:48:11,160 People are going to, you know, treat, pardon me, treat the 838 00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:13,400 fishing industry a little bit better this time. 839 00:48:14,160 --> 00:48:17,720 And you know, time will tell. But honestly, for any, for 840 00:48:17,720 --> 00:48:22,080 anybody in marine management watching, you've got to rebuild 841 00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:25,200 that trust because because at the minute it's, it's really, 842 00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:31,120 it's really lacking. It's really not there and it 843 00:48:31,800 --> 00:48:35,440 would just be nice to to work in an environment where we we can 844 00:48:35,440 --> 00:48:38,240 work together a bit better. And that's, yeah, that's just 845 00:48:38,240 --> 00:48:42,640 what I wanted to say about that. I'll maybe add a few thoughts on 846 00:48:42,640 --> 00:48:45,320 the workshops. I, I think they were quite 847 00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:48,080 special, to be honest with you. And, and, you know, Sarah has 848 00:48:48,080 --> 00:48:50,440 already listed the idea of bringing together all these 849 00:48:50,440 --> 00:48:53,160 different stakeholder groups from, you know, managers and 850 00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:57,600 NGOs and, and academics and fishers themselves, you know, 851 00:48:57,720 --> 00:49:00,640 using different gears and different sized boats, different 852 00:49:00,640 --> 00:49:02,280 areas and all putting us all in the same room. 853 00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:05,360 And I think that's quite unique and quite rare in my experience, 854 00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:07,440 and especially in the scale that we've done it on. 855 00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:12,480 Like I said, I mentioned 3D residential workshops is, is a 856 00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:16,240 very, you know, intense few days to, to be, you know, we had some 857 00:49:16,240 --> 00:49:19,840 very formal exercises on, on processes where we tried to 858 00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:23,160 identify and tease out the, the challenges and then the 859 00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:24,960 potential solutions and so on and so forth. 860 00:49:25,400 --> 00:49:28,240 But also the just the opportunity to spend so much 861 00:49:28,240 --> 00:49:30,840 time together and realise that we're all human and we're all 862 00:49:30,840 --> 00:49:34,280 just struggling to do our jobs and then and and give us an 863 00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:37,000 opportunity to see things from each other's perspective. 864 00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:39,960 Like George says, there's a lot of trust broke down over the 865 00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:43,000 years between all those various sort of sub sectors. 866 00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:46,280 And maybe maybe it's just that we handpicked some of the better 867 00:49:46,280 --> 00:49:48,480 people in the room or or the right people volunteered. 868 00:49:48,760 --> 00:49:51,600 But I really did get the impression of if this is what 869 00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:54,640 you can do in this kind of a workshop, then there's a lot 870 00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:57,760 more potential in the future to get things right. 871 00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:00,680 It really did feel like we were engaging in a in a constructive 872 00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:03,400 process. I've seen that once before. 873 00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:07,240 There was a big meeting in London just before Brexit 874 00:50:07,280 --> 00:50:11,080 discussing what a future, post Brexit future might look like 875 00:50:11,080 --> 00:50:13,440 for the Insure fishing industry. And then these two big 876 00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:15,640 workshops, the one in Poole and the one in Whitby. 877 00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:18,440 And in the, the 12 or 4 years I've worked formally in 878 00:50:18,440 --> 00:50:21,000 fisheries management as a fisheries representative, those 879 00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:24,120 are the three, only three occasions where I've seen a 880 00:50:24,120 --> 00:50:26,720 gathering like this take place where you have multiple days, 881 00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:29,400 the, the diverse range of stakeholders and, and, and a 882 00:50:29,400 --> 00:50:32,280 common agenda where you're working together constructively. 883 00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:35,480 And, you know, I think that it, it's invaluable. 884 00:50:35,480 --> 00:50:38,600 I wouldn't like to calculate how you would achieve the kind of 885 00:50:38,600 --> 00:50:41,560 outputs that we were generating in, in, in any other way. 886 00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:43,960 I don't think it's possible. And, and like Sarah says, 887 00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:46,920 there's this one more big workshop coming up in Newcastle 888 00:50:47,400 --> 00:50:49,200 in February. And, and I think these are some 889 00:50:49,200 --> 00:50:52,280 of the best opportunities to ensure fleet of heart in many, 890 00:50:52,280 --> 00:50:56,440 many years to kind of bridge this gulf of, of like George 891 00:50:56,440 --> 00:50:58,960 mentioned, this sort of lack of trust or lack of confidence in 892 00:50:58,960 --> 00:51:02,800 the decision making and lack of sort of connection between US 893 00:51:02,800 --> 00:51:04,880 and the various other disciplines that are working in 894 00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:07,680 fisheries, whether it's an academia or in, in management or 895 00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:10,760 the Eng, It was even. And, and to get us all in the 896 00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:13,680 same room and have a sort of fighting from a common corner, I 897 00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:15,720 think is, is a very precious thing. 898 00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:19,680 And, and it may actually be one of the last chance saloons we 899 00:51:19,680 --> 00:51:22,440 have for the small scale fishing industry. 900 00:51:22,440 --> 00:51:25,360 Because if we can't get our heads in our, you know, get all 901 00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:27,920 our bodies in the room, bang our heads together and come up with 902 00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:30,640 the solutions, then the question is, who is, you know, who's 903 00:51:30,640 --> 00:51:32,320 going to do this? Who else is going to do this? 904 00:51:32,800 --> 00:51:35,720 And then, and the odds are that, you know, even if somebody else 905 00:51:35,720 --> 00:51:38,920 tried, they're not going to do as good a job as, as the, the 906 00:51:38,920 --> 00:51:41,480 people who are as passionate as the ones that we that we managed 907 00:51:41,480 --> 00:51:43,920 to find and, and bring together. So I, I think it's been a 908 00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:46,680 brilliant opportunity. I really do think that it's, 909 00:51:46,760 --> 00:51:49,440 it's one of the best hopes I've seen for a long time for the 910 00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:51,240 insurer fishing industry, generally speaking. 911 00:51:52,440 --> 00:51:54,080 Yeah, that's all I really want to say about that. 912 00:51:55,640 --> 00:52:00,560 That's and so do you, do you see how this consortium could kind 913 00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:03,240 of keep going? Could it be built into policy 914 00:52:03,240 --> 00:52:06,960 making in a more sort of sustainable way? 915 00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:13,120 I think it can, yes. So I think that the the 916 00:52:13,120 --> 00:52:18,480 important thing is especially these these early doors is to 917 00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:22,280 well, it's just to grow and develop. 918 00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:25,920 It's, you know, hopefully early doors will get some some 919 00:52:25,920 --> 00:52:29,280 achievements in and people from the outside or decide that 920 00:52:29,280 --> 00:52:32,800 they'd rather, you know, be be within that within that group. 921 00:52:34,000 --> 00:52:38,240 But it's certainly a case you're better off, you know, being in 922 00:52:38,240 --> 00:52:40,560 the vote bailing out then out the vote bailing in. 923 00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:45,440 So yeah, I think there's a there's a real opportunity and 924 00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:52,160 hopefully, because I put it I think in in the fleet, it's it's 925 00:52:52,160 --> 00:52:55,920 very easy for for people to come become jaded to think I'll 926 00:52:56,560 --> 00:52:59,000 nothing's nothing's ever going to change. 927 00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:01,800 But you know, people still turn out and support the England 928 00:53:01,800 --> 00:53:05,920 football team. So, you know, hopefully people 929 00:53:05,920 --> 00:53:10,000 have people will get a bit of enthusiasm, get a bit of 930 00:53:10,000 --> 00:53:12,640 optimism and if we can get that optimism in the room. 931 00:53:12,640 --> 00:53:15,040 And that's that's something I did feel very strongly in 932 00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:17,000 Whitby. And one of one of the other 933 00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:19,760 groups I think there's ever mentioned here is I've attended 934 00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:22,160 several events with fishing into the future. 935 00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:25,960 And you do get that, you know, that same sort of multiple day 936 00:53:25,960 --> 00:53:29,520 experience, that same, that same buzz in the room, that same 937 00:53:30,240 --> 00:53:33,000 feeling that things can be different, that things can be 938 00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:36,080 better. I, I think that, yeah, if we can 939 00:53:36,080 --> 00:53:40,840 get people to engage, get them, get them early wins and get, you 940 00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:44,840 know, pick that low hanging fruit, as Sarah says, then yeah, 941 00:53:44,840 --> 00:53:47,040 there's, there's, there's definite opportunities. 942 00:53:47,480 --> 00:53:50,160 I'm going to I'm going to switch me microphone off and let one of 943 00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:54,160 the grown-ups talk for a minute. Would I count as that grown up 944 00:53:54,160 --> 00:53:56,680 George? I'm not sure, but but I would 945 00:53:56,680 --> 00:53:59,040 say two things I think that you've made me think about. 946 00:53:59,240 --> 00:54:02,720 Well, three things actually. Firstly, there is as you know, 947 00:54:02,720 --> 00:54:06,000 as Bally and George have both alluded to, there is huge 948 00:54:06,000 --> 00:54:10,440 urgency in this work because we're seeing the decline in the 949 00:54:10,440 --> 00:54:15,280 intro fleet in particular is seems to be in particularly 950 00:54:15,800 --> 00:54:18,000 problematic. We've seen, we've seen hot spots 951 00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:21,960 around the coastline with some towns and villages down to their 952 00:54:21,960 --> 00:54:25,720 last few boats where they have had, you know, much larger 953 00:54:25,720 --> 00:54:29,320 flourishing fleets in, in previous years. 954 00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:32,440 And in, you know, where I live in Northumberland, we're, you 955 00:54:32,640 --> 00:54:37,800 know, we're seeing, you know, very likely loss of fishing 956 00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:41,400 boats in many of our rural areas and smaller harbours. 957 00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:44,760 And that that picture is being repeated around the coastline. 958 00:54:45,200 --> 00:54:48,400 You know, places like Hastings, for example, was once the once 959 00:54:48,400 --> 00:54:51,640 boasted the largest beach landed fleet in the whole of Europe. 960 00:54:51,680 --> 00:54:54,480 It's now down to a very small number of boats and great 961 00:54:54,720 --> 00:54:58,200 uncertainty about the continuation of fishing in a, in 962 00:54:58,200 --> 00:55:00,920 a, you know, a town that Hastings has had fishing and 963 00:55:00,920 --> 00:55:03,440 active fishery for well over 1000 years. 964 00:55:03,440 --> 00:55:06,680 And and many of the, the fishing families that are, that are in 965 00:55:06,680 --> 00:55:11,200 Hastings of can can trace their, their fishing heritage back for 966 00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:16,320 almost the same amount of time. It's, it's so yeah, there's 967 00:55:16,320 --> 00:55:21,720 something incredibly precious about our fishing communities 968 00:55:22,280 --> 00:55:25,920 and the, the, all the, the benefits that they deliver to 969 00:55:25,920 --> 00:55:28,800 our coastal communities, not least food security, which 970 00:55:28,800 --> 00:55:33,680 George has also mentioned. But the, the question about and 971 00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:35,840 what, what could this possibly deliver? 972 00:55:35,840 --> 00:55:40,240 I think our approach really is to really work closely with 973 00:55:40,280 --> 00:55:44,400 Defra and, and the MMO and, and the IFKAS and, and that's, 974 00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:48,680 that's always been our approach to ensure that they have the 975 00:55:48,680 --> 00:55:51,840 right tools, the right evidence that we're supporting them to 976 00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:56,200 hear the voice and to engage fully with small, with the small 977 00:55:56,200 --> 00:55:58,600 scale fishing sector, because, you know, we all recognise how 978 00:55:58,600 --> 00:56:02,200 difficult that is to do. Bally mentioned earlier about 979 00:56:02,200 --> 00:56:06,200 some of the challenges of being a small scale Fisher when you're 980 00:56:06,200 --> 00:56:09,560 a single handed boat of, of, of attending meetings and having 981 00:56:09,560 --> 00:56:13,240 time often is, is, is a real challenge to, to engage in some 982 00:56:13,240 --> 00:56:15,240 of this work. So we're really trying to work 983 00:56:15,240 --> 00:56:19,440 with government to, to, to support what they're doing and, 984 00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:22,920 and to make sure that they have the full breadth of evidence and 985 00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:26,880 the inputs that the inshore fleet can, can bring and to 986 00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:30,720 enable them to make good decisions that help and support 987 00:56:30,720 --> 00:56:34,160 a sustainable fishing, sustainable fishing livelihoods 988 00:56:34,160 --> 00:56:37,120 for the inshore fleet. And our approach has always been 989 00:56:37,240 --> 00:56:40,600 to try and find those points of consensus because often there's 990 00:56:40,600 --> 00:56:42,400 a lot of disagreement about what to do. 991 00:56:42,400 --> 00:56:44,440 And you often see that splashed all over the, you know, the 992 00:56:44,440 --> 00:56:47,920 headlines of fishing news, for example, where you have, you 993 00:56:47,920 --> 00:56:49,960 know, you often have environmental NGOs saying one 994 00:56:49,960 --> 00:56:53,800 thing and being vehemently disagreed with by members or 995 00:56:54,560 --> 00:56:57,360 representatives of, of the fishing industry. 996 00:56:57,360 --> 00:57:01,120 And what we're really trying to do is bring everyone together, 997 00:57:01,120 --> 00:57:04,920 all stakeholders together to say, look what, what can be 998 00:57:04,920 --> 00:57:06,920 agreed upon. Because you know, when you do, 999 00:57:06,960 --> 00:57:09,680 when you can speak with one voice and you do find that 1000 00:57:09,680 --> 00:57:12,880 consensus, I think it's a lot easier to get those messages up 1001 00:57:12,880 --> 00:57:16,720 into government and for action to, to follow. 1002 00:57:17,720 --> 00:57:21,760 So that, that, that is part of the rationale behind the, the, 1003 00:57:22,120 --> 00:57:25,000 the design of these workshops, making sure that there's quality 1004 00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:28,880 time for in depth discussion and that we can accommodate and 1005 00:57:28,880 --> 00:57:32,320 debate, you know, from across all these different viewpoints 1006 00:57:32,320 --> 00:57:35,720 and realities that, that, that different stakeholders bring to 1007 00:57:35,720 --> 00:57:39,160 the table. But I'm also reminded when 1008 00:57:39,160 --> 00:57:42,640 George was talking, I was reminded in the of the famous 1009 00:57:42,640 --> 00:57:46,280 words of Margaret Meek, who he may or may not know in, in 1010 00:57:46,280 --> 00:57:49,400 social science, in the social sciences, who she was a very 1011 00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:52,720 famous anthropologist. And she said, never doubt that a 1012 00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:56,320 small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change 1013 00:57:56,320 --> 00:57:58,480 the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that 1014 00:57:58,480 --> 00:58:01,520 ever has. So I kind of trying to remind 1015 00:58:01,520 --> 00:58:04,960 myself about that quite regularly here because it, you 1016 00:58:05,000 --> 00:58:09,200 know, sometimes fishermen come to these events and they are, 1017 00:58:09,320 --> 00:58:13,400 you know, understandably completely despondent and 1018 00:58:14,040 --> 00:58:17,600 utterly fed up. And I, you know, and it's really 1019 00:58:17,600 --> 00:58:20,200 important that we don't overstate what we're doing or 1020 00:58:20,200 --> 00:58:22,080 make promises that can't be kept. 1021 00:58:22,080 --> 00:58:24,440 I think we've had enough of those over recent years. 1022 00:58:24,440 --> 00:58:27,360 So, you know, carefully, carefully, we're trying to 1023 00:58:27,360 --> 00:58:31,320 progress viable solutions, get the consensus from the different 1024 00:58:31,320 --> 00:58:34,680 stakeholders we need, telling us what's viable, what is not 1025 00:58:34,680 --> 00:58:38,640 viable and generating new understanding about that and 1026 00:58:38,640 --> 00:58:41,400 building the evidence base that we need to support that. 1027 00:58:41,400 --> 00:58:46,320 So that when we go to Defra and ministers with with hopefully 1028 00:58:46,760 --> 00:58:50,280 widely agreed and supported solutions to improve fishing 1029 00:58:50,280 --> 00:58:53,120 livelihoods for the inshore fleet, we've got a really solid 1030 00:58:53,120 --> 00:58:56,720 evidence base to back it up. I think we've really covered it 1031 00:58:56,720 --> 00:59:00,600 all and more. There was one about, you know, 1032 00:59:00,600 --> 00:59:03,240 how does this work reach and influence policy makers that I 1033 00:59:03,240 --> 00:59:04,760 thought about when we were talking. 1034 00:59:05,160 --> 00:59:10,720 OK, so the the purpose of the National Symposium of Insure and 1035 00:59:10,720 --> 00:59:14,440 Small Scale Fisheries this February in Newcastle is to 1036 00:59:14,440 --> 00:59:20,000 really bring together a a broader, A broader range of 1037 00:59:20,000 --> 00:59:24,360 stakeholders from across multiple organisations who are 1038 00:59:24,360 --> 00:59:29,240 coming, who are in various positions of decision making. 1039 00:59:29,880 --> 00:59:34,000 Bring those people together with fishermen who fish predominantly 1040 00:59:34,000 --> 00:59:38,600 in shore and on small boats to talk about viable actions that 1041 00:59:38,600 --> 00:59:41,480 can improve livelihoods moving forward. 1042 00:59:42,080 --> 00:59:47,080 And the vision is to produce from those, from that event, 1043 00:59:47,120 --> 00:59:51,480 which is running over 2 days in early February, a very clear 1044 00:59:51,480 --> 00:59:57,440 action plan of things that the room agrees are feasible to take 1045 00:59:57,440 --> 00:59:59,560 forward. And we hopefully will have the 1046 00:59:59,560 --> 01:00:04,000 right people in the room to then pick up those things and promote 1047 01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:07,840 them and take them forward within their own, within their 1048 01:00:07,840 --> 01:00:10,800 own organisation. So some of those are quite may 1049 01:00:10,800 --> 01:00:14,520 be quite technical. Some of those may be specific to 1050 01:00:14,520 --> 01:00:17,160 a particular region. But when we're talking about 1051 01:00:17,160 --> 01:00:21,360 policy impact, that is also something that we are addressing 1052 01:00:21,360 --> 01:00:25,080 at. The at the February events, but 1053 01:00:25,080 --> 01:00:27,960 what we're moving towards and it you know, I don't want to pre 1054 01:00:27,960 --> 01:00:30,640 empt what will come out of that because this is a part of the 1055 01:00:30,640 --> 01:00:33,920 code design process. But what we are, we have talked 1056 01:00:33,920 --> 01:00:38,360 about a lot already within the consortium and at the workshops 1057 01:00:38,360 --> 01:00:42,520 in 2024. What we're moving forward with 1058 01:00:42,520 --> 01:00:46,720 is a, is a vision for our fisheries, which is about small 1059 01:00:46,720 --> 01:00:51,280 scale fisheries as being part of a diverse fleet that is 1060 01:00:51,280 --> 01:00:55,600 geographically widespread and inclusive of lots of small 1061 01:00:55,600 --> 01:00:59,000 boats. And I, I think that is something 1062 01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:02,440 that most people will be able to get behind and support. 1063 01:01:02,960 --> 01:01:07,920 And the the more we can talk about that and where small scale 1064 01:01:07,920 --> 01:01:13,080 fisheries fits within UK wide fisheries policy, I think the 1065 01:01:13,080 --> 01:01:15,040 better. OK, so we're really trying to 1066 01:01:15,320 --> 01:01:20,560 build the momentum, have debates to at least get that discussion 1067 01:01:20,560 --> 01:01:24,880 really flowing and with the hope that the policy makers may take 1068 01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:28,720 that on board and, and think about these two aspects, you 1069 01:01:28,720 --> 01:01:32,040 know, about the importance and the value of our insurance small 1070 01:01:32,040 --> 01:01:34,720 scale fishing sector. And also about this issue about 1071 01:01:34,720 --> 01:01:36,760 the regional disparity around the decline. 1072 01:01:37,080 --> 01:01:42,080 You know that we don't hear much about that, you know, do we do 1073 01:01:42,080 --> 01:01:46,120 we care as a country if we have fishing only restricted to 1074 01:01:46,120 --> 01:01:50,040 certain regions of the UK where it's doing really well of of 1075 01:01:50,280 --> 01:01:53,280 and, and able to flourish and, and we lose it from other parts 1076 01:01:53,280 --> 01:01:55,400 of the coastline, What are we actually losing? 1077 01:01:55,400 --> 01:01:58,400 If that happened now? We haven't had that debate. 1078 01:01:58,400 --> 01:02:01,080 And that's the debate we really need to have at policy level 1079 01:02:01,360 --> 01:02:05,000 because from the the analysis that we've done and published, 1080 01:02:05,960 --> 01:02:08,880 we can see very clearly that there are certain parts of the 1081 01:02:08,880 --> 01:02:13,000 UK that are in the red and their fleets are dwindling. 1082 01:02:13,000 --> 01:02:15,320 So what do we do to respond to that? 1083 01:02:15,680 --> 01:02:20,520 And also recognising the impact on rural areas, because so many 1084 01:02:20,520 --> 01:02:25,480 of our rural areas have this very small, small harbours, 1085 01:02:25,480 --> 01:02:28,080 medium sized harbours. Some of the fishing boats are 1086 01:02:28,080 --> 01:02:29,960 beach landed without any harbour. 1087 01:02:31,440 --> 01:02:35,280 And so, so we know that in those areas, you know, loss of small 1088 01:02:35,280 --> 01:02:38,200 scale fishing will will result in a loss of all fishing in 1089 01:02:38,200 --> 01:02:41,200 those areas because they only are able to accommodate smaller 1090 01:02:41,200 --> 01:02:43,800 boats. And obviously the larger scale 1091 01:02:43,800 --> 01:02:47,840 operations need a a much bigger port and have a more diverse 1092 01:02:47,840 --> 01:02:50,800 fleet in those regions. So, So what about those, those 1093 01:02:50,800 --> 01:02:54,840 more rural areas, you know, you know what, what is going to 1094 01:02:54,840 --> 01:02:58,520 happen to protect rural small scale fisheries? 1095 01:02:58,520 --> 01:03:00,800 That's, that's a hugely important part of the 1096 01:03:00,920 --> 01:03:03,840 conversation because there's so much emphasis now on the 1097 01:03:03,840 --> 01:03:06,960 importance of, you know, regrowth and regeneration and 1098 01:03:06,960 --> 01:03:10,160 economic stability in, in our coastal rural areas who are 1099 01:03:10,280 --> 01:03:14,560 already suffering layers of disadvantage relative to inland 1100 01:03:14,560 --> 01:03:15,760 areas. You know, there's been lots of 1101 01:03:15,760 --> 01:03:20,200 evidence and research published on, on coastal deprivation and, 1102 01:03:20,760 --> 01:03:24,480 and the, the state of coastal, our coastal economies. 1103 01:03:24,520 --> 01:03:27,600 So really highlighting the importance of maintaining A 1104 01:03:27,600 --> 01:03:31,960 viable fishery in those areas is is also part of this discussion. 1105 01:03:32,360 --> 01:03:34,560 I think there's something really important to look at. 1106 01:03:34,560 --> 01:03:37,240 So I'm, I'm going to be a bit Whitby centric here, but I'm 1107 01:03:37,240 --> 01:03:40,160 sure it translates to a lot of other ports. 1108 01:03:40,520 --> 01:03:44,440 Now our, our economic landings in Whitby, I think comes about 1109 01:03:44,440 --> 01:03:47,280 £1,000,000 a year in the crab and lobster. 1110 01:03:47,520 --> 01:03:51,040 But I think that you can probably times that by 10 in 1111 01:03:51,040 --> 01:03:53,240 what we bring into the tourism sector. 1112 01:03:53,680 --> 01:03:59,080 I don't think that the, the, the tourist industry would exist in 1113 01:03:59,080 --> 01:04:01,760 these, these, these small harbours, these small ports 1114 01:04:01,760 --> 01:04:05,800 without the fishing industry. And unfortunately fishermen are 1115 01:04:05,800 --> 01:04:11,360 the, the biggest victims of this, this tourist industry in a 1116 01:04:11,360 --> 01:04:13,920 lot of ways through, you know, things such as the cost of 1117 01:04:13,920 --> 01:04:16,360 living, cost of housing. But put that to a side for a 1118 01:04:16,360 --> 01:04:22,440 second through, through this, through bringing such a huge 1119 01:04:22,440 --> 01:04:27,000 amount of tourism to these rural communities, It provides for a 1120 01:04:27,320 --> 01:04:31,680 lot of the, a lot of the local environments, a lot of the, the 1121 01:04:31,680 --> 01:04:34,400 local businesses. And that that's, you know, 1122 01:04:35,000 --> 01:04:39,440 something else where we, we need to be preserved. 1123 01:04:39,440 --> 01:04:44,320 We need to be thought of better because it we're creating 1124 01:04:44,920 --> 01:04:46,960 hundreds and hundreds of jobs on the side. 1125 01:04:46,960 --> 01:04:49,560 I just wanted to nip that one in really quick and I'll, I'll. 1126 01:04:49,720 --> 01:04:52,640 Put the microphone off again, a really valuable point. 1127 01:04:53,000 --> 01:04:56,080 Yeah, I think it's probably worth maybe just mentioning some 1128 01:04:56,080 --> 01:04:59,720 of the the other things that have been happening as a 1129 01:04:59,720 --> 01:05:01,800 consequence of consortium. I mean, your question a moment 1130 01:05:01,800 --> 01:05:05,440 ago about about, you know, how we're engaging with them, the 1131 01:05:05,440 --> 01:05:09,640 Defra's and Mmos and so on and and how we, you know, push this 1132 01:05:09,640 --> 01:05:11,920 work forward and whether we're not we're going to get listened 1133 01:05:11,920 --> 01:05:14,200 to. Part of part of what we've been 1134 01:05:14,200 --> 01:05:17,920 doing within the the consortium is is helping set up a network 1135 01:05:17,920 --> 01:05:20,400 for fishermen. So although there are fishermen 1136 01:05:20,400 --> 01:05:23,400 in the consortium, we're not all fishers and there's a danger 1137 01:05:23,400 --> 01:05:26,760 then that the the agenda of fishers or fishers voices 1138 01:05:26,760 --> 01:05:30,040 themself are not are not being let you know, Fisher LED. 1139 01:05:30,120 --> 01:05:32,600 And I think so one of the things we're doing in the consortium is 1140 01:05:32,600 --> 01:05:36,320 trying to, to look at the issues and, and, and give voice to the 1141 01:05:36,320 --> 01:05:37,880 fishers. But one of the, one of the 1142 01:05:37,880 --> 01:05:41,680 things we really want to do is, is make sure that it's fishermen 1143 01:05:41,680 --> 01:05:44,360 front and centre. And so part of what's happened 1144 01:05:44,760 --> 01:05:48,240 as a consequence of those meetings is, is, is this 1145 01:05:48,240 --> 01:05:51,600 identification of the, the, the lack of a dedicated small scale 1146 01:05:51,600 --> 01:05:55,120 Fisher voice in England and the lack of a dedicated organisation 1147 01:05:55,520 --> 01:06:00,000 to, to, to take that voice to the various meetings. 1148 01:06:00,080 --> 01:06:04,040 And, and as a part of that, the, there's an attempt to keep a 1149 01:06:04,040 --> 01:06:06,440 small scale Fisher's network in England. 1150 01:06:06,440 --> 01:06:09,400 And this is very much Fisher LED on it. 1151 01:06:09,440 --> 01:06:12,080 It's, it's by Fisher's for Fishers, which is kind of 1152 01:06:12,080 --> 01:06:13,600 slightly different than the consortium. 1153 01:06:13,600 --> 01:06:19,120 So it's, it's, it's been sort of seed funded by some of the, the 1154 01:06:19,120 --> 01:06:21,200 funding that that we have had within the consortium. 1155 01:06:21,280 --> 01:06:25,600 And then it's being initiated by some of the people who have been 1156 01:06:25,600 --> 01:06:30,320 engaged with the consortium. But the, the, the whole idea is 1157 01:06:30,320 --> 01:06:33,520 it's a network of fishermen. The fisheries network itself has 1158 01:06:33,520 --> 01:06:37,120 to be for fishers, by fishers. And so although it's, it's 1159 01:06:37,120 --> 01:06:39,880 connected to the consortium, it's not us that's doing it, if 1160 01:06:39,880 --> 01:06:41,880 that makes any sense. But I think it's very much worth 1161 01:06:41,880 --> 01:06:44,440 mentioning that that is something that's grown 1162 01:06:44,440 --> 01:06:46,520 organically off the back of this process. 1163 01:06:47,600 --> 01:06:51,880 So I think really we've, we've covered everything now and 1164 01:06:51,880 --> 01:06:56,160 that's a really good discussion. Just to reiterate that the 1165 01:06:56,160 --> 01:06:58,880 January edition of the Marine Biologist magazine, it's a 1166 01:06:58,880 --> 01:07:01,600 special edition that focuses on the work of the insure and small 1167 01:07:01,600 --> 01:07:05,720 scale fisheries consortium and includes the vision and the 1168 01:07:05,720 --> 01:07:10,280 priorities for the sector. So it's it's a privilege for us 1169 01:07:10,280 --> 01:07:13,680 here at the Marine Biological Association to work with with 1170 01:07:13,680 --> 01:07:16,600 you all and to help promote the consortium and get the word out 1171 01:07:16,600 --> 01:07:19,240 for the small scale and ensure fishers. 1172 01:07:19,560 --> 01:07:21,320 That's great. Well, thank you all very much, 1173 01:07:21,320 --> 01:07:25,600 Sarah Bally and George. It's been a pleasure and we look 1174 01:07:25,600 --> 01:07:29,560 forward to keeping up with the work of the consortium in the 1175 01:07:29,560 --> 01:07:31,320 future. OK, thanks again. 1176 01:07:31,320 --> 01:07:33,360 Well. Thank you very much for having 1177 01:07:33,400 --> 01:07:34,480 us. Cheers now. 1178 01:07:34,800 --> 01:07:35,760 Cheers. Thank you. 1179 01:07:35,760 --> 01:07:39,200 Have a good afternoon. We hope you enjoyed the podcast. 1180 01:07:39,240 --> 01:07:42,240 Become a member of the Marine Biological Association, the part 1181 01:07:42,240 --> 01:07:44,560 of a global community advocating for the ocean. 1182 01:07:44,640 --> 01:07:47,480 You'll receive 4 copies of our beautifully produced magazine, 1183 01:07:47,520 --> 01:07:50,080 Marine Biologists, and a host of other benefits. 1184 01:07:50,360 --> 01:07:55,920 Simply visit www.nba.ac.uk For more information.