Making ”The Ardoe Declaration” an instant fisheries-policies household word, four North Sea Fisheries ministers have come out strongly in a commitment to reduce discards.
The ministers from Great Britain, Denmark and Norway met at Ardoe House in Aberdeen in early October, hosted by Scotland’s Fisheries Secretary Richard Lochhead. They were joined by Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki, making her first official visit to the UK.
The 7-point declaration underlined that “all possible steps” should be taken to eradicate discards when managing fisheries.
Arguing for increased regionalisation of the decision-making process when a new CFP is decided in 2012, the declaration said that any future governance framework must “enhance close cooperation between the relevant states in any sea area so as to allow the development of collaborative regional fisheries plans”.
“The Common Fisheries Policy, with its rigid centralised approach, has enforced the nonsensical practice on our fishermen of dumping valuable fish, dead, back in the sea”, Lochhead commented after the meeting. “Today’s conference of northern fishing nations has presented a united front to press for real change across the North Sea region and beyond”.
“Scotland has led the way by trialling new, innovative fishing practices with the central premise of landing what you catch – ultimately, this means fishermen can land more fish but take less from the sea, thanks to the reduction of discards”, he added.