High seas robbery: With Iceland ripping up the agreement on fishing quotas, Scottish boats are at risk

Published on Friday 20 August 2010 23:41

IT'S just after 6.30am on Friday and Peterhead fish market is going like a fair. Clouds of condensation rise off hundreds of neat rows of ice-filled fish boxes while fishermen hurry off the boats to unload the last of their catch.

Prowling the aisles, sharp-eyed fish merchants in yellow boots assess the day's offerings of cod, haddock, lemon sole, whiting, coley, plaice, halibut, monkfish and hake. It is predominantly a white fish market, but look carefully and you might even spot a few mackerel for sale.

This is Britain's biggest fish market, and one of the largest in Europe. Before 9am more than 200,000 will change hands here. The fish sold this morning will end up on plates in top restaurants in Edinburgh and London, in chip shops in the Midlands and tapas bars in Barcelona.

Yet just a few days ago, a stone's throw from this cavernous market arena, the latest ugly chapter of the Scottish fishing industry was unfolding. At 4am on Tuesday - early, even by a fisherman's standards, the Jupiter, a pelagic (the term means open sea, where mackerel, an oily fish, are caught) trawler from the Faroe Islands carrying 1,100 tonnes of mackerel, attempted to land at Peterhead harbour. Awaiting it were around 50 angry Scottish fishermen, determined not to let it ashore.

The blockade was the result of recent audacious moves by both the Faroese and Icelandic governments to hike their mackerel quotas to almost mythical proportions. From 15,000 tonnes, Iceland has arbitrarily raised its 2010 quota to 130,000 tonnes. The Faroes, meanwhile, has set its quota at 85,000 tonnes for this year, 15 per cent of the recommended global total allowable catch and far in excess of its previous 4 per cent share.

It is a decision that could have disastrous long-term implications for the Scottish mackerel business, now the most valuable in the entire Scottish fishing industry and worth 135 million last year. Scotland, unlike the Faroes and Iceland, adheres to the quotas advised by the European Union and until recently, a "gentlemen's agreement" meant that the Faroes and Iceland too kept to recommended quotas, despite not being EU member states.

But the recession has changed all that. Iceland's economy is fragile after the collapse last year of its banking system and the air chaos caused by an erupting volcano, while the Faroes has also been battered by a weak economic climate. Both countries want more fish and, in raising their quotas, have flouted international agreements designed to protect fish stocks and provide long-term sustainability.In one recent round of talks attended by both Scottish and Icelandic representatives, an Icelandic delegate used his opening statement to declare that it was the Icelandic fishermen's duty to rebuild Iceland's economy.

For those in Scotland, already furious at Icelandic and Faroese backtracking, the arrival of the Jupiter, which was attempting to land in order to sell its catch to a local fish processor, Peterhead's Fresh Catch (most mackerel is sold directly to processors, rather than being sold at market) was the last straw.

Sitting in the sleek Aberdeen offices of The Scottish Fishermen's Federation, Ian Gatt, chief executive of the Scottish Pelagic Fishermen's Association, who attended Tuesday's blockade, is clearly frustrated.

"They're setting their quota three times higher than they would normally receive, and then selling their catch to a Scottish firm. It's absolutely rubbing our noses in it. There was just no way the men were going to let that boat land here."

He is furious with the Icelanders, whom many see as having led the way for the Faroese to follow suit in raising quotas.

"In the case of the Icelanders they are a bunch of arrogant people and they're going to do what they're going to do. Rebuild the Iceland economy on the back of other people's sustainability? It doesn't sit with me at all."

After 16 hours, the Scottish fishermen got their way and the Jupiter sailed out of Peterhead, taking with it 400,000 of spoiled mackerel and the first seeds of what is already being dubbed "the mackerel wars", an echo of the Cod Wars of the 1970s when the UK and Iceland appeared on the brink of military action over Iceland's decision to extend its "home" fishing grounds.

Maria Damanaki, the European Fisheries Commissioner, has described the countries' actions as "anarchic". Meanwhile Struan Stevenson, Scottish MEP and Senior Vice President of the European Parliament's Fisheries Committee, suggested last week that if Iceland and the Faroes don't downgrade their quotas, then the UK should suspend the current fisheries agreement, close its ports to Icelandic and Faroese vessels and make the issues a "make or break" item in Iceland's EU-accession talks.

The Scottish Fisheries minister, Richard Lochhead, who was enjoying a holiday last week but was recalled to deal with the crisis, has also come out fighting. He told Scotland on Sunday that the Faroe Islands and Iceland's quota hikes were "short-sighted and selfish decisions that could be disastrous for global mackerel stocks".

He went on: "The anger and concern of Scottish fishermen over the irresponsible actions of the Faroe Islands is shared by many and I am doing all I can to ensure a resolution to this serious situation that is fair for the Scottish industry." He has demanded action from the European Commission. The Faroese reception so far has been cool.Last week, Faroese foreign minister Jrgen Niclasen sent a letter to First Minister Alex Salmond, stating: "I...expect that private actions which can have such a negative impact on our otherwise excellent trade relations with Scotland, as is the case with this current incident at Peterhead, will not be tolerated by the Scottish authorities."

Tolerated or not, it is a matter of great delicacy for a Scottish industry that has seemed, at times, to be dangling by a thread. Since 2001 the number of pelagic fishing boats in Scotland has declined by more than 30 per cent - from 36 to 25 vessels - while the white-fish industry has also shrunk thanks to hefty cuts in cod quotas.

Jimmy Buchan, star of the BBC series Trawlermen and skipper of the Amity II, a Peterhead prawn trawler, as well as chairman of the Scottish Fishermen's Organisation, has a lot of sympathy for Scotland's pelagic fleet.

"It feels like this could be a tipping point," he says. "It needs to be resolved. The problem is trying to get things to a situation where everyone is happy. I'm very aware that what we're doing today won't be what we're doing in ten years' time. The fishing industry is incredibly complex and it changes. It's not just a case of 'let's do this', because whatever decision you make impacts on another group of men. We're all fighting for our survival."

And survival, says Gatt, is what it might come down to.

"The worst-case scenario is that we go down this route for a couple of years and there's no resolution, and the stock won't be able to sustain the catches," he says. "The one thing that has made this business lucrative and profitable is that the stocks have been sustainable."

Although mackerel has been one of the more balanced fish stocks of the past 20 years, life as a fisherman in Scotland whether pelagic or otherwise is still a tough one. Long hours, little job security, and a fluctuating political climate have made it far from a tempting prospect for the younger generations, and many in traditional fishing communities like the Blue Toon of Peterhead and neighbouring Fraserburgh, are turning their backs on the industry. Last Thursday, two fishermen were washed overboard near Fraserburgh by a large wave, and although both were rescued, it was another reminder of just how perilous life at sea can be.

As the auction gets underway at Peterhead fish market, there is another issue occupying the minds of the buyers and sellers. In September, Iceland will raise its cod quota by 10,000 tonnes to 160,000 tonnes. This will have the knock-on effect of decreasing the price of Scottish cod - selling today at the market for between 2.40 and 3.30 per kg for a large grade - by almost 1 a kg, good news for the buyers, but bad news for those selling.

And then there is the long running issue of whether or not the once depleted cod stocks, still subject to strict EU quotas, have in fact returned.Ask any Scottish cod fisherman and they will tell you that the sea is teeming with cod and fishermen spend half their lives throwing back dead fish.

"The sea is becoming a dumping ground," says one. "There's a lot of anger about this and what it will do to the industry," said one.

But there is hope in the community too. Robert West, the 29-year-old skipper of the Fruitful Bough, a prawn trawler that also fishes cod and haddock and brought in 60 boxes of cod on Friday morning, is positive about the future.

"Fishermen say this is a job for life, so you've got to get your head down. We can diversify, find other ways to get back. I'm certainly not going to be getting another job, so I've got to have hope."

For 52-year-old George West (no relation), a pelagic fisherman based in Fraserburgh who took part in Tuesday's blockade and whose boat is somewhat appropriately named Resolute, that, ultimately, is what it's all about.

"I have a 25-year-old son on board and my hope is to hand the business on to him, the same as my father did for me and his father for him and his father before that," he says.

"The hope is that he will be able to fish these waters all his life too. Really, that's what we're fighting for."