Download Paper-6.1-Landings-Obligation-Vision

The North Sea Regional Advisory Council
NSRAC
DWG 05/02/2014
Paper 6.1 “The Vision Document”
No Change from meeting 12 November 2013
Draft (2)
Implementation of the EU Landings Obligation in the
North Sea
A Draft Paper for Discussion by the NSRAC
1. Background & Antecedents
A central objective of the proposed reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is the
progressive elimination of discards in all EU fisheries through the introduction of an
obligation to land all catches. North Sea demersal fishing fleets will soon be operating
within a CFP transformed by the discard ban and other 2013 reforms. The landings
obligation will first be applied to the demersal fisheries in the North Sea in January 2016
for some species. Discard Plans will need to be developed and proposed by the
NSRAC to cooperating member states well before that target date. Such plans will
require fundamental changes to current management and control regimes, and will
affect all aspects of the CFP.
The NSRAC Cod Focus Group on October 22nd 2013 in Edinburgh agreed that prompt
and well thought-out advice on the implementation of the discard ban must now be
provided to the Commission and member states. It is evident that STECF and others
are struggling to provide advice. The NSRAC had agreed at the Copenhagen Executive
Committee meeting that it was time to produce its vision for the North Sea demersal
fisheries, setting out a destination for those fisheries in the context of introduction of the
landings obligations. The next step was now for the Chair and the Rapporteur to draft a
paper setting out proposals for the NSRAC to consider further.
This is that paper. It is currently a very tentative draft, put forward at this stage for
further comment and development. It will be discussed further at the Demersal Working
Group on November 12th 2013 in Edinburgh.
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2. A Vision for the North Sea Demersal Fisheries
First we present a vision of the North Sea demersal fisheries in 2025, both as a
destination to strive for, and as a guide to the practical implementation of the landings
obligation.
Implementation of the actions to achieve this vision depends on the time scale. A target
date of 2025 would be realistic given all the challenges, and would prepare us for the
next series of reforms to the Common Fisheries Policy. However, 2020 also provides its
own deadlines in terms of implementing the provisions of the Marine Strategy
Framework Directive. But there are other, much closer targets that need to be met on a
shorter timescale. The vision must therefore incorporate a series of milestones to meet
a number of successive targets.
Our long-term vision includes the following for the North Sea Demersal Fisheries:
Higher Yields
Progress towards high yield fisheries, with low fishing mortality rates, will have been
maintained. International obligations for meeting Maximum Sustainable Yield objectives
will have been fully implemented.
Greater Profitability
Fishing businesses will be operating in a stable resource environment, with predictable
fishing opportunities from one year to the next.
Better Food Security
Maintenance of food supplies will be a priority. Food security exists when all people, at
all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for a
healthy and active life. Global demand for food is continuing to increase while
production growth is slowing, against a background of future climate change. The North
Sea has provided an important source of food in the past and must continue to do so.
Assurances can and will be provided on food quality, safety and traceability.
Improved Fisheries Management
Fisheries management in the North Sea will have the full support of fishers and other
stakeholders and will be characterised by a high degree of professionalism, with
confident participation by fishers, and full compliance with regulations. Management will
operate at minimal cost to taxpayers.
Sustainable Ecosystems
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Management objectives consistent with an ecosystem approach will guide fisheries
policy. Although these will be applied within the context of the Marine Strategy
Framework Directive, the detail will be determined largely at regional level, by
cooperating member states working closely with the North Sea Advisory Council.
Relevant Co-decision Taking
Co-decision at the European level, will be reserved for overarching, strategic, policy
issues; and auditing the functioning of the European fisheries management system as a
whole. It will not obstruct practical management of the fisheries.
Better Understanding of the Rules
There will be a high degree of comprehension - throughout the system but especially at
vessel level - about what compliance with the rules in force involves; and there will be
full internal consistency and coherence within those requirements.
Cooperation with Norway
There will be close cooperation and a high degree of mutual understanding between
Norway and EU on the application of the landings obligation in the North Sea.
Results-based Management, with Full Documentation of Catches
Input controls such as effort control, engine power and capacity constraints will have
been left behind, and replaced by a system of management focused on outputs and
results. There will be a high degree of transparency throughout the system, underpinned
by full documentation of catches and willing compliance. The resultant data will be used
to strengthen stock assessments within a streamlined and up-to date system of scientific
advice, with less pressure placed upon scientists.
Mixed Fishery Management Plans
Most TACs will be set within the context of long term management plans applicable to
mixed fisheries rather than individual fish stocks, incorporating full consideration of
interactions between species. Those plans will be approved on a regional basis by
cooperating member states, working with the NSRAC and scientific advisers.
Economic Incentives
Economic Incentives will be aligned with management objectives. Perverse incentives
that act against conservation interests will be identified swiftly, and removed promptly.
Improved Selectivity
Technical conservation rules will have been replaced by selectivity measures,
determined at vessel level by each skipper to achieve the optimum catch/ landings
consistent with the vessel’s quotas and with the requirements of the landings obligation.
Fewer TACs
TACs will be set only for the main economic driver species with fewer TACS set overall
in the North Sea. TACs will, of course, be based on total catch. Alternatively, and where
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appropriate, TACs may be grouped or combined in a similar way to the way in which
“Norway Others” quota currently works. The resultant flexible management regime will
ensure that the problem of choke stocks will be avoided.
Less Emphasis on Micro-management
There will have been a decisive move away from prescriptive micro-management. This
shift, along with the other reforms, will provide the basis for a profitable sector in which
fleet renewal without subsidy is not only possible but the norm.
Delegated Responsibility
Various forms of delegated responsibility will be in evidence, within a framework of
external audits, incentives and sanctions.
High Survival Rates
Within the landings obligation, some quota species will continue to be returned to the
sea, when there is confidence that the level of survival of those species is consistent
with management objectives of high yield fisheries. A risk assessment approach will be
adopted in deciding whether to retain fish or release them to the sea, taking into account
the gains or losses to the ecosystem. A similar risk assessment approach will be taken
in deciding whether to retain or return by-catch species.
Self-auditing
Low-cost self-auditing will be common aboard fishing vessels and a range of remote
sensing technologies will be in use to provide confidence in the system, releasing
resources formerly expended on expensive but largely ineffective controls.
Fishing Vessels as Research Platforms
Fishing vessels will routinely be employed under contract to provide a range of scientific
data, and to participate in reference fleets. Partnership agreements between scientists
and fishermen will be the basis for a highly effective information system on which
management decisions will be based. Fishers will be trained to deliver information
through a process of on-board, self-sampling
3. The Priority Issues
In preparing a roadmap with milestones to meet this vision it will be necessary to take
account of a series of developments that are taking place in parallel as part of the
reforms to the CFP. Those issues include:
Preparing the main elements of a Discard Plan:
Obligation in the North Sea
Meeting the EU Landings
The landings obligation will first be applied to the demersal fisheries in the North Sea in
January 2016 for some species. Discard Plans will need to be developed and proposed
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by the NSRAC to cooperating member states well before that target date. Such plans
will require fundamental changes to the current management and control regimes and
will affect all aspects of the CFP.
Changes to the Control Regime: Revision and Refocusing the Control Regulation
Although the discard ban is not seen as a control issue in itself, the ban will require
major adjustments to the current control regulation. The implications of full
documentation may introduce proposals for new forms of control. Monitoring compliance
with the discard ban may raise problems. There will be a need for alignment and
modernisation of the regulation. Changes in Minimum Landing Sizes are being proposed
and these will need to be considered by the NSRAC.
Developing Mixed Fishery Plans
The development of mixed fisheries plans is seen as the cornerstone of the CFP
reforms. Currently there are no examples of extant mixed fishery plans that can serve
as models, and in their absence there is a risk that simple and naïve principles will be
applied (such as stopping fishing when the catch for any one species meets the single
stock advice). New mixed fishery plans are required that properly integrate the current
single-TAC approach, take full account of the whole fishery system, and are suitably
precautionary. The plans must also take account of multi-species interactions and the
need to protect key commercial stocks, such as Nephrops, from high levels of natural
mortality through increased predation.
Achieving MSY for the Mixed Fisheries of the North Sea
The EU is obliged by international agreements to maintain or restore fish stocks to
maximum sustainable yield; MSY. However, there can be no single value for MSY in an
ecosystem context, and there is a need to decide what is to be preferred. Reaching
biomass targets, as some have suggested, is inappropriate in an ecosystem context,
and any MSY targets set must be in terms of fishing mortality.
Meeting the requirements of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD)
The MSFD defines environmental objectives for European seas, based on sustainable
development within healthy marine ecosystems. Individual sectors (e.g. fisheries) need
to comply with MSFD objectives.
4. Implementing EU Landings Obligation in the North Sea: Elements of a
Discard Plan
Because the landings obligation reflects a high level political compromise, and contains
a certain degree of linguistic ambiguity, it is open to interpretation. In addition, the colegislators in the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers envisaged that the
landings obligation would generally be implemented through member states cooperating
at regional seas level. This means that there is currently a high degree of uncertainty
about how the landings obligation will be implemented. There are fears within the fishing
industry, scientific community and the control authorities that the gains of recent years
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could be lost if this major change to the CFP is mishandled. Vessel operators have
anxieties about the economic viability of their operations under a landings obligation.
Although work on how the landings obligation will be applied to the demersal fisheries in
the North Sea is in its infancy, the timetable for its application is demanding – January
2016 for the first species.
In view of the above, NSRAC outlines below how it considers that the new requirements
should be implemented, within the specific conditions of the North Sea fisheries, in order
to move towards the fulfilment of its vision, and perhaps more pertinently, to avoid the
major pitfalls associated with a mishandled implementation regime.
5. The Requirements
Mixed Fishery Management Plans
Ideally, the implementation of a landings obligation in the North Sea demersal fisheries
will take place within the context of a multi-annual management plan, developed at
regional level, with close involvement of the NSRAC.
We recognise that this worthy ambition faces a number of hurdles, not least:

Issues relating to institutional competence within the European institutions but
also in relation to the EU Norway reciprocal agreement

The evolving science on mixed fishery, multi-species and ecosystem dimensions
to managing the fisheries in the North Sea

The establishment of effective regional cooperation by North Sea member states
It may therefore be some time until a comprehensive multi-annual plan is agreed and
implemented for the North Sea demersal fisheries.
A Discard Plan for the North Sea Demersal Fleets
In the absence of a mixed fishery plan member states have the option/responsibility to
develop a discard plan. Failing this, the default would be for the European Commission
to step in with their own discard plan which would apply for three years and would set
the terms for a de minimis for species for which selectivity is very difficult or the costs of
implementing the landings obligation are disproportionate.
Against this background, the NSRAC considers it important that North Sea member
states, working closely with the NSRAC, make a joint recommendation for a discard plan
in good time for the 1st January 2016, when the landing obligation will begin to be
phased in across the North Sea demersal stocks. This discard plan should:

Be consistent with articles 15, 21 and 22 of the new CFP basic regulation
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
Take full advantage of the quota flexibilities that are available under the same
regulation

Learn the lessons from implementation of discard bans in other countries, not
least Norway, without following these blindly or slavishly

Adopt as far as possible an incremental and pragmatic approach to the
implementation of the new regime
Control and Compliance
The overarching policy objectives with regard to control and monitoring of the landings
obligation should be to:

Achieve a high degree of compliance, underpinned by a risk based enforcement
approach.

Ensure that additional costs associated with monitoring and compliance with the
landings obligation are proportionate to the revenue generated by that fleet
segment

Adopt pilot innovative approaches such as reference fleets/catch composition
checks/self-audit where possible to achieve a balance between assurance and
cost

Ensure complete removal of all regulatory requirements inconsistent with the
landings obligation

Apply an incremental approach linked to a high degree of pragmatic enforcement
in order to avoid the widespread criminalisation of fishermen overnight.
Technical measures
It is the intention of the Commission that a new technical measures framework
Regulation will be developed as part of the reforms that, over time, will facilitate full
implementation of the landing obligation.
Text to be developed further
Selectivity
We anticipate that the requirement to land all quota species (which will then count
against quota) will provide a strong economic incentive to reduce unwanted catch.
Disposal costs associated with landing unwanted catch will provide an additional
economic incentive.
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The discard ban therefore provides an opportunity, as well as a strong imperative for a
decisive shift away from gear selectivity based on prescriptive legislation (which has not
been a notable success over the last 20 years) to a radically more flexible and adaptable
approach focused at individual vessel level.
This new approach should be embraced and supported by removing all residual
technical conservation controls simultaneously with the application of the landings
obligation.
A protocol for vessels operating in the Norwegian zone of the North Sea needs to be
developed, so that vessels can operate their chosen technical solutions freely across
International boundaries.
Exemptions from the landings obligations and survival issues
Landing fish that would otherwise have survived and added to the stock biomass, is an
example of a potentially perverse outcome at odds with management objectives.
Determining what counts as a high survival rate poses a challenge to scientists. They
may not be able to deliver advice in a useable form because of the high level of
variability in the survival rate, reflecting ever-changing conditions (fishing gear, season,
age, treatment on deck etc.). A risk assessment approach is required. Will the release
of fish benefit the ecosystem, or would their retention and landing be more appropriate?
Frequently, survival rates can be improved by better on-board handling. For some
species, in which selectivity on the seabed is very difficult or impossible, improving the
survival rate of returnees offers a viable and reasonable alternative to landing dead fish
of limited commercial value and with a negative impact on stock biomass. In some
cases it may also be better for the ecosystem to return fish to the sea, rather than retain
them on board.
A pragmatic solution would be to provide an exemption for all species considered by risk
assessment to be capable of survival and to work at a fishery level to enhance the
conditions that contribute to survival.
Norway
Geography and shared fish resources make it inevitable that the EU and Norway are
compelled to find ways of working together to jointly manage shared fish stocks. The
annual reciprocal fisheries agreement between EU and Norway is the principal
instrument through which this cooperation is achieved. It is however a complex, multifaceted agreement, in which negotiating leverage in one part of the agreement can
create obstacles to a straightforward management approach in another.
Despite the negotiating complexities of the relationship between EU/ Norway, in the joint
conference on long term management plans held in Svalbard in May 2012, both parties
spoke strongly in favour of management plans which:
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
Are developed with a high degree of transparency and participation by
stakeholders

Focused on long term objectives

Provide for high and stable yields

Provide a firm framework for TAC decisions and other harvest control rules, whist
retaining sufficient flexibility to adapt to changing conditions and scientific advice
Agreed EU/Norway management plans do not mean identical management measures in
EU and Norway waters but do suggest a commitment to achieve as much harmonisation
and coordination as possible.
The EU landings obligation poses many challenges to the EU Norway agreement.
Equally, the EU Norway agreement will inevitably be an essential element in
implementing the discard ban in EU waters. Agreement at EU/Norway level will be
required on:

TAC uplift to accommodate the landing of fish that would otherwise have been
discarded

Inter-annual quota flexibility

Inter-species flexibility

Reducing the number of TACs or grouping TACs for jointly managed stocks

Additional quota to incentivise cod avoidance and trial CCTV
Some of these may be regarded as potential showstoppers because, along with the de
minimis provision, they are the means by which flexibility is introduced by the EU into an
otherwise absolute prohibition on discarding of quota species. Norway has its own way
of applying its discard ban in a pliable and pragmatic fashion, mainly through its moveon/Real Time Closure approach to the protection of juveniles and through the significant
discretion allowed to its coastguard. This approach appears to work for Norway, a single
country with exclusive control over its own fisheries. A direct application of the
Norwegian system to EU fisheries would be unworkable because of the different and
more complex species-mix in EU waters and the realities of shared jurisdiction.
The imminent arrival of the landings obligation in the demersal fisheries in the North Sea
will add a significant pressure to the EU Norway agreement to develop solutions through
practical and workable flexibilities. What is certain is that it will not be possible to apply
the landings obligation without those flexibilities, whilst retaining an economically viable
fleet.
Against this background, the North Sea RAC advocates:
1.
The early introduction of pilot projects to trial the application of the landings
obligation with and without:
o
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Quota uplift
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o
Inter-species flexibility
o
Grouped quotas for non-target stocks
The pilot studies that have been undertaken so far have raised serious concerns about
the ability of vessels subject to a landing obligation, with quota uplift, to average
estimated discard levels in the previous year, to fish their quota allocations because of
choke stocks. The results of the pilots should inform the EU/ Norway negotiations
2.
The closest cooperation between EU and Norway in the implementation of
a practical and workable landings obligation. The NSRAC met with the
Norwegian Fishermen’s Association in Trondheim in April 2013 to foster
the kind of cooperative relationships and mutual understanding that will be
essential in the context of the development of multi-annual management
plans at a regional-seas level.
3.
The avoidance of paper solutions (such as the 2011 high grading ban,
which may have worked at the level of public relations but had absolutely
no effect at vessel level and in fact was legally unenforceable in the EU)
4.
Minimising the scope for perverse outcomes. In applying an instrument as
broad in potential effect as the landings obligation there is enormous scope
for unintended consequences. The best way to guard against perverse
outcomes is to move forward through trial and error (what in some circles is
referred to as an adaptive approach). The challenging timetable for
implementation and the limited funds available for trials and pilots are
undoubted constraints. But it is difficult to see how a workable approach to
the landings obligation will evolve without an extensive programme of pilots
and trials. The application of a big bang approach with minimum
preparation is not one that we wish to contemplate.
5.
Dialogue at vessel level: Port level dialogue is going to be essential if the
practical implications of the landings obligation are to be understood fully.
The difficulties encountered in the EU/Norway discussions over the
application of the landings obligation in the Skagerrak has provided some
insight into the issues that are likely to be encountered in the North Sea.
Regionalisation; Engagement with the Scheveningen Group
Text to be developed
Quota Management; Choke Species
Within the context of a landings obligation, flexible and adaptable management
arrangements are required to prevent the exhaustion of quota of minor by-catch species
from preventing the uptake of the major economic species. These should be agreed at
regional level but could include:
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
Quota Flexibility

Maximum scope for quota swaps and transfers
o Vessel to vessel,
o
Producer organisation to producer organisation
o
Member state to member state,
o
Member state to Third Country (?)
Minimum Landing Sizes
Text to be developed
Reducing the Number of TACs
We are open for discussion on the suggestion that reducing the number of TACs set and
confining TACs to the main economic driver species would make application of the
landings obligation very much easier. By-catch species or “associated stocks” do not
generally influence fishing behaviours or patterns. They are caught (and within a
landings obligation, landed) in proportion to which they appear in the nets. Whilst it is
true that some targeting of what are generally considered by-catch species can take
place, one would have to examine the respective costs and benefits of, on the one hand
substantially removing the potential for choke stocks and on the other lifting quota
constraints on a minor species.
Implications for Fishing Businesses
Text to be developed
MSY and the Landings Obligation
Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) was developed as a scientific concept in fisheries
management in the 1970s. Its utility for mixed and multi-species fisheries was almost
immediately challenged within the scientific community. However, the concept gained
political and legal (as opposed to scientific) traction during the Johannesburg World
Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. MSY has now taken the form of legal
obligations within the CFP Basic Regulation.
Leaving aside arid disputes about the relevance of MSY to multi-species fisheries, the
practical challenge facing fisheries managers and fisheries stakeholders is how to
maintain the progress that has been made over the last decade towards stable high
yield fisheries in the North Sea, whilst:
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
Simultaneously maintaining the economic viability of the fleets

Implementing the landings obligation.

Taking account of the multi-gear character of our demersal fisheries

Taking account of multi-species interactions
The European institutions have chosen to use the concept of F maximum sustainable
yield (Fmsy) as the legally required benchmark for the achieving low mortality, generally
regarded as a precondition for high yields. This is wise, as the alternative, using biomass
MSY would be to assume control over natural processes, such as recruitment over
which humans have fact at best, limited influence.
The elimination, as far as possible, of unwanted mortality, is a key objective of the
landings obligation. Nevertheless, implementation of the landings obligation has itself
the potential to generate unwanted mortality, which has implications for achieving and
maintaining MSY:

By preventing the return to the sea species that would otherwise have survived
and contributed to the biomass

By shifting mortality to older (more valuable) year classes, thereby increasing the
average mortality across the stock

By destabilising current quota allocations and fishing patterns that appear to be
consistent with a trajectory to MSY

By ..........
These risks must be managed as far as possible.
It is clear therefore that future management measures must negotiate both the legal
realities enshrined in the CFP Basic Regulation but also the biological realities in the
North Sea marine ecosystem, and in particular species interactions through various
predation patterns. Whilst inadequate data and questionable assumptions on actual,
current predation patterns create significant challenges for the implementation of
management decisions based on multi-species advice, it is clear that ignoring multi
species interactions would be the greater error. Clearly, this is a complex arena in which
the evolution of practical scientific and management advice is most definitely work in
progress
Against this background, maintaining progress towards MSY in the North Sea demersal
fisheries, whilst implementing the landings obligation requires both flexibility and caution.
In order therefore not to lose the gains made in recent years we advocate:

An adaptive step-wise approach which carefully balances the competing priorities
described above and provides for adjustments to take account of new
information
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
Making TAC decisions on the basis of both biological and economic advice and
phasing progress towards MSY to take account of the latter

Progressively building multi-species considerations into management decisions
as the quality of scientific advice on species interactions strengthens

Learning from but not necessarily slavishly following the Norwegian experience
of implementing a discard ban, and in particular the incremental and pragmatic
features of the Norwegian approach

Understanding MSY as a range of fishing mortalities on the effort/yield curve
rather than an individual fixed point, as outlined in the North Sea RAC’s 2006
Report on the Long Term Management of North Sea Fisheries

Ensuring that the high levels of compliance experienced in recent years and
which are an intrinsic aspect of progress to MSY, are maintained by:
o Securing and maintaining the support of resource users through their
close involvement in management decisions
o Ensuring high levels of clarity about requirements
o Aligning economic incentives with management objectives as far as
possible
o Ensuring that fleet profitability is not dramatically undermined by
management decisions
o The use of management plans to secure incremental, step wise progress
towards high yield fisheries without destabilising the economic viability of
the fleets
Wider Ecosystem Considerations; MSFD
Text to be developed
Convergence; Setting the Milestones
Text on the timetable to implementation to be developed
6. The way forward
There is little doubt that the transition from the current arrangements to a fully-fledged
landings obligation will be complex, difficult and even painful. It will result in changes to
the ecosystem that are only dimly perceived and difficult to predict. It will require
behavioural and institutional change, not only from the fishing sector but from fisheries
managers, control authorities and fisheries scientists.
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However as our vision statement makes clear, if handled well, the landing obligation also
has the capacity to be the catalyst that brings profound and positive change to the North
Sea demersal fisheries.
There is much to be gained by the NSRAC continuing to engage with implementation of
all the reforms to the Common Fisheries Policy.
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