|
Concarneau's capacity was boosted by the tuna fishing fleet largely registered there, which accounted for a catch of around 140 000 tonnes alone. These figures however were not included in general catch data for 1997, which show landings most prolific in Guilvinec at 41 482, while Concarneau landed 26 732t and Lorient another 23 380t. Anglerfish, langoustines and cod featured in catches for the first two, while Lorient landed more cutlassfish and saithe, but still relied on langoustines for higher value catches.
France's 1 900 strong Mediteranean fleet accounted for only 17 773t of France's capacity, with vessels only 9.35t on average. Sète was the only port of real note, accounting for 743 of the Mediterannean French fleet and 8 247t of its capacity. Just under half the region's estimated 50 000t catch was landed in Sète, made up principally of sardine, anchovies, tuna, mackeral and whiting. Port-Vendres landed 14 260t of almost identical species, but registered more significant catches of octopus than whiting.
France's colonial fleets, based in Martinique, Guadeloupe, la Réunion and Guyane, numbered 2820 in 1997, and while they made negligible impact on the overall national fleet, local dependency on the fisheries sector is stronger in these regions than anywhere in mainland France.
Denmark
Of the 4 579 vessels on Denmark's books in 1997, the regions of Ringkobing (791), Nordjylland (741) and Storstroms (659) were home to the largest numbers. But Ribe, with only 118 vessels, claimed 21 739t of the national 98 150t capacity, taken up by the concentrated fleet of industrial boats serving the fishmeal and oil processors based there.
Ribe's vessels were 184t on average, against a national mean of 37t.
This small fleet of large vessels, with some help from foreign boats, landed 1 600 000t of mainly sand-eel and norway pout for processing, while catches of mainly cod, Norway lobster, mackerel and herring for human consumption reached 454 000t, worth more than 60% of the value of Danish fishing.
Fleet reduction failure
The EU's way of measuring vessel size, using tonnage and engine power, has served as the yardstick to long-standing EU schemes to scale down capacity, recognising already decades ago that the size of the EU fleet was not sustainable.
The plans, called MultiAnnual Guidance Programmes (MAGP), run for five years and the EU is currently approaching the end of its fourth successive MAGP.
For fifteen years the MAGPs proved their worth in bringing down the real size of the EU fleet, but in 1997 something went seriously wrong in drafting the most recent programme, MAGP IV.
Targets set out in the European Commission's original proposals aimed to reduce capacity by 15% over the lifespan of the scheme, due to run from January 1997 until the end of 2001.
But EU governments, deaf to early warnings of stock depletion through overfishing, entered caveats and negotiated concessions, which resulted in an estimated final capacity reduction figure of only 3% over the five year scheme.
These were the conclusions of the European Commission's own 'mid-term' assessment of the MAGP IV, put forward in May 2000.
"Whereas the MAGP III made significant progress in reducing overcapacity, the global reductions and activity required by the MAGP IV are inadequate," the report admitted, even adding it was "likely that the real level of effective fishing effort has increased since the beginning of the MAGP IV."
Two particular concessions secured by member states during negotiations over this latest scheme were to blame for the poor results.
Member states faced with capacity reductions of as much as 30% in the Commission's proposals sought ways of watering down the impact, and one brainwave was to weight the cuts according to the proportion of endangered stocks in each vessel's catch.
So a boat or fleet with its nets full of species classified as 'over-fished' or 'depleted' would have to trim their capacity more than those less guilty of fishing for threatened species.
"As a result of the weighting procedure," found the Commission, "the reduction of the Community fleet as a whole required by MAGP IV is 5% rather than 15% over the 5 year period."
Moreover, the Commission found the compromise "logically flawed," as the more depleted a species, the less you would expect to find it in your catch. "The weighting procedure has the perverse effect of giving less protection, not more, to heavily depleted stocks," the review added.
The compromise was of particular value to Ireland and Denmark, for whom the Commission had chalked up tonnage and power reductions of between 20-30%, but found their targets plummet to only 5%.
Click here to download the table shown above
|
