David Levy – Are matters bleak for UK fish stocks? – Nov 22

Deadlines for fish stock targets in N. European seas have come and gone with all the signatory countries in breach of scientific advice, landing well beyond their quotas.

Brexit was seen as the British remedy for this out of control situation, but it has proved to be anything but that.   We still allow foreign boats to harvest our seas.   And we have failed to deliver control of our stocks to the people of this country along with the benefits for the fishing communities around our shores.

This failure is criminal and needs to be challenged openly and with legal means if at all possible.   Politicians need to make a pledge of office to plan and produce energy, food and defence security as part of their tenure in office, accountable by their record in power.   When they are found wanting, they should be barred from reapplying for office.

We have to do something to break the pattern of inaction.

We have been sold out to rhetoric, and by failed management and planning.   The result is once again that we face food shortages as our fish stocks deteriorate to dangerous levels, often well below a sustainable breeding stock.

This fact belies the months of consultation with Government to manage these scarce resources, and in this country we have become blind to the inadequacies of these failed policies.   Only now is Charles Clover resurfacing, after his brilliant book exposé The End of the Line revealed how fishing industries have repeatedly over the decades plundered our stocks to dangerous levels.   Where has his energies and influence been in the years since publication?

Once again Marinet has to point the finger of blame at the NGO Movement who having trapped themselves by taking charitable status and their own parochial interests which they guard with little evidence that they are there for solutions.

We are in a war of attrition and they — government and industry — are winning, hands down.

Many have left the fray, moving onto the greasy pole of advancement leaving behind a fragmented and disorganised environmental movement.   That makes it easy for those in power to ignore, blackball and ridicule in the ‘Halls of Reality’ and day to day power broking.

The opportunities to advance measures for change remain bleak.

David Levy