Seafish Common Language Group North Sea Cod - Kenny Coull Scottish Whitefish Producer's Association Mallaig and North West Fishermen's Association

Seafish
 Common Language Group

             North Sea Cod

Kenny Coull
Scottish Whitefish Producer’s Association
Mallaig and North West Fishermen’s Association

Scottish White Fish Producer’s Association

  One of the largest Association in the UK and Europe
  representing fishermen’s interests.

  • 240 vessels and 14OO fishers with a combined revenue
    approaching £250M

          1. Work with institutions and governments
          2. Liaise closely with environmental NGOs
          3. Keen focus on sustainable harvesting and building on
             market share
          4. Work hard to ensure industry standards and crew welfare

 Evolution of North Sea Cross Industry Cod Group

 Overview of initial engagement of Cross Industry Group

 Current position and prospects for 2021 negotiations

 Update on Preparations for North Sea Cod Benchmark

ICES Advice for catches in 2020

•   SSB dropped below Blim, triggering need for greatly reduced TAC.
•   Outstanding issues on retrospective analysis of SSB continued to undermine assessment credibility.
•   No immediate solution ahead of Benchmark.
•   It would be fair to say that Member States were already developing ideas on supplementary
    measures following the previous years advice and outcomes of December Council where a significant
    reduction had been advised.

Evolution of North Sea Cross Industry Group

Early 2019 Scottish Industry responded to national consultation on supplementary measures to rebuild
cod stocks. (as did most other countries)

Release of ICES Advice for 2020 highlighted continued issues with stock and assessment, and advice
was for 61% reduction in TAC.

This prompted UK and DK Industry reps to jointly consider consequential loss of MSC certification with
Norway engaging soon soon after.

There were concerns by other Member States in NSAC about this side group but following open &
frank discussion, it was agreed that a wider, inclusive group would be beneficial in developing industry
response to potential discussions on catching opportunities and potential rebuilding measures.

On fringes of NSAC and EU/Norway discussions it was clear that additional supporting measures (over
and above a reduced TAC) would be required in 2020.

EU/Norway – late 2019

• North Sea cod: priority had been to develop a rebuilding plan.

• Noted that cod assessment faced some challenges with downscaling of SSB and
  upward revision of fishing pressure. Cod Benchmark set for 2021

• Delegation agreed to establish TAC for 2020, resulting in decrease of 50% on
  2019 TAC. Additional measures aimed at protection of juvenile and adult cod
  should be introduced as from early 2020 in order to restore the North Sea and
  Skagerrak cod stock by reducing unwanted catches and discards and lower
  fishing pressure.

• Agreed to establish WG of experts to define technical elements and specificities
  relating to additional technical measures.

Industry proposal for an adaptive approach to North Sea cod
                       recovery - November 2019

EU/Norway meetings provided backdrop where:

• Representatives of North Sea fishing industries considered the EU (non-paper)
  proposal for Auxiliary measures for the recovery of North Sea cod.
       RTC’s for adult and juvenile cod, Restricted areas and Seasonal areas.

• Industry Group collaborated in the preparation of a position paper on North Sea
  Cod which set out their thoughts on a more gradual and adaptive approach to
  cod recovery.

• Also included a proposal to protect spawning aggregations.

• Paper was presented to the EU Commission, Sheveningen Group of Member
  States and Norwegian delegation.

Where did this take us?

Cross-Industry Paper did help contribute to background discussion at the EU / Norway Technical Meeting on
North Sea Cod Recovery Measures. Eight Industry Science representatives attended.

However, Working Group was:
• conscious not to deal with aspects that fall within remit of policy makers
• Constrained its role to providing base information for future policy formation.

Process then moved to the Policy arena.

Outcome:
Commission proposal amending Council Regulation (EU) 2019/123: re fishing opportunities for 2020 in
Union and non-Union waters.
                       Article 14 Remedial measures for cod in the North Sea.

                       I wont go into this as its rather confusing but, amounted to:
1.   12 spawning areas with temporary closures
2.   Spatial measures but with a wide range of derogations where Member States scientific bodies can
     provide supporting evidence to STECF.

Closed areas to fishing – Seasonal closures to protect spawning cod

Current Position – Cross Industry Cod Group

Same group has now collaborated to prepare follow up paper which:
• Sets out rational why abiding by ICES advice on TAC (for 2021) fails to accept the complexity of
  operating in mixed fisheries and implications for the fleet.
• Highlights operational pressures with regard to choke species (no banking reservoir this year)
• Recognizes need for a rebuilding strategy but preference for an approach that takes account of
  biological cycles that will be required to deliver a recovery of the stock.
• Disappointing that the latest IBTS survey results were not used to confirm fishermen’s
  observations on recruitment. We believe this would deliver further improvement in the
  prognosis of the stock.
• We remain committed to protecting aggregations of spawning cod and protection of juveniles.
• Firmly believe in allocating TAC that also delivers sizeable increase in SSB while, at the same
  time, adopting appropriate measures, we can avoid situation where cod becomes a “choke
  species” preventing access to key abundant species in mixed demersal fisheries

Prospects for Negotiations for 2021

Preparation for the bi-lateral EU-Norway and tri-lateral EU-Norway-UK consultations on the
shared stocks - Fishing Opportunities for 2021.

It is particularly worrying that there appears to be a high emphasis on interactions between cod
and stocks of haddock and whiting.

ICES published their Fisheries overview, including mixed-fisheries considerations last week.

Remember, it’s only a couple of years since the Commission (at the State of Stocks Seminar)
indicated that Mixed-fisheries advice was not mature enough to be used for setting TAC’s and it
would be several years before they were robust enough to be used.

In the absence of specific mixed-fisheries management objectives, ICES does not advise on
specific mixed-fisheries catch opportunities for the individual stocks.

Mixed-fisheries considerations – November 2020

Mixed-fisheries projections are presented
in terms of catch (projected landings and
discards). The most limiting stock for
fishing effort will be cod for particular
fleets (the “cod-ns” scenario),
corresponding to an undershoot for the
advised catch for the other stocks
considered in the mixed-fisheries analysis.
A substantial overshoot of advised catch
can occur under other scenarios (e.g. the
“max” scenario).
https://www.ices.dk/sites/pub/Publication%20Reports/Advice/2020/2
020/FisheriesOverview_GreaterNorthSea_2020.pdf

WKNSCodID (2020) – Recent Benchmarks & Advice
• WKNSEA 2015 – North Sea Cod
   • Subarea trends and differences in life-history traits among subareas
     suggest population structure
• WKDEM 2020 – Cod west of Scotland
   • Evidence suggests at least three cod stocks that are geographically
     isolated throughout the year, with the northern offshore component
     more closely linked to cod in the northern North Sea than the rest of    6.a.N
     Division 6.a.
• WKNSCodID – North Sea Cod
   • Review information on stock identification of North Sea cod and adjacent
     areas ….
   • Make recommendations for which cod stock scenario’s to take forward to
     Benchmark.
   • Survey and fishery data should be compiled spatially by divisions (4b.,
     4c, 7d), subdivision 20, and a practical subdivision of 4aEast and 4aWest
   • range of spatial approaches to stock assessment and advice should be
     explored at the 2020-2021 benchmark, including a single assessment of
     the current advisory unit as a unit stock, separate-area assessments,
     fleets-as-areas, spatially structured assessments, and survey-based
     assessments

Definition of Dogger Cod
• The ‘northern offshore component’ of cod in 6a is part of the
  ‘Dogger cod’ population (based genetics, tagging and trends in
  abundance).
• There isn’t clear evidence of genetic heterogeneity with the
  Dogger cod population, but the population has spatial
  phenotypic and demographic structure:
    • two phenotypic stocks with different rates of growth &
      maturity (faster in south,

WKNSEA 2021 – Benchmark: Cod

Data Evaluation WK: 24 – 26 November 2020
        • Heard from the Stock Leader on key issues
        • Input from Member States data providers
        • Agreed on requirements for model runs

Exploratory runs to be conducted on:
         • Viking
         • Dogger
         • (Dogger North and Dogger South)
         • Inclusion of survey indices for 6a

Further meeting in January to assess progress

Benchmark dates: 22 – 26 February 2021

Thank You