Fishermen object to new regulations

New fishing vessels regulations have set the fishing community agog and fishermen have been instructed by their cooperative not to make use of a logbook that forms part of the new rules.

The regulations, published in the Government Gazette of September 14, are contained in legal notice 407 and form part of the Fisheries Conservation and Management Act, 2001.

Fishermen are complaining that while their representatives have held meetings with government officials to assist in the drawing up of the regulations, the government "rode roughshod over the suggestions and proposals" put forward by the National Fisheries Cooperative.

However, a Ministry of Fisheries spokesman said yesterday the minister sympathised with the concerns being raised by the fishermen and would do his utmost to ensure that the new regulations would be more in line with what they have been suggesting.

But one had to bear in mind, he added, that certain rules and regulations had been approved by all the EU member states and had to be applied in Malta as well.

The cooperative represents 95 per cent of the roughly 460 fishermen, and among them are the owners of about 240 boats.

The cooperative and the Ministry of Fisheries have been holding meetings on the drawing up of the regulations for three years, Ray Bugeja, secretary of the NFS, pointed out.

Mr Bugeja, who was recently appointed by the government to represent Malta on the advisory committee of the EU Fisheries Council, argued that while the fishing community had been flexible, particularly on issues such as conservation and safety, the government has not budged on certain sticking points.

One of them was the issue of residence. The regulations state that the owner, captain or master of the fishing vessel should be resident in Malta according to the provisions of the Immovable Property (Acquisition by Non-Residents) Act. The cooperative, however, had demanded that such a person ought to have resided in Malta for at least five years in order to meet the requirements of the regulations.

The regulations also state that each fishing boat must have a logbook in which to keep tabs of the catches and species caught. The logbook is to be picked up from the department of fisheries, but the cooperative has instructed fishermen not to do so.

This issue was fundamental to the fishermen for two basic reasons: One was that nearly three quarters of the members of the cooperative were illiterate and therefore it would be difficult, if not impossible, for them to fill in the information requested.

Secondly, the logbook contained only three out of the 63 species of fish landed by local fishermen. The logbook, said Mr Bugeja, seemed to have been copied from the one used by other much bigger EU member states and included species of fish which are not landed in Malta.

"The cooperative had suggested the inclusion of the whole list of fish and a profile of each fish printed in the log book for easy identification by those obliged to log in the amount and species of the catches," Mr Bugeja said.

The regulations also point out that an observer may be appointed by the department of fisheries to be on board a boat to supervise fishing gear, noting, for instance, the size of the mesh on the nets and the size of hooks as well as the fishing methods employed.

Mr Bugeja observed that the captain may be constrained to bring the observer back to shore and thus disrupt the fishing trip, while fishermen are not reimbursed by the department for the cost incurred to feed and keep the observer on board.

"While the fishermen have explained to the authorities what was hurting them most, the authorities did not do much to meet their objections.

"Fishermen will no longer be allowed to land tuna under 63 kilos; or stone bass (hanzir) smaller than 48 centimetres (stone bass is abundant during the lampuki season) and hake (merluzz) caught by trawling.

"These fish die by the time they are brought up on the boat. So what's the point of having such a regulation? Catches by quota have not worked out in practice in most countries and a lot of fish that is caught is thrown away to stick to the quota," Mr Bugeja said.

Mr Bugeja will be going to Brussels on Friday to have talks with his counterparts and plans to bring up these points, which are straining relations between the fishermen and the government.

When asked to clarify the ministry's position on the cooperative's objections, its spokesman said the outlines of the different fish would be added to the logbook to assist the fishermen in filling out the details.

Regarding the size of fish that cannot be landed, the ministry plans to lobby the General Fisheries Council of the Mediterranean to make such a regulation applicable throughout the Mediterranean.

"We understand and sympathise with the concerns of the fishing community and will be lobbying the EU and other fora so that the EU regulations will better reflect the local reality," the spokesman added.

On the point raised by Mr Bugeja regarding the number of years a person has to be resident in Malta before operating a fishing boat, the spokesman explained that there was already a safeguard in place.

The safeguard, he said, lay in the fact that the number of registered fishing boats could not be exceeded.