Joined: 15 Jan 2005 Posts: 7184 Location: South Kent
Posted: Tue Nov 20, 07 10:10 am Post subject: Meet the Fisheries Minister
... being savaged by Humphreys on the Today programme, for his "conservation" policy of increasing cod catch quotas.
The current quota is *double* the conservation scientists recommendation. And yet he wants the quota increased further.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today4_CodWaste_20071120.ram
For logic, it rivals anything Bird & Fortune have done with Rory Bremner...
Well if i ruled the world - fisherman would have to bring back to port everything they caught.
The would be paid for everything that was in quota and taxed (at the negative equivalent of market price) for everything that was overquota.
The amount they were paid would be fixed by an authority who used price fixing as way to control fishing patterns.
Thus market price would not influence boatside price. eg cod would be could be bought cheap and sold expensive for reduce incentives to catch it. (recipe for smuggling i know but no scheme is perfect)
That way their would be massive financial incentive for careful selective fishing - and those who fished carelessly would risk financial loss .
within months of such a regime boats would be kitting up with fishfinding and net technologies that discriminated what they were catching - and boats would be avoiding the fishing grounds that risked "accidental catches"
so people would be paid well for environmentally friendly sustainable behaviour and would lose money if they they were careless of the sustainability in fish stocks
There would be no waste - as in present day discards!
And any cheating or discarding at sea would result in an immediate irrevocable removal of a license to fish.
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