START   |   IMPRESSUM   |   SATZUNG   |   KONTAKT   |   SITEMAP      

Infos

Sie sind hier: Kampagnen > Irland > Treibnetzfischerei > NASF

A statement from the North Atlantic Salmon Fund

The North Atlantic Salmon Fund, NASF, is a coalition of voluntary conservation groups who have come together to restore stocks of wild Atlantic salmon to their historic abundance.
For further information telephone 00 354 893 3553
www.nasfworldwide.com/

Internation Concern At Ireland's Destructive Wildsalmon Policies And Attempts To Ignore Salmon Tagging Evidence.

A statement from the North Atlantic Salmon Fund - January 25 2006

For the last 20 years the future of the Atlantic salmon has been in jeopardy throughout its range. There is still a minority of rivers that contain sustainable stocks, but the numbers of their fish are dwindling rapidly. While substantial efforts are being made elsewhere to rebuild these stocks, the Irish salmon nets take the very fish that are most needed to spawn and support these restoration efforts.

Last week the Department of the Marine (DCMNR) in Ireland made an inaccurate and deliberately misleading statement. Indeed, the statement contradicts itself. Having declared that there was - there is no evidence to support Mr. Vigfússon´s claim that Irish drift nets are intercepting salmon that would otherwise return to European rivers - it immediately goes on to give details of tags, taken from fish the Irish drift nets have killed, that were returning to French and German rivers.

More significantly, the statement appears to ignore completely the fact that the UK is part of Europe, since 1,402 tags from salmon released in English and Welsh rivers have also been reported from the Irish fishery in the past 5 years and 4,703 tags in the past 20 years.

During these 20 years, no less than 8,228 tags from salmon tagged in France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Scotland, England and Wales were recovered from the Irish nets. In recent years, tagging has stopped in most regions of France as the Irish driftnets had wiped out much of their native stocks.

Indeed, if one compares the ICES statistics of netting catches of a decade ago with the ICES figures of the last few years it is clear that in that time the Irish nets have increased their share of the total Southern European salmon catch from 26% to over 50%. Thus the 362 non-Irish Republic salmon tags that werere turned from fish caught by Irish driftnets in 2003 represent a large proportion of salmon stocks native to these countries.

There is, of course, no guarantee that these tags represent all or even the majority of their European neighbours tagged fish taken by Irish nets. The figures depend entirely on the number of tags that the captors of tagged salmon choose to return to the authorities. In addition, many other tagged fish will have been taken from the nets by seals and illegal fishing.

The Department of the Marine also falsely maintains that no EU country has to date raised this issue with the Irish Government. Again, nothing is further from the truth. There have been persistent discussions between UK and Irish Government officials for many years about the interception of UK salmon in Irish waters, as well as joint English/Irish scientific studies that provide the evidence that the Irish Department of the Marine is now apparently trying to disown.

The fact is that just about every salmon interest group in Europe has expressed their dissatisfaction with the Irish salmon policy. It negates the benefits that should be flowing from the domestic salmon restoration work these nations have introduced over the last decade including catch-and-release policies in all UK SAC rivers. It is ironic and indeed tragic that many of the fish that are produced and nurtured by conservation measures in these countries simply end up in the Irish nets.

Furthermore, diplomatic pressure on the Irish Republic from North America has intensified in recent months. The Irish delegation at the UN has received warnings, the Canadian Government has sent a strong written message to the Irish Government and the US Government continues to express its interest through diplomatic channels. The United States has designated the Atlantic salmon an endangered species and strictly prohibits any kind of fishing for Atlantic salmon. There are also serious risks that the Irish Government's continued insistence on licensing drift netting will trigger a resumption of the high seas salmon fisheries.

Ireland's Salmon Commission Chairman Is »Dodging The Issue«.

International conservationist Orri Vigfusson has issued a robust defence of the efforts of his North Atlantic Salmon Fund to solve the crisis in Ireland's shrinking salmonstocks.

The NASF chairman has rejected accusations by Joey Murrin, chairman of Ireland's National Salmon Commission (NSC) that he is interfering in Irish affairs and making empty promises. Mr Vigfusson declared: "Joey Murrin hopes to divert attention from Ireland's appalling failure to protect its wild salmon stocks and those of its European neighbours." Mr Vigfusson argues that the size of the Irish drift net catch and the success or failure of that industry does not depend on Mr Murrin or the NSC."Whether he likes it or not," he said" the drift nets rely on the success of NASF's international work to protect wild salmon throughout the North Atlantic. Not one penny of the money we raise to make this possible comes from Mr Murrin or his political masters.

It is high time he realised that if NASF stopped the compensation payments that protect Irish and other European salmon in the seas off Greenland and the Faroes and commercial exploitation was resumed in those waters Ireland's slender stocks of wild salmon would quickly be eliminated.

He should be co-operating with us to stop the rot. But it is with his blessing that Irish drift netting continues to damage the stocks of many of Ireland s salmon rivers and those of its EU partners and has done so to such an extent that the European Commission has threatened proceedings against Ireland.

The sole object of the NASF campaign in Ireland is to plug the black hole in international salmon numbers that drift netting creates. Many of the netsmen themselves want to help us complete the conservation programme that will restore wild salmon numbers. Far from making false promises as Mr Murrin claims, NASF is a multi-million dollar organisation that compensates commercial fishermen who voluntarily give up their rights to harvest salmon in the interest of conservation. That way everyone gains and nobody loses.

Mr Murrin also accuses me of empty words. This is the opposite of the truth. We have presented the Department of the Marine with a draft of detailed and rational proposals that would solve the crisis in Irish salmon stocks and provide the funds to replace the income commercial netsmen would forego. But he is mistaken if he hopes to be allowed to handle our funds.

NASF funds will continue to be used to help netsmen and long-liners in Greenland, Iceland, Faroe, Islands, the North Sea, Wales, France, Norway and Northern Ireland redirect their activities to more sustainable employment. We have also offered to broker a deal in the Republic that would ensure the restoration of the salmon stocks that are currently being wrecked by the unrealistic quotas issued by the NSC.

Under his leadership, the National Salmon Commission ignores the warnings of its own scientific advisers. Last year he encouraged the government to renege on its undertaking that by 2005 salmon drift net quotas would match the scientific advice. Until threatened with action by the European Commission he and the NSC have consistently flouted the requirements of the EU Habitats Directive.

He knows perfectly well that Ireland's own fishery scientists warned last year that there were no surplus salmon that could be safely caught in 8 of Ireland's 17 fishery districts. He is aware that too few salmon were spawning to meet conservation limits in 13 of those 17 districts and that this is endangering the future of 86% of Ireland's salmon-producing capacity. Yet he championed an outrageously high netting quota that can only worsen this situation.

As he also knows, this is not just an Irish problem. The netting is also ruining the salmon rivers of Ireland's European neighbours. I want to see the Irish government's policies changed in the interests of one of Ireland s greatest natural resources and in the interests of the netsmen themselves. Providing they are fairly compensated for their loss of income, most of the fishermen would gladly stop killing salmon until stocks are fully rebuild.

nach oben     zurück zur Startseite