Daily Archives: August 8, 2021
Is the fishing industry irrelevant to our governments?
Now our governments are auctioning off vast areas of valuable seabed to wind farm developers, with the apparent approval and encouragement of our own Shetland Islands Council. Proposed area’s presented for consideration when combined, would cover roughly half the area of the Scottish mainland. This would exclude the fishermen from having access to some of the richest and most prolific fishing grounds in Europe. >click to read< 18:00
Fishermen protest at Karachi harbour
Fishermen in Karachi on Saturday staged a protest after docking their boats at the harbour and Keamari Jetty. However, after assurance from Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Marine Affairs Mahmood Moulvi, fishermen called off the protest. Fishermen started to protest against unnecessary checking of their boats in the open sea and misbehaviour of the government and maritime officials. The fishermen also staged a sit-in on the main Maripur Road, blocked the traffic for several hours. Asif Bhatti, a representative of the fishermen community, said that fishermen had been unable to do fishing for the last two months and now they are facing problems in feeding their families. “A large number of women and children also joined the protest.” >click to read< 17:11
Bad Press for Block Island Wind Farm! The blades ain’t turning, questions of cables, and huge $$$ extra’s!
The Block Island wind farm has largely shut down – And so I can understand why no one wants to talk about how four of the farm’s five turbines have, without any public notice, stopped running this summer. I spent the better part of a week trying to learn why, It was an unsatisfying explanation. More troubling, the reburying of the cable, The last estimate to rebury the cable was $30 million, I can understand why Ørsted and the other wind company contenders jockeying for new development up and down the Eastern Seaboard might be worried about bad press for the Block Island system, given the growing opposition to wind farms from the fishing industry, consumer activists and coastal communities where cables are proposed to come ashore. Thank you for the exposure, David Collins! >click to read< 12:58
Fishery policy should by guided by existing managing bodies, not back-door lobbying campaigns
These groups include fishermen’s organisations and representatives from other bodies including marine compliance, science and environmental agencies. The RIFGs are designed to enable all interested parties to take part in decision-making about their local fisheries and agree on how they should be managed. You would think that bodies like Open Seas might welcome this devolution of consultation and management to local level as evidence of a worthwhile attempt to create healthy participation in the governance of our seas but no, they would wish to leapfrog and undermine that democratic consultative process and opt to lobby for their own binary and simplistic agenda. >click to read< 10:49 By Fiona Matheson, Stromness, Orkney
Boasts about boosting fishing quotas after Brexit have been branded “codswallop”- The fish don’t exist!
Regaining control of British waters was a major part of the Leave campaign before Brexit but six months on and questions have been raised about the supposed benefits An investigation using the Government’s own data and backed up by former officials has revealed that £31.8million worth of extra fish promised in Parliament “don’t exist”. That money should have come from a big rise in the quota for sole and plaice. But James White, 38, a fisherman from Felixstowe, said: “They can increase the quota a hundred fold and we won’t be able to catch more. These fish don’t exist.” >click to read< 08:03
