Tag Archives: Environment Secretary George Eustice

MPA Fishing Ban: Another Industry Sell-Out,,, For what? Big Wind, or Conservation?!!

The NFFO has hit back at the Marine Management Organisation’s announced intention to outlaw towed gears in the Dogger Bank SAC and the majority of three other offshore MPAs, describing the move as a ‘further sell-out of fishing’. Describing the announcement as a shocking development, ‘Not even lightweight seine nets are to be permitted,,, The proposals amount to a further sell-out of fishing. It augers ominously for other areas and for fishing communities in our increasingly crowded seas.’ Many will now be asking what has changed. They will also be asking how the government can permit the development of four of the largest wind farms in the world on the same site but take such a sledgehammer to fishing. >click to read< 14:47

Bottom trawling ban for key UK fishing sites

The Marine Management Organisation says it plans to safeguard fishing areas in Dogger Bank and South Dorset by completely banning bottom trawling. The sites are already designated as protected areas,,, Greenpeace recently dropped concrete blocks on to Dogger Bank. The MMO is consulting on proposed by-laws prohibiting bottom-towed gear on the sites. The consultation runs to 28 March 2021.,,, The NFFO described the proposals as having delivered “a sledgehammer to fishing”. “This punishing reversal comes on the back of the government’s failure to deliver on fishing in the Brexit negotiations, and damaging delays in the export of fish and shellfish. >click to read< 13:55

In nearly 50 years as a fisherman Arnold Locker has seen it all – ‘crews will be worse off in 2021 than before they left the EU’

The outcome of the Brexit trade deal has left him and many others bitterly disappointed. Mr Locker, chairman of Locker Trawlers in Whitby, and former chairman of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, believes Environment Secretary George Eustice should resign. He says this time the betrayal of fishing communities is worse, because politicians like Mr Eustice, Michael Gove and Prime Minister Boris Johnson “knew exactly what they were doing when they devastated coastal communities.”>click to read< 11:43

No legal basis for the UK’s distant-waters vessels to fish cod in Norwegian waters from the end of this year

Britains latest state-of-the-art trawler, the £52 million Kirkella, has been laid up in Hull as the Government failed to negotiate new fishing quotas with Norway in time for Brexit Day on 1 January. Instead of ‘taking back control’ with the revival of the UK’s fishing industry, trawlermen in Hull face losing their jobs and the country faces the demise of the distant-waters fishing industry. >click to read< 11:05