A fisherman's perspective on MPA's
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What are Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and why are they important?
Marine scientist Ben Harris with a pretty unequivocal message and the waters that he was studying off Arran in the Firth of Clyde would be very like a lot of our own. Now, the Taoiseach would have heard all of this when he attended that fair seas conference in Cork on Wednesday morning. He said that Ireland stood by its 30 by 30 pledge, marine protected area status for 30% of Irish waters by 2030. And then this is the point that the scientific facts come bumping into political reality. What the Taoiseach didn't say was what way these areas would be managed and resourced to ensure that MPAs weren't just lines on maps. Nor did he say much about what level of consultation the fishermen could expect about where the MPAs would go.
Some fishermen say that MPAs aren't needed and will only end their industry. Others say that they support them, but only if there is robust science deciding where they go. John Lynch is the owner of the trawler Iblana, which fishes out of Hoth in Dublin. He's also CEO of one of the fisherman representative organisations. He's been talking to Suzanne Campbell about whether MPAs are a last hope for the sea or the last straw for the fishermen.
Yeah, the Iblana was built in 1988. It was a French-built stern trawler, 22 metres. We bought in 2004, so we have the boat 22 years now.
And this is the wheelhouse.
This is the wheelhouse, yeah. The centre of command, I suppose, for the skipper, yeah. When the boat's at sea, there's someone up here 24 hours a day.
And tell us about all these electronic charts.
Different things, electronic charts, radars, fish finders.
They work quite well, yeah. The Blanas crew of four are currently working on the pier beside the boat, repairing gear and nets that will be used to fish nephrops, or Dublin Bay prawns, in a crucial fishing ground called Smalls next week. Nephrops are a cornerstone of Ireland's seafood industry, representing second most valuable fishery after mackerel. With the upcoming Marine Protected Areas legislation, what are John's concerns in how it will affect the fishing community?
Yeah, well, I suppose from the fishing industry point of view, there's a fear of it because it's more spatial squeeze. And up to now, we haven't been accustomed to spatial squeeze. The first taste of spatial squeeze we're going to have is in offshore renewable energy. The scale of offshore renewables will be large. We're looking at 20 gigawatts by 2040. And 37 gigawatts by 2050. So if we get to that stage, that's a lot of offshore renewable energy taking up approximately 12,000 square miles. And the current technology available for that renewable energy is fixed bottom. And it won't be outside of, I think, 60, 70 meters at the moment. So that means it's all in the zone where fishing takes place. But if you add on to that then, the 30% marine protected areas and 10%, which is 33% of the 30%, if you understand what I'm saying, it has to be strictly protected.
So no fishing activity whatsoever. No fishing activity in those strictly protected areas. And that is where the concern is, because there's a big fear that those strictly protected areas will be close to the coast. And the closer to the coast it is, the smaller the vessels it impacts. and small vessels are the least mobile when it comes to moving to a new area. If you make a strictly protected, marine protected area close to the coast, and it's 20 miles long, and goes out to sea 10 miles, well that's going to eliminate the fishing activity of a lot of very small vessels.
You've had so many challenges. It would take such an examination to even go back over them in terms of Ireland losing quota and the common fisheries policy over decades. Does this feel that the marine protected areas, does it feel like more curtailment of what you're doing? Or does it feel like it might protect stocks and bring them back in some regard to what you might remember from decades ago?
Yeah, really a bit of both, I suppose. I mean, there is potential advantages, but in taking those advantages, we need to be careful that we don't upset the whole thing and have unintended consequences of putting people out of business.
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