Letter to Ministers Hardy & Morgan on bycatch
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Emma Hardy MP
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Seacole Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
Stephen Morgan MP
Minister of State
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Seacole Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
Date
Dear Minister Hardy and Minister Morgan,
A new report published by Wildlife and Countryside Link shows that thousands of animals are being killed when incidentally caught by fishing in UK waters every year. Urgent government action is needed to end this bycatch.
Bycatch is causing enormous suffering to individual animals and threatening the survival of some of our most-loved species, from dolphins to Atlantic salmon. Bycatch is a key reason the Government is failing to meet the legal requirement under the Marine Strategy Regulations 2010 to reach Good Environmental Status for UK seas by 2020. Bycatch is also limiting the Government’s ability to achieve the Environment Act marine protected area (MPA) target by killing designated species in MPAs, such as harbour porpoises. To meet the Government’s marine goals, action on bycatch is needed now.
The UK already has laws in place requiring reduction or elimination of bycatch. In addition to the legal targets above, The Fisheries Act 2020 requires the UK and devolved governments to set out policies to minimise and, where possible, eliminate incidental catches of sensitive species. What we need is action to implement these requirements. There are solutions available to prevent bycatch, allow recovery of protected marine species and enable the UK to achieve its legal obligations.
We call on you to:
Deliver promised Bycatch Action Plans for all protected species threatened by bycatch, with quantitative, time-bound bycatch reduction targets and clear commitments to fisheries management measures to meet these targets.
Require remote electronic monitoring on all fishing boats in English waters, including smaller under-10m boats that are responsible for a large proportion of bycatch. This will finally reveal the true scale of bycatch and monitor whether bycatch mitigation measures are working.
There are clear examples of organisations working alongside fishers to deliver reductions in bycatch. For example, in Filey Bay, on the Yorkshire coast, a collaboration between fishers and eNGOs reduced seabird deaths from around 700 a year to just four or five by trialling new methods, such as heavier nets. In Scotland, trials of weighted ropes by the Scottish Entanglement Alliance in creel fisheries have shown success in reducing the risk of whales becoming entangled in fishing gear.
We urge you to set out plans for expanding these and other solutions fleet-wide through delivery of time-bound Bycatch Action Plans, supporting fishers to transition to fishing methods with a low or zero bycatch risk, and puttingin place the monitoring needed to be sure action is working. We also urge you to work with your counterparts in the devolved governments to deliver similar measures across the UK.
We call on you to end sensitive species bycatch in UK seas.
Yours sincerely,
Kerry McCarthy MP
Sarah Champion MP
Dr Ellie Chowns MP
Carla Denyer MP
Barry Gardiner MP
Chris Hinchliff MP
Wera Hobhouse MP
Ruth Jones MP
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb
The Rt Hon Sir Julian Lewis MP
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer
Toby Perkins MP
Adrian Ramsay MP
Lord Randall of Uxbridge
Hannah Spencer MP
Lord Teverson
Baroness Willis of Summertown CBE
Baroness Young of Old Scone
