1 March 2001 Edition
Howth: Fishing in decline
BY MICHAEL PIERSE
A 26-County task force on the fishing industry this week acknowledged the need to include all fishing communities, regardless of their geographical area, in existing and future urban and rural tax incentive renewal schemes. However, for traditional fishing villages like Dublin's Howth, which have been neglected by successive governments, this news is a case of too little too late.
They ended up making massive catches and crowding the market. Because they weren't regulated, there was no mention of concepts like `sustainable development' or conservation
Snowy and Thomas McLoughlin have lived their lives surrounded by the fishing industry in Howth. Their father, Pearse McLoughlin, was a well known fisherman in the area and was also jailed for 12 years in England as an IRA volunteer, during the 1940s and `50s. While Snowy's main experiences of fishing were as a child working with his father during the summer, Thomas himself fished professionally for seven years. This he gave up over ten years ago, when he realised the slump in the industry wasn't going away.
``There was no money in it any more. Politicians sold out for the farmers,'' he says of the raw deal fishermen felt they got, because the Dublin government bartered their interests in EU negotiations for a better deal for farmers.
Thirty-odd years ago, their father Pearse was branded by some fishermen with the nick-name `The Missionary', because he was continually `preaching' about the depletion of fish stocks. To most of the fishermen, his argument that trawling methods and densely meshed nets would irreparably deplete fish stocks was ridiculous. However, this argument is no longer the subject of debate today - it's a given fact.
The brothers remember Pearse strolling up the aisle at an Irish Fishermen's Association Conference in the Mansion House, Dublin, in 1972. He flung the mesh in his hands at the Lord Mayor's platform and called the assembled fishermen `murderers'. ``How can any fish survive that,'' he said of the tightly-knit mesh.
A mixture of ignorance and greed caused the fishermen to ignore Pearse's protestations and become the architects of their own demise, Snowy says.
Trawling, which emerged as the most popular fishing method of the 1960s, was the single biggest disaster in terms of reducing fish stocks, they say. Fish feed off plankton and plankton live on the ocean bed. The effect of trawling was not only the wholescale massacre of fish in any given area, it was also the destruction of plankton and marine life on a grand scale. This left the areas where trawlers had visited divested of any marine life and without any sustainable means of replenishing that life. Tightly meshed nets meant that even infant fish risked being caught, leaving nothing to grow to maturity. The French, Dutch, Belgians and others have done the same thing to European waters, meaning that they have now come to rely on fishing in what were Irish waters. ``One saying they have,'' Thomas says, ``is that `if there's a French boat out there you'll never see a seagull'. That's because they don't leave anything behind.''
But it is not just mesh sizes or fishing methods that have caused the depletion of fish stocks. Snowy and Thomas put it down to something much simpler, sheer greed.
When Thomas started working in a factory in 1967 his earnings were £2 and 10 shillings per week. A schoolmate was earning hundreds of pounds per week at the same time - because he was involved in the lucrative fishing industry of the day. There was no taxation either, so the industry was, by and large, unregulated. Living on the periphery of society, Howth fishermen in the `60s were reaping but forgetting to sow.
There was a predatorial attitude, Thomas says. ``Fishermen are hunters. Many of them had the attitude of `I caught more than you'. So they ended up making massive catches and crowding the market.'' Because they weren't regulated, there was no mention of concepts like `sustainable development' or conservation.
The depletion of stocks and introduction of new technology has also made the lifestyles of many fishermen untenable. Once a regular 7.30am to 5pm or 6pm job, those working on fishing vessels now have to work for three days solid at a time. The depletion of stocks has meant that smaller schools of fish must be tracked down via advanced tracking technology - meaning more time at sea. This leads to more instability, the McLoughlins say, and an unhealthier way of living.
The decline of the fishing industry is a problem that has not been confined to Ireland. Regions such as Galicia, Brittany, North Scotland and Cornwall are similar to coastal Ireland and are extremely dependent on fisheries. They too have seen the ruination of small, but once thriving, fishing communities because of a lack of sustainable development.
In their recommendations to the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) Review, due to take place in 2002, Bórd Iascaigh Mhara, the 26-County fishing authority, says that the regeneration of the industry will be vital to rural areas throughout Ireland and the EU.
``Like other regional activities, fishing can provide an ample standard of living if appropriately developed,'' they say. ``Throughout the EU, the fishing industry creates approximately 450,000 full-time and part-time jobs. Most of whom live and work in regions distant from the major urban centres, supporting families and communities that are heavily dependent on incomes from fishing to sustain local and regional economies.
``The Social and Cohesion and Regional Policies of the EU should be reflected in the Common Fisheries Policy, and in particular in the application of Relative Stability. Many of the fishing regions in the EU are adjacent to some of the richest marine resources and should not be denied access to the development potential that these resources offer. The present imbalance, in the CFP has affected the socio-economic fabric of peripheral regions and thus directly contravened the aim and objectives of the EU's Social, Regional and Cohesion policies.''
However, another recent development may indicate that the CFP review is far too late. Last month, parts of the North Sea - over 40,000 square miles - were closed to cod fishermen in a last-ditch attempt to revive depleted stocks. In those areas, cod fishing is to be banned until the end of April, during the crucial spawning period.
A 26-County task force on the fishing industry this week acknowledged the need to include all fishing communities, regardless of their geographical area, in existing and future urban and rural tax incentive renewal schemes. However, for traditional fishing villages like Dublin's Howth, which have been neglected by successive governments, this news is a case of too little too late.
They ended up making massive catches and crowding the market. Because they weren't regulated, there was no mention of concepts like `sustainable development' or conservation
Snowy and Thomas McLoughlin have lived their lives surrounded by the fishing industry in Howth. Their father, Pearse McLoughlin, was a well known fisherman in the area and was also jailed for 12 years in England as an IRA volunteer, during the 1940s and `50s. While Snowy's main experiences of fishing were as a child working with his father during the summer, Thomas himself fished professionally for seven years. This he gave up over ten years ago, when he realised the slump in the industry wasn't going away.
``There was no money in it any more. Politicians sold out for the farmers,'' he says of the raw deal fishermen felt they got, because the Dublin government bartered their interests in EU negotiations for a better deal for farmers.
Thirty-odd years ago, their father Pearse was branded by some fishermen with the nick-name `The Missionary', because he was continually `preaching' about the depletion of fish stocks. To most of the fishermen, his argument that trawling methods and densely meshed nets would irreparably deplete fish stocks was ridiculous. However, this argument is no longer the subject of debate today - it's a given fact.
The brothers remember Pearse strolling up the aisle at an Irish Fishermen's Association Conference in the Mansion House, Dublin, in 1972. He flung the mesh in his hands at the Lord Mayor's platform and called the assembled fishermen `murderers'. ``How can any fish survive that,'' he said of the tightly-knit mesh.
A mixture of ignorance and greed caused the fishermen to ignore Pearse's protestations and become the architects of their own demise, Snowy says.
Trawling, which emerged as the most popular fishing method of the 1960s, was the single biggest disaster in terms of reducing fish stocks, they say. Fish feed off plankton and plankton live on the ocean bed. The effect of trawling was not only the wholescale massacre of fish in any given area, it was also the destruction of plankton and marine life on a grand scale. This left the areas where trawlers had visited divested of any marine life and without any sustainable means of replenishing that life. Tightly meshed nets meant that even infant fish risked being caught, leaving nothing to grow to maturity. The French, Dutch, Belgians and others have done the same thing to European waters, meaning that they have now come to rely on fishing in what were Irish waters. ``One saying they have,'' Thomas says, ``is that `if there's a French boat out there you'll never see a seagull'. That's because they don't leave anything behind.''
But it is not just mesh sizes or fishing methods that have caused the depletion of fish stocks. Snowy and Thomas put it down to something much simpler, sheer greed.
When Thomas started working in a factory in 1967 his earnings were £2 and 10 shillings per week. A schoolmate was earning hundreds of pounds per week at the same time - because he was involved in the lucrative fishing industry of the day. There was no taxation either, so the industry was, by and large, unregulated. Living on the periphery of society, Howth fishermen in the `60s were reaping but forgetting to sow.
There was a predatorial attitude, Thomas says. ``Fishermen are hunters. Many of them had the attitude of `I caught more than you'. So they ended up making massive catches and crowding the market.'' Because they weren't regulated, there was no mention of concepts like `sustainable development' or conservation.
The depletion of stocks and introduction of new technology has also made the lifestyles of many fishermen untenable. Once a regular 7.30am to 5pm or 6pm job, those working on fishing vessels now have to work for three days solid at a time. The depletion of stocks has meant that smaller schools of fish must be tracked down via advanced tracking technology - meaning more time at sea. This leads to more instability, the McLoughlins say, and an unhealthier way of living.
The decline of the fishing industry is a problem that has not been confined to Ireland. Regions such as Galicia, Brittany, North Scotland and Cornwall are similar to coastal Ireland and are extremely dependent on fisheries. They too have seen the ruination of small, but once thriving, fishing communities because of a lack of sustainable development.
In their recommendations to the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) Review, due to take place in 2002, Bórd Iascaigh Mhara, the 26-County fishing authority, says that the regeneration of the industry will be vital to rural areas throughout Ireland and the EU.
``Like other regional activities, fishing can provide an ample standard of living if appropriately developed,'' they say. ``Throughout the EU, the fishing industry creates approximately 450,000 full-time and part-time jobs. Most of whom live and work in regions distant from the major urban centres, supporting families and communities that are heavily dependent on incomes from fishing to sustain local and regional economies.
``The Social and Cohesion and Regional Policies of the EU should be reflected in the Common Fisheries Policy, and in particular in the application of Relative Stability. Many of the fishing regions in the EU are adjacent to some of the richest marine resources and should not be denied access to the development potential that these resources offer. The present imbalance, in the CFP has affected the socio-economic fabric of peripheral regions and thus directly contravened the aim and objectives of the EU's Social, Regional and Cohesion policies.''
However, another recent development may indicate that the CFP review is far too late. Last month, parts of the North Sea - over 40,000 square miles - were closed to cod fishermen in a last-ditch attempt to revive depleted stocks. In those areas, cod fishing is to be banned until the end of April, during the crucial spawning period.