Many may not know, but our government is planning yet another fishing liciense 'buy back', a move that they say will protect our fish stocks for generations to come, and one that will also see many fishermen and their support industries go to the wall.

Meanwhile, this same government is allowing a 'super trawler' to reek havoc on our fish stocks, giving the green light for the capture and processing some insane tonnage of processed fish to be taken from our waters.

Bi catch has long been an issue with trawl netting and is generally about 7 to 1, however, given that bi catch is largely made up of 'juvinile fish', had these fish been allowed to mature, that figure would be more like 100 to 1.

Now the government says they have imposed measures to minimize bi catch, yer right, who's going to monitor that, given that we simply have no money to pay for such monitoring, unless of cause we take it from somewhere else.

So they are happy to put our own people out of work, while allowing outsiders to drain the very fish reserves they seek to protect.

What is going on!

Globalisation and capitalism is what's going on.

Yes Poirot, but given we have so much to offer and so few people (in real terms) do you think the day is coming where we may have to fight to protect what's ours, or, are we simply bowing to the preasure from a higher power.

rehctub,

Globalisation does just that.

It gobbles up for the sake of gobbling up. We all know these supertrawlers are an obscenity, but we're all tied up with obligations to the WTO etc. We want a piece of the pie even as we know the prevailing behaviour is unsustainable.

Any true fisherman or woman , knows our stocks are running low in most breeds.
We too understand catch limits, including for weekend fishers are working.
Both licensed at ordinary fishermen, will be better served by continuing limits.

Belly, I agree and one of the best sayings I have heard for a while would have to be, 'limit your catch, dont catch your limit'.

As a keen fisherman myself, traveling to many parts of the country ove the past twenty odd years, our group focussed on catch and release, as we only go to catch fish, not outright kill them.

In fact, I know several fisherman now who have live wells on their boats, catch their fish, keep them alive, so they can up-size without killing the smaller ones.

However, I am mystified that on the one hand our governments are buying back licenses, while on the other allowing these Super trawlers to rape our waterways.

What's the point!