Question and Answer Session 1 - Forum 1
The following are notes from the morning question and answer session at the Freshwater Fisheries Forum. The questioner's name and organisation are listed along with a brief summary of their question/observation and the answer if one was provided. The panel of speakers in this session consisted of:
Mr Gordon Brown (GB) - Chairman SEERAD- Freshwater Fisheries and Aquaculture Division
Mr David Dunkley (DD) - SEERAD - Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Branch
Mr Alan Radford (AR) - Glasgow Caledonian University
Mr Andrew Wallace (AW) - Association of Salmon Fishery Boards
Some speakers from the audience are listed also.
Tony Hawkins - East Lothian anglers
Would another study help the anglers and fisheries overnight or would it be of more benefit to have one good fisheries biologist in each area? The Scottish Executive should drop studies and put money towards some of these activities.
DD - What we have to think about is where we are going to get the money. There is a comprehensive spending review currently under way. Can't promise how much money there will be or how we are going to spend it, we have put in bids, and we will know due course how this will turn out.
It is part of FRS's remit to provide advice. Cannot say how much money or how they will spend it, but in the meantime people can approach either SEERAD or FRS for advice.
Paul Knight - Salmon and Trout Association
The North West Coast has seen a complete collapse in salmon and sea trout in the last decade. Has there been any real time research done on this?
AR- There were some questionnaires completed, but the data was very patchy.
Alastair Stephen - Institute of Fisheries Management
What exactly are you planning to do as far as the new study is concerned? Have you got any details as to what the remit would be?
GB- It is no more than what the Minister announced in his speech at this stage. I see it as a socio economic study, and some thought has been put into looking at sea angling as well as the interests represented here. It would try and predict what the salmon and freshwater and sea angling scenario might look like in 8-10 years. It would also try to predict the threats and opportunities in getting there, and provide information to make informed decisions.
Doug Brown - River Kelvin Angling Association
Do you propose to levy the anglers in the Clyde ? What are you going to do with the money?
DD - Not necessarily, but maybe. Going to have to develop what it is we are going to do. Try to find a way forward that engages all of us. Don't know what funding we will have. Everything is up for grabs. Over the next few months, the Executive along with the steering group will have to think of a way forward on this. Right at the start of the process, the right questions need to be identified.
AW- ultimately think that the anglers will have to pay to help support the trusts. We don't know how to do this yet.
Michael Brady - Loch Lomond Angling
(1)Pleased that sea angling had been mentioned as all angling is linked. He also mentioned illegal trawlers and the availability of food in sea estuaries, this has an impact on everything.
(2) One of the problems for the Scottish Executive is how do you fund all the Trusts and what is sustainable? Will there be special funding for areas that do not have trusts or is it just going to be blanket funding?
AR - Sea angling, there is a policy failure where trawlers are destroying recreational fishing. In England, a recent study showed that recreational fishing was worth more than commercial fishing. Don't have a problem with salmon, recreational can buy out commercial. Can't do the same with sea angling.
GB- All we want to say on the mechanics of funding is assuming that we have a pot of money to disperse is that this is all still to be worked out. Our efforts are still trying to convince Ministers of the need for money.
John Powel - Laurieston Angling Club
(1) When it comes to proposing new legislation, the Scottish Executive should scrap the 1976 Act. It was the worst piece of legislation ever brought into force for fisheries in Scotland .
(2) Would also like to comment on a point made by Andrew Wallace on the Protection Order set up, the fact that there is no requirement to manage or conserve fish stock or no statutory requirement to monitor orders and this is what's wrong with the legislation. Anglers are paying for their permits and they don't know where the money is going. Would like to see an enquiry take place into the Management of fish stocks under the 1976 Act to see where we went wrong.
(3) How do people contact the steering group?
AW - On protection orders, there are a lot of confusing messages. You hear views about the failure of the Protection Order Scheme, and some of those are recognised. It would be quite interesting to hear if other people affected by Protection Orders share your views on it. It is not a universal message, clearly there are major structural weaknesses in the legislation, I would like to know how bad it is and what is bad about it so we can put it right, we do need to go through this exercise, if not here, then it will certainly be addressed by the steering group.
The other point you raised about how people get their views to the Steering Group. The group is very representative, but the connection between the people at the table and some people here may not be that great or be may be non existent. We need to ensure that everyone's views and those of people's representative bodies are heard at that table and that is a bit of a challenge.
Willie Miller - Consultative Committee on Protection Orders
(1) Is there a recognition in SEERAD that up until now the money spent on FRS, SEPA, SNH etc has been totally inadequate and that has resulted in there being no baseline figures for research to be done in the future?
(2) Are we liable to find that in the light of the economic report, that bodies like sportscotland, VisitScotland etc give more regard to angling?
GB- A lot of money goes to all the organisations that you mentioned, although some people may believe that is not enough. Slightly puzzled by your remark that there is not enough money going to FRS, and there not being enough research for the future. A very healthy budget goes to FRS both at the Marine Laboratory Aberdeen and the Freshwater Lab in Pitlochry.
Malcolm Beveridge (FRS) - FRS carries out research work to underpin policy. Every year some resources are freed up and talk to the Scottish Executive about what we think should be done and what they think should be done with those resources. There is never enough money to do everything that you want. FRS and the Scottish Executive try and figure out what it is that the money would be best targeted at.
AW - Agree that it is really frustrating to see the lack of interest in the promotional area about the value of fishing. The Economic Report had made a significant difference. The challenge now is to persuade visitscotland and the enterprise companies to support fishing in much the same way as they do golf. We need strong representative bodies making the case to these organisations in a clever way.
Representative from sportscotland - We have a list of priorities and agendas and limited funding and we have to prioritise what we invest in. We are under pressure to deliver our objectives and the angling community does get support from sportscotland, we do invest in the Governing bodies.
Mr Falconer - Bridge of Allan Angling Club
Scottish Water or the Hydro electric board should be members of the Steering Group so they get an idea of where we are going.
Alastair Stephen (IFM) - representing the Institute of Fisheries Management, but also work as a fisheries Biologist in Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) which used to be the Hydro Board. Stated that he was involved in the Steering group.
DD - There are compensation agreements with impoundments such as Hydro schemes and reservoirs. If there was evidence that these compensation agreements were not being adhered to, then it should be reported to the Procurator Fiscal.
AS- mentioned that one of his tasks over the next few years would be to assist SEPA to review the compensation arrangements. The Water Framework Directive (WFD) would be a very strong tool to allow things to change if they need to change, we would argue that in a lot of places the compensation arrangements would not need to be changed, because when these things were built the arrangements were well thought out.
Drew Jamieson - Consultative Committee on Freshwater Fisheries
A lot of what we have talked about today concerns the growth of angling, that anglers are going to increase in number, and angling is going to increase as an activity. Do we have any evidence that this is going to happen?
DD - This is precisely one of the things that we want the review to look at. In Scotland we are blessed with the potential fisheries we may have, let alone the fisheries we already have. I think it would be seriously remiss of us not to make the assumption that we have a good product, but we could make it better. There has been a lot of work done down south, just how valuable angling has been, not just in economic, but in social terms.
AR - The Economic Report provided a snap shot. We didn't have any information on how angling looked a couple of years ago or of how it is going to look. Intuitively we have been led to believe that there is has been significant growth in the number of rainbow trout fisheries and associated anglers. A lot of that may be substitution. The underlying notion here is that angling is generally good for young people and people who participate in it and in our society there are certain kinds of things that we regard as desirable. We think that people would under consume them if they were left to their own devices, sport and recreation is one of these. There is a notion within the UK generally that we support sport and recreation and perhaps angling is not making its case strongly enough. Angling is socially transformative for individuals, and this a reasonable basis for public support.
Callum Sinclair - SEPA
One of the things mentioned today was funding a network of fishery based organisations around Scotland which is a sensible idea, but it is very important that there is an equitable distribution of funds. There are many different fishing organisations, but it is unclear who people would go to for an answer for a fishery issue.
The Economic report indicates that we have something which is valuable and it could and should be made more valuable. It provides us with a line to take forward.
Peter Maitland - The Fish Conservation Centre
Question for Alan Radford on the Economic Report past and proposed. Understand that it was 32 separate studies but what about the feasibility of breaking this down much more by species? I would certainly like to see salmon and brown trout separated and more importantly coarse fisheries.
AR - It is important that economic results are produced at those levels, so that they actually inform decision making. The question is, the relevant merit of the different levels of species, this is a biological issue which I am not qualified to comment on. It is perfectly possible to break the study down further into species if you have enough researchers and resources. However it would be very expensive.
Colin Carnie - The Carnie Consultancy
One of the very valuable figures is provided in the Economic report is the benefit for additional angler day and you quoted the figure of £112 in the highlands. You said that you didn't have the information for additional fish being caught, it is possible to move the research forward so that we can see the benefit of an extra 10 salmon in a particular river. This would be very valuable for practical fishery management.
AR - It is possible to develop the relationship between fish abundance and the economic impact, although this would not be easy because of the confounding factors that exist when you are dealing with the behaviours of anglers. If you increase fish abundance then you are hoping for some kind of behavioural response from anglers. Perhaps you will see an increase in anglers, or maybe existing anglers would pay more, it depends very much on what the capacity is. It is not impossible to develop these types of relationships. It would be easier to look at this in an area such as the North West which has a lot of unexploited capacity compared to an area in the Borders.
Seymour Monro - Atlantic Salmon Trust
Sustainability was spoken about this morning and now the discussion has moved to the economic value of an extra fish. There isn't going to be more angling until, particularly for salmon and sea trout until we get to a level of stocks that is exploitable. The information available suggests that salmon is still in decline. I would reinforce the point that the Minister made about how important research is and how important the work of FRS is. Urge the Executive to continue the funding and if possible to increase the funding. Also to help the other researchers in the Trusts and so on who do so much work to try and increase the numbers of fish and provide research based advice to fishery managers. Also if there is money available for projects to restore the habitat and to conserve and improve the fish stocks on the West Coast.
Okain Mclennan - Loch Achonachie Angling Club
(1) Note from Economic report that the amount of expenditure by anglers was £113million. Was there any attempt made to find out what proportion of that went to Central Government through taxes?
AR- The modelling by Cogenti systems does all that, it strips VAT, NI and income taxes. It would be possible with their models to interrogate them and find out.
(2) Expenditure on non fishing companions was ignored. This was an important area that we do need to get a handle on because there are significant amounts of money brought into our economy by tourists.
AR- I regret that we were not able to tackle this issue in the Economic Report. The questionnaires were not able to accommodate the additional questioning about how many companions there were, how much they spent and what they would do if they were not fishing.
(3) This forum was the first opportunity that our club has had a realistic way to get forward and talk to people and other interested parties and long may it continue provided that our voice is actually going to be listened to and acted upon. If there was going to be a levy on fishing, what guarantee is there that this money is going to be used for fishing.
AW - If a levy was put on fishing, then it is absolutely essential that the distance between raising the money and spending it is as short as possible and that's why it has got to be done on a local basis. If the money was lost on bureaucracy, people would lose patience before the process even gets started.