I've been watching that show and it is good, the rotational fishing for different species from inshore fleets has been working well in New Zealand by all accounts. These inshore boats are more in tune with recreational angling and the environment than the big factory boats or the local councils will ever be. It must still be easy to drop an envelope through the door of a councillor for a new development that will make millions.
On a positive not Sussex are implying a trawl free zone between Selsey Bill and Shoreham in a bid to regenerate the weed beds there. Things like this and marine conservation zones do give hope
This is very good news, everything else will follow the weed, plankton, crustaceans, small fish, spawning fish, bigger fish etc. Everyone and everything will benefit including recreational anglers and the commercial fishermen of the area eventually. And you will be posting more big fish on the HDYGO thread
These areas properly managed and even if commercial fishermen are allowed to harvested them now and then in a controlled way, will be the future. I think this is being recognized more and more globally.
In the first program where the Cornish fishermen fish one big bay where the herring come to spawn every year, have been allowed to take what they wanted for years. Then the EU started to introduced quotas to try and protect the stocks. Same old problem, will they get the quotas right, will a couple of bad spawning years tip the edge, have they judged the present stocks right? I was thinking if they just made a third of that big bay a no fishing area it might be enough to protect those herring stocks and ensure they will always be in that bay for every future generations of commercial fishermen and consumers; would that be a better way of doing it.
I would like to see us do things like this outside the EU; or at least have the chance to properly consider these options and implement if thought worthwhile trying.
A proper UK marine department with marine biologists, commercial and recreational anglers represented and more, not just something latched onto the agricultural dept could do this. It would be more locally defined, not a 28 nation thing where some of those nations do not have a sea, and we wouldn't have to please those 28 nations politically, unhindered by this and expertly managed it could be the one thing we could do very well at post Brexit. Time for Boris to walk the walk, be bold, tough, innovative and forward looking.
However, I fear our government will be lazy, not only barter away our fishing rights slowly and bit by bit but also just carry on following their directives on quotas and methods.