Euronor First Annual Surveillance Report
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MACALISTER ELLIOTT AND PARTNERS LTD SURVEILLANCE VISIT REPORT FOR THE CORNISH SARDINE FISHERY (SARDINA PILCHARDUS) CERTIFICATE NO.: MEP-F-015 SURVEILLANCE YEAR 2 Undertaken by: Dr Jo Gascoigne (Team Leader) & Charlotte Tindall JULY 2012 QA REF: 2438R02A MacAlister Elliott and Partners Ltd 56 High Street, Lymington Hampshire SO41 9AH United Kingdom Tel: 01590 679016 Fax: 01590 671573 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.macalister-elliott.com First Surveillance Visit – Report for the Cornish sardine fishery 1. GENERAL INFORMATION Fishery Name Cornwall sardine Unit of Certification Fishery for sardine with ring net and drift net in ICES Divisions VIIe and VIIf, within 6 miles of the Cornish coast, operated by members of the Cornish Sardine Management Association (CSMA). Species Sardine (Sardina pilchardus) Area ICES Divisions VIIe and VIIf (western Channel), within 6 miles of the coast of Cornwall. Method of capture Ring nets and drift nets. NB: currently no drift nets operating within the UoC Client Address Cornish Sardine Management Association 50 The Strand, Newlyn, Penzance, Cornwall, TR18 5HW Client Contact Name Peter Ghey (Bodriggy Fish) Client Telephone No.: + 44 (0)1736 754649 Client Email [email protected] Certificate number MEP-F-014 (Previously MRAG-F-0001) Certificate Issue Date 18 June 2010 Certificate Expiry Date 17 June 2015 Audit stage Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Audit experts Expert 1 (Team Leader) : Dr Jo Gascoigne, Expert 2: Charlotte Tindall Surveillance Audit Date 8 June 2012 Conclusion The CSMA Action Plan is being implemented as set out in the Certification Report. Delays on generating harvest control rules for the stock are out of the hands of CSMA (part of Action Plan for the South Brittany sardine fishery). MEP conclude that the fishery should remain certified for another year. Once the 2012 audit report for the South Brittany fishery is available, MEP will review and update this report and conclusion if necessary. 2438R02A| MacAlister Elliott and Partners Ltd. 2 First Surveillance Visit – Report for the Cornish sardine fishery 2. INTRODUCTION This report outlines the process and outcome of the second annual surveillance audit for the MSC certified fishery ‘Cornwall sardine’. The fishery is conducted by members of the Cornish Sardine Management Association (CSMA). This audit is the second annual surveillance audit for this fishery since certification, which was finalised in June 2010. The first annual audit concluded that progress had been made with the Client Action Plan as foreseen in the timetable. It also made a few recommendations, which have been reviewed as part of this audit, although they are non-binding and have no impact on MSC certification status. In preparation for this surveillance audit, stakeholders were contacted by email on the 8th May 2012 and invited to submit comments. The audit was carried out at the offices of SeaFood Cornwall in Newlyn by the surveillance team consisting of Dr. Jo Gascoigne and Charlotte Tindall, on the 8th June 2012. 3. BACKGROUND Although the certification was originally foreseen to cover both ring-netters and drift-netters, there are no drift-netters who are currently members of CSMA. The main season for the fishery for ring-netters is August to January/February. Fishing takes place during the night, and the ring-net is deployed to encircle schools of sardines which are located by echo-sounder. The skippers of ring-netting vessels are skilled at distinguishing the species by the echo-sounder shape and pattern, and are able to identify dense shoals of sardines. The ring-net is small mesh to avoid, as far as possible, the sardines becoming trapped in the mesh which would reduce quality. The size of the net depends on the size of the vessel, but is approximately 250m long by 30m deep. All vessels are under-16m and normally carry a crew of 3-4 including the skipper. The fishery operates entirely within the six-mile limit, and is therefore subject to management by byelaws made by the Cornwall Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority (CIFCA). Under these rules, ring-netters are limited to 18.23m in overall length (Purse Seine and Ring Nets byelaw – enacted 7th April, 1997.) 4. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS 4.1. MEMBERSHIP OF CSMA As of June 2012 there were five fishing vessel members of CSMA, with the remainder of the membership made up of processors and honorary members such as CIFCA (see Table 1). Table 1. Current members of CSMA, June 2012 Category Vessel/ Organisation Name/Contact Fishers (Ring White Heather Stefan Glinski Netters) Pride of Cornwall Stefan Glinski Galwad-y-Mor Peter Blamey Resolute Ocean Fish/Andrew 2438R02A| MacAlister Elliott and Partners Ltd. 3 First Surveillance Visit – Report for the Cornish sardine fishery Lakeman Processors Falfish Mark Greet Ocean Fish Andrew Lakeman Trelawney Fish, Newlyn Godfrey Adams Honorary Independent (Statistical Analysis) Peter Ghey Members CIFCA Simon Cadman MMO Justin Williams This is a significant reduction in membership from the previous CSMA members list (see Annex 1) which originally included 17 fishing members (6 ring-netters and 11 drift-netters). It is estimated that there are an additional 3 other ring-netters operating out of Newlyn or Plymouth that are not CSMA members, and 3 ring-netters in Mevagissey who have converted from drift-nets to ring-nets. One ring-netter that had converted from drift-netting was shipwrecked in December 2011 with the tragic loss of one crew member. There are therefore, overall, around 10 ring-netters targeting sardines which is in an increase from last year and may explain the larger catches (see below), since ring-nets can catch larger quantities than drift nets. There were, in addition, three drift-netters fishing in July/August last year, but as noted above, drift-netters have in the main lost the market to ring-netters (Rob Preston, Chair of Mevagissey Fisheries Association, Pers. Comms, 14th June 2012). The total number of vessels is still within the CSMA limit of 20 vessels, although the association can obviously only control numbers and activities of their members. A letter has been sent out to all past members explaining that only sardines caught by CSMA members are eligible to be considered MSC certified (see Letter dated 8th June 2012 in Annex 2). 4.2. 2011-2012 STATISTICS A key element of the Client Action Plan was the introduction of new logbooks to record detailed information on catch, retained by-catch and discarded by-catch. As reported in the first annual surveillance audits, these log-books have been introduced and continue to be used, although some reporting issues remain, also noted in the 2011 surveillance report. During the first audit it was noted that not all CSMA members were completing log-books. This has now become a requirement of membership. Around the same vessels are reporting as last year (4 vessels last year, 5 vessels this year), which is useful for continuity of data but does not give an overall picture of the Cornish sardine fleet. Those that were not reporting last year have not renewed their CSMA membership and so are no longer part of the Unit of Certification (UoC) for the MSC-certified fishery. In addition, some of those reporting this year did not report consistently. For instance Little Pearl did not report in September 2011, and Resolute had a break in reporting following a skipper change between 17th August and 9th November 2011. 2438R02A| MacAlister Elliott and Partners Ltd. 4 First Surveillance Visit – Report for the Cornish sardine fishery 4.3. CATCH DATA This section briefly summarises the data as produced by CSMA for their Annual Audit report (Report and Statistics for June 2011-June 2012 Season). Total sardine catch for CSMA members for the 2011/12 season, and total catches of sardines for Cornwall as recorded by the Marine Management Organisation (MMO), are given in Table 2. CSMA suspect that there may have been some misreporting of herring to MMO as sardines (however this does not apply to this fishery). The figures show that overall sardine catches increased during the 2011/12 season compared to 2010/11. Catches increased both within and outside of the association, with CSMA representing a slightly lower proportion of the overall catch compared with last year. It should be noted that sardine catches are likely to be highly variable from year to year. Table 2. MMO records of total sardine catch in Cornwall and Plymouth (June 2011 to April 2011), tonnes Cornwall Plymouth Total Cornwall Catch source 2011/12 2011/12 2011/12 2010/11 Total Catch (MMO Data) 3395.7 423.8 3819.5 1942 Total Catch CSMA members 2212.7 - 2212.7 1399 CSMA catch as a proportion of 65% 58% 72% MMO recorded catch Retained species were analysed by CSMA based on log-book data, and no main retained species1 were found (Figure 1). This compares to last year where anchovies formed 5.46% of the catch, and herring 4.20%. The presence of these species in Cornish waters varies significantly from year to year. Discards were very low this year. Last year (2010/11), discards were recorded to be 2.92% of total catches (around 46,900 kg of discards in total). Many of these discards were small sardines below the CSMA size limit. This year, the only reported discards were 2,000 kg of sprats, released through slipping the net (less than 0.1% of total catch). According to the CSMA Chairman’s Report (25th May 2012, Annex 3), this season (2011/12) was a particularly good year for sardines, with very large sardines present. Around 95% of the sardines were large fish (7-10 individuals per kilo) and very few were of the smaller sizes (12- 20/kilo) appeared.