Transcription of Meeting Between Andrew Nicholson (Angling Times), John Eardley (CPWF), Peter Gough, David Mee and Ian Davidson (NRW) on 15 February 2018
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Transcription of meeting between Andrew Nicholson (Angling Times), John Eardley (CPWF), Peter Gough, David Mee and Ian Davidson (NRW) on 15 February 2018 1. Andrew For the tape and the transcript, could we all please introduce ourselves Nicholson – Peter? (AN) 2. Peter Gough Yes, my name is Peter Gough and I work with Natural Resources Wales (PG) 3. AN Ian? 4. Ian Davidson Yes, I am Ian Davidson and I am a Fisheries Biologist with Natural (ID) Resources Wales 5. David Mee I am David Mee, Senior Advisor with Natural Resources Wales (DM) 6. John Eardley John Eardley, I am with Gwynedd Local Fisheries Advisory Group, (JE) representative for Prince Albert. Not that I have got that hat on today but secretary to The Clwyd, Conwy & Gwynedd Rivers Trust and also now strategy officer for the Campaign for the Protection of Welsh Fisheries. 7. AN Ok thank you. My name is Andrew Nicholson, angling journalist, Angling News, consultant and also representing today Welsh Game Anglers Action Group. First of all gentlemen, we thank you for agreeing to the meeting and also for facilitating the room here in Shrewsbury which is 15 November. The purpose of, our part of the meeting is in relation to the NRW proposals. The Welsh angling community is in total despair, angry and distraught and at a loss as to why these proposals have come about and there are more questions than answers. The following questions are a collective from countless stakeholders, Angling Trust, bodies along with the main copy, list of game anglers throughout Wales, and very many hundreds that visit, holiday and fish in Wales. Many that travel from Europe and other countries. Today John and I are representing those anglers with their questions and statements along with one or two of our own. So I would like to start with the questions if I may gentlemen. The process and the promotion for the consultation is seen by many as seriously flawed. And it is not difficult to state that this was the fact as far as we are concerned of burying bad news. How many, the question is how many Welsh anglers actually read the London Gazette? That is the first question we would like to ask you. 18296037.1 8. PG Ok, you ready? 9. AN Yes, whenever it suits yourselves. 10. PG We have followed the procedure and the process as set down for managing the salmon stocks and for managing public consultations precisely so I take your point that not many people subscribe to the London Gazette but nevertheless that is a requirement placed on us to advertise it in that location and what we seek to do is to bring that to the attention of as many people as possible through existing stakeholder groups, use of our own website and publication in Welsh national newspapers as well. 11. AN Ok thank you for that. You stated that you emailed anglers with regard, the ones that you actually have the emails for, today we have John and I and all the rest of the groups I have spoken to are countless anglers and as yet they haven’t found an angler that received an email from you. How many anglers did you actually email? 12. PG Dave? 13. DM Uh it is around 360 I believe that we have email contacts for and importantly had also ticked the box that said to allow [uhm uhm] us to communicate with them. Ok lots of people obviously have been online, more requiring licences online and we have email addresses for but they had not importantly ticked the box where they are allowed to, and it was only of course anglers in Wales. 14. AN Thank you for that. The question that everybody is asking is that surely to alert all the anglers of the forthcoming proposals, would it not have been easiest because basically you have the address of every single angler to put a slip of paper when they get their licence and you would have told everybody that the proposals were due. Wouldn’t that have been the sensible thing to do and the democratic way forward? 15. PG Well the logistics of doing that at the Post Office including anything out of the ordinary in the mailshot make it impossible to do that. We adopted the other approach which is for the previous two years in discussion with other fisheries groups, other associations and net fishing groups etc. we decided to communicate through that means instead. We treat our local fisheries group members as representatives of a jurisdiction, if you like, 18296037.1 2 a group of anglers and we expect and hope and ask for them to communicate messages in that way. 16. AN Would you not concede though that you could have actually done better in alerting the general populous of the game angling groups to these proposals because there are some anglers today that don’t know anything about it? 17. PG Well there is always more that you could do. The question is how much is necessary to do that and the best use of public money etc. So we believe over a long, long time period using all the dissemination methods we have available to us that we contacted as many people as it was possible to do. 18. AN The major angling press would have run this for nothing but it didn’t appear in a lot of major angling press. 19. PG How something appears in the angling press [talking over each other]. 20. AN It has since when it comes to the attention of them but you did not actually alert them. 21. PG Well they were included in all press releases explaining what was happening when we started the consultation so the main angling magazines received those press releases or should have done at least. They were certainly sent to them. 22. AN OK 23. PG So whether or not they publish it is of course a matter for them. 24. AN Right ok well thank you for answering that one. Onto further questions, who exactly did you consult with to arrive at these proposals, which leading fishery scientists and experts along with consultants did you consult with? And where are the findings from your consultations? There has been a threat of catch and release at LFG meetings but this is not classified as consultation. We see these proposals as your own personal beliefs. 25. PG Well there is nothing personal in this. This is a professional relationship between ourselves and Welsh Government and their advisers so it is wrong to personalise this. We are following set procedures for stock 18296037.1 3 assessment which we would like to go through with you shortly and we follow those to the full extent of the operation of guidance and instructions that are set down. So Welsh Government charge us with managing this resource and we do so to the best of our ability. You know we are their public servants who carry out the role on their behalf. We do not accept that it is necessary to consult professionals because we are the professionals in this regard and anyway, the fisheries consultants around the country are all familiar with and indeed many of them were formative in a generation of procedures we follow. When we compile the technical case that you see in front of you there, and we debated this with the Environment Agency but we also submitted it to Welsh Government and they referred this to their technical advisers CEFAS. CEFAS carried out a peer review of that document and were very complimentary about it. 26. AN Ok 27. PG And we can provide you with the words that they provided to us if you wish. 28. AN We would appreciate that but emm 29. PG Dave, can you make a list of summary actions, the first action is to check with CEFAS that they are ok and Welsh Government were ok with that being made available. I see no reason why not but that is not our decision to make. 30. AN Ok we appreciate that but we would be interested to know if there were any outside consultants or fishery scientists that were brought into this that were not part of the organisation? In the Welsh Government 31. PG So the answer to that is that CEFAS are the professional advisers to the Environment Agency and to...sorry not to the Environment Agency, to DEFRA and to Welsh Government and they are also the national representative on international fora for salmon management 32. AN Ok thank you. What impact risk assessment survey has taken place not only on the entire angling community of Wales but the inevitable adverse effect it will have on angling tourism and the economy of Wales all of the social economics involved, we have not seen as yet any vital information on this matter. 18296037.1 4 33. PG We would refer you to the technical case where we deal with social economics having taken the advice of our social economists in compiling that material. 34. AN And this is the same organisation? 35. PG Yes, yes 36. AN So what scientific proof, evidence and research have you that banning worm will have the slightest effect in increasing stocks? Again, we would like some proof on this please. It is totally wrong to assume that anglers who fish the worm kill all the fish, in fact the reverse. The vast majority carefully return the salmon.