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.