Angling hit by DEFRA cuts

[Greenheart]

Just got this message from the Countryside Alliance.
Never would have guessed that Angling was the UKs biggest participant sport, judging by the support it gets from Government!!!

Angling hit by DEFRA cuts

Defra’s quiet announcement that their grant to the Environment Agency for fisheries management will be cut from £6.3 million to £5.9 million in 2006/7 raises questions about how angling rates in the Government’s list of priorities. £250,000 will be lost from the EA’s Salmonid Improvement Project and £150,000 cut from fish movement enforcement at a time when fish smuggling and disease are a growing issue.

Anglers themselves funded the EA to the tune of over £18.5 million in 2004/5 through the purchase of rod licences. The Government’s reward for such a massive contribution? A 5.9% cut in the fisheries grant.

This would be merely annoying if Defra was an efficient department eking out its budget in the best interests of the countryside, but as we know that is far from reality. This is after all the department which is overseeing the disastrous introduction of Single Farm Payments. There has to be a suspicion that fishermen are paying the price for the failings of the Rural Payments Agency.

There is also a lesson here for anglers, and angling organisations, as a whole. Of course we must all have a relationship with the Government, but if that precludes active criticism then it has become too close.

When hard decisions have to be made the first cut will come where there is least resistance, and the last where there is most. The EA is not alone in having its Defra funding cut but would the fisheries management budget have been hit quite so hard had 1.2 million rod licence holders been more united, vocal and resolute?

[baitmaster]

now i,m not really into politics of fishing but this is my out look on what i see in the simplest terms of why we do not get heard and cuts are the way its will continue to go

trouble is fisherman are so fragmented in what they like to do whether its game ,sea ,or coarse they have there own agenda,s for what they want from there part of the sport without a consideration for the other.
until such a time when sea, game and coarse anglers all start talking to each other and showing a united front they will all way be a minority in there own part of the sport
this is even truer in course fishing when the anglers are more fragmented into match, predator, carp, and pleasure groups and once again they have there own agenda,s and while this goes on you will just see further cuts as we are treated a a minority and therefore not taking seriously
but yet its reckonised that if just the angler who have to buy a licensed to fish got together to shout under one voice they are a formidable force to be reckon with
and thats with out the angler who enjoy the sport but do not have to buy a license and thats not there fault they don,t have to ,but some purist insist they should do . just another example silly in fighting .
another example was the debate over our fish be taken from are waters for the table not all groups of the sport was in support of action why cause it did not affect there part of the sport .
but sadly we live in the real word its great to think what could be achieved
but until the groups do talk to each other all you will see is a few try to change things but will not have the backing of all anglers and for us to achieve anything that has to be achieved in the sport its self .


tightlines
kevin