Tories Back Sea Anglers in Fish Stocks Battle

[Fishing Forum Admin]

Tories Back Sea Anglers in Fish Stocks Battle
The Scotsman - Edinburgh,Scotland,UK

Tories Back Sea Anglers in Fish Stocks Battle

By Amanda Brown, PA Environment Correspondent

The Conservatives today pledged to help around one million anglers in their attempts to stop over-fishing of the UK’s fragile marine stocks.

Owen Paterson, shadow fisheries minister, was launching a party policy document at Looe in Cornwall promising to take “full account of the needs of recreational sea fishing, limiting commercial activity if necessary to ensure that those needs are met�.

The party said that if it wins the General Election it will “create a stable and equitable framework for the fishing and allied industries, including the recreational fishing sector and tourism, which would generally protect the interests of the United Kingdom�.

The National Federation of Sea Anglers said the document reflected much of its advice.

Chairman Ted Tuckerman said: “We are urging all political parties to recognise that men, women and children recreational anglers in the UK are an important and profitable sector of the fishing industry and their needs warrant equal consideration with those of the commercial sector.

“We want to work with whoever forms the next government to reverse the damage inflicted on valuable fish stocks by years of poor management decisions taken solely in the interests of commercial fishing and often to the detriment of sea anglers.�

The NFSA said that in the last year the value of sea angling to coastal economies had become widely recognised in government and parliament after vigorous lobbying.

Mr Tuckerman said: “The Government is now seriously listening to our demands to protect and rebuild fish stocks to benefit sea anglers.

“We have briefed the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative parties. Now the Labour Party is asking us for advice.�

Conservative proposals for sea angling licenses would only be supported by the NFSA if there was clear, unambiguous evidence that they would benefit sea angling and not be just a tax.

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[John Marshall]

Lets wait and see, my bet no action but pay the fee.

[upnorth1]

Well, I'm a little sceptical about this one...political parties ALWAYS say they're gonna do one thing and do the complete opposite.

Don't worry about them M.P.'s, they'll have done their homework alright!

They'll have how much, when, where, and why's all worked out.

Butter the federations up, maybe a small donation, as a good will gesture, I think they call them 'backhanders', just to get them on side (which I hope by the way the NFSA would see straight through it, wouldn't they?), hopefully the NFSA aren't that naive !

Until I see A COMPLETE BAN ON COMMERCIAL FISHING (and remember, this ban doesn't have to be forever, just let the fish stocks build, to a reasonable, ACCEPTABLE, level, and then MANAGE IT - PROPERLY), I will not have any faith in what ANY political party have to say...

[Rob M]

Cheap, desperate electioneering tactics by a political dinosaur. They figured 'hmm 1 million + anglers? Thats a lot of votes' They'll try anything I hate discussing my politics out loud, but I grew up in a mining village (incidentally just south of Paul's home town of Sunderland) and the cuts still run deep

Rob

[DownSouth]

Desperate the dinosaur is. Today a Tory MP jumped ship to Labour. With Howard at the helm we'll be voting back a Thatcher government.

Christ, that's stuff of nightmares....

Howard has no hope. He even used the tsunami disaster to try and score political points over Blair. How low do they descend? I can't take the man to his word (Blair's either to be honest), and he'd forget about sea anglers by the time his next Dover Sole was served up on the Friday after election day. At least Blair has a bunch of MP's who will give him a bloody nose if he try's to step too far out of line.

No one gives a s==t about fish stocks, well, no one with any real power to change things, and the great British educated public turn a blind eye, cos, well "it doesn't make any difference to us, we only eat fish on Friday and what damage can that do to all those cod swimming about in the sea, and if we couldn't get fish, we could have pigs trotters instead, or a chinky or someit, know what I mean, like"...

Sadly it's too late IMO. I think the point of no return has been passed, it just a matter of time now until the inevitable happens. Maybe a million sea anglers marching into Parliament Square might kick ass, but let's face it, it's never going to happen is it. Monday to Friday were working and the weekends were desperately bloody fishing for the last depleted stocks.

Sorry for the rant, but I like to air my politics in public

[Fishing Forum Admin]

Maybe a million sea anglers marching into Parliament Square might kick ass

You just never know

I try and keep my thoughts out of the forum but I have had it up to the eye balls

I know there are loads great people trying to help but lets just face it , if people like us have had enought what should we do ?

On this forum
there are loads of people with ideas plus marketing / web design / database / local connections / PR and the list goes on

So what shall WE DO

because it is not working so far

Sorry guys just have had it up to the eye balls - its all join our club (money )and we will sort it ect but NO

Between us, we can hit every media going

OK - said my bit but what do you think sit there and say this is wrong or kick some s--t

[DownSouth]

Rich,

A great idea, but:

The biggest problem that would face us is the need to have a "legitimate" organisation to back us. I have put the words "legitimate" in quotes because we could become that organisation given enough support, but organising something like this takes a lot of resource, hence my comment about us all working Mon-Fri and fishing at the weekend above. Even though said tongue-in-cheek, there was a serious note underlining that.

We are a forum of 600+ members (which is no mean feat in itself) but how many ACTIVE members/posters are we? I know this all sounds negative, but better to get negatives out of the way first in my book before moving onto the positives. I hate it when a group has a great idea and we all go, yeah, brilliant, let's do it, and then for it all to burn out. It leaves me feeling deflated. So to deal with that I have built this strategy that stacks up all the downsides and deals with them first. If I get past that, then I'm excited....

That makes me sound like a miserable b'stard, but as you know, I'm not. I'll happily do the photo shoots and campaigns and pay for the film stock and processing

Over to the rest of you (but give me a list of negatives to knock down first)

[upnorth1]

The govt. have already said that they will recognise NO-ONE but the NFSA - so maybe we should back the NFSA, I know they lobby parliament, but maybe they should do more - a march would gain media coverage - BUT - how many sea anglers are prepared to go to London, and march? out of all the sea anglers in the country, IMO, it wouldn't even make the news!

BUT, lets try and do SOMETHING, for God's sake, and i'm guilty of this too, we just sit back and take it.

TIME FOR CHANGE...

[upnorth1]

A petition with a MILLION names.... mmm.... interesting...

What d'ya think?

[DownSouth]

The NFSA have no lobby power - they like to think so, but they are not even an irritating itch to the government. Their problem is funding and resource.

How many of us are individual members of the NFSA? Not many I suspect. When I joined I waited 5 weeks for my membership details to arrive. Getting a bit fed up with waiting I phoned their offices to talk to the Membership Secretary, only to find out he was an official doing "so many jobs that he didn't get time to deal with membership"...

FFS, what hope have they of being seen as a professionally run organisation. To co-ordinate and run something as big as this needs serious funding, systems and management. Paul is right, the logical way forward is to support the NFSA and pay membership fees, but out of the 1,000,000 sea anglers I believe only 14,000 are members and at £17 a year membership that gets gobbled up pretty quickly no doubt.

Now imagine a million members paying £17. The NFSA would be more than an irritating itch!