Stricter quotas, better regulation, no-take zones. The scientific consensus on what needs to be done to maintain troubled fish stocks of the Mediterranean is clear. So is the need for substantive action with 95% of all fish stocks in the region overfished, according to the European Scientific Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries.
But Shipping Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis apparently has no need of such fancy notions as ‘scientific data’ and has decided simply to ignore reality. A draft law titled ‘Tourist vessels and other provisions’ submitted by the Minister to parliament includes an article that would entirely eliminate the need for licenses for amateur fishermen, thus turning an already poorly regulated activity into a completely unregulated one.
Much like hunting licenses, the number of amateur fishing licenses is normally restricted to prevent overfishing. But the Minister is entirely unconcerned with this potential downside, seeing the world through exceptionally rosy glasses. Speaking over the weekend at the inauguration of the ‘Outdoor Expo 2014,’ of amateur hunters and fishermen he said, “These two groups are above all friends of the environment and this is a fair assessment in my opinion.”
That must have come as news to the 11 environmental NGOs that were quick to condemn the Minister’s move, issuing a joint statement registering their ‘particular concern and surprise’. “This will dangerously worsen the present situation where incidents of overfishing, illegal fishing and destructive practices are many. We are therefore moving towards the collapse of stocks and the further degradations of the marine natural ecosystem”
While amateur fishermen will still be required to abide by multiple regulations and quotas, given that they will not need to undergo any training whatsoever before taking to the seas, it is unclear if they will actually know what these are. Meanwhile checks by a Coast Guard that is stretched thin are few and far between. Furthermore even if everyone does abide by the rules, the authorities will still have absolutely no way of knowing how many people are actively fishing and how big their takes are.
This comes at a time when strict EU regulations are coming into force requiring traditional commercial fishermen to fit expensive systems to improve monitoring. This is part of the Common Fisheries Policy of the European Union which requires member states to monitor catches. Yet the ability of the government to do this will now effectively go out the window with the elimination of licensing, as the unmonitored amateur fishermen will be more than capable of causing significant depletion to stocks, particularly locally in areas with high tourist traffic in the summer.
“We are not talking about one man with a fishing rod,” Dimitris Zannes told TPPi, a local fisherman from the island of Andros and a former President of the Confederation of Fishing Associations in the Southern Aegean. “We are talking about people who have fast boats with big engines and sophisticated equipment on board including fish finders, lots of lines and motorized systems. This is highly productive fishing and there are no checks on who takes what. We are against this measure and anyone with the slightest idea about the sea would be against it.”
Furthermore, Mr Zannes points out, Mr Varvitsiotis is wading into an issue over which his ministry does not have competency. Fish stock management is an issue for the Ministry of Agriculture, not Shipping. Yet the Agriculture Minister has been notably silent over the matter even while he compels struggling traditional fishermen to spend about 6,000 euros to implement the new monitoring systems.
While Mr Varvitsiotis’s stated goal is to boost tourism by making it easier for visitors to go on fishing holidays, Mr Zannes believes that this will come at the expense of traditional fishermen who are already on the brink due to increased costs and stock depletion from overfishing (largely from large industrial vessels). And while fishing tourism could have been a lifeline providing supplementary income for traditional fishermen with regulatory changes, Mr Varvitsiotis is effectively giving the prize elsewhere.
“This favours the companies renting recreational boats. It means that every recreational boat can now be considered a fishing boat.”
The justification given by the Ministry for the change is that it will eliminate an unnecessary bureaucracy that is burdensome for both amateur fishermen and the Coast Guard alike, allowing the authorities to focus their attention elsewhere.
In other words, because the authorities are finding it difficult to enforce or reform out-dated regulations, the Minister simply decided to do away with them. Perhaps in the future if the traffic police find themselves similarly overworked, the state can implement Mr Varvitsiotis’s logic and do away with the need for drivers licenses as well.
Meanwhile Mr Varvitsiotis can also explain to the businesses looking to promote diving holidays how Greece will soon be able to market great underwater views of big, empty seas.