Industrial fishing of Sprat & Juvenile Fish

Discussion Document – Jan 2025

The current overfishing of sprat has huge implications for coastal communities around Ireland…. Here’s a discussion document from Jan 2025 that outlines the situation…

In 2024 the industrial fishing for sprat has continued unabated. Figures mentioned suggest that the last 4 years see catch levels close to or exceeding 15k tons per year.

Court action has resulted in the revoking of Sea Fishing Boat Policy – Policy Directive 1/2019.

The Department is currently assessing the more that 5000 replies to the most recent public consultation and it is envisaged that there will be a new policy directive published in time.

In the meantime, industrial fishing for sprat continues at an increasing level:

                                                                (journal.ie)

Ireland has a legal obligation under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) to ensure our waters are of “good environmental status” by:

• Biological diversity is maintained. The quality and occurrence of habitats and the distribution and abundance of species are in line with prevailing physiographic, geographic and climatic conditions.
• Populations of all commercially exploited fish and shellfish are within safe biological limits, exhibiting a population age and size distribution that is indicative of a healthy stock.
• All elements of the marine food webs, to the extent that they are known, occur at normal abundance and diversity and levels capable of ensuring the long-term abundance of the species and the retention of their full reproductive capacity.

The Failed Policy Directive

The failed policy directive 1/2019 addressed these obligations to some extent by excluding +18m boats from 1/1/2020. There was to be a limited fishery for +18m  boats for a period:

“This Policy Directive provides that vessels over 18m LOA (Length Overall) will be excluded from trawling activity inside six nautical miles, including inside the baselines, from 1 January 2020.

Without prejudice to an existing licence condition restricting access to this zone, Polyvalent and RSW Pelagic Vessels over 18m LOA targeting sprat shall be permitted to operate trawl or seine nets inside the six nautical mile zone, including inside the baselines, up to and including 31 December 2021 subject to the following catch limits;

A total allowable catch up to 2,000 tonnes of sprat will be permitted for over 18m LOA vessels inside 6 nautical miles and the baselines during 2020, reducing to 1,000 tonnes in 2021, with all trawling activity by over 18m LOA vessels inside six nautical miles, including inside the baselines, being entirely curtailed from 2022 onwards.”

The failed policy directive recognised:

 “These measures aim to provide ecosystem benefits, including for nursery areas and juvenile fish stocks. They are also intended to facilitate the further sustainable development of the small scale inshore and the sea-angling sectors which strongly rely on inshore waters”

While a new Policy Directive may eliminate +18M boats from the inshore sprat fishery it will not address the alarming biodiversity loss of sprat. Many of the boats now engaging in the practice of industrial fishing (not for human consumption) are in the under 18M category. The industrially caught sprat are processed into fish meal/oil and this is largely exported to Scotland for further processing to be utilised in the salmon farming sector (Citation required?)

What can be done now?

What measures can the government take to eliminate the large-scale overfishing of sprat and the protection of the species (Fish, birds, cetaceans not to mention coastal communities) that are dependant on sprat as a forage fish important in the marine food chain? Sprat are being fished at a rate that far greater than ICES recommends.

 The government has an obligation:

“Member States should then establish and implement programmes of measures which are designed to achieve or maintain good environmental status in the waters concerned, while accommodating existing Community and international requirements and the needs of the marine region or subregion concerned. Those measures should be devised on the basis of the precautionary principle…”

Options include:

• Put a new Policy Directive in place (needs to be done at a faster pace)
• Assess the impact of the fishery on all areas – biodiversity, economic and social. In this case the Precautionary Principle would mean that fishing should immediately stop until the environmental impact can be assessed and the stock can be assessed.
• Impose a quota (As they had planned to do in in 1/2019) (Why has no quota been put in place since 2020?)
• Preclude the industrial fishing for sprat. A “human consumption” fishery only
• Amend the Wildlife Act 1976 to include sprat and forage fish

The Precautionary Principle:

EU fisheries are governed by the precautionary principle in order to limit the impact of fishing activities on the marine ecosystem.

The precautionary principle is an approach to risk management, where, if it is possible that a given policy or action might cause harm to the public or the environment and if there is still no scientific agreement on the issue, the policy or action in question should not be carried out. 

Attached :

MSFD

Policy Directive 01/2019

Ices advice – Sprat

Link Journal.ie  https://www.thejournal.ie/net-loss-sprat-fishing-5636859-Dec2021/