September 25, 2013 — MOST of us have become accustomed in recent years to a very gloomy narrative about the amount of harvestable fish in the waters around the UK. Egged on by chefs with a certain celebrity to sustain, academics, environmentalists and like-minded politicians have convinced the public that benighted, self-serving fishermen have emptied the seas of cod, haddock, mackerel – choose your species.
Stocks in the seas around Shetland are recovering well, but the men who know these waters are not free to look after them, writes Simon Collins, executive officer of Shetland Fishermen’s Association
MOST of us have become accustomed in recent years to a very gloomy narrative about the amount of harvestable fish in the waters around the UK. Egged on by chefs with a certain celebrity to sustain, academics, environmentalists and like-minded politicians have convinced the public that benighted, self-serving fishermen have emptied the seas of cod, haddock, mackerel – choose your species.
And the lesson of this beguilingly simple story? We might as well pack away our nets, tie up our boats and consign, in Shetland’s case, a third of our economy and centuries of community tradition to the history books.
There’s one problem with this narrative. It’s not true. I came to Shetland in January this year to work as executive officer for the Shetland Fishermen’s Association (SFA), which represents most of the vessels in the islands. Having worked in banking and translation (I ran my own business in a remote Alpine hamlet, Villard-sur-Doron, for a decade), I obviously have no background in the fishing industry. But I had reached the stage in my life when I wanted to work for something more meaningful – and the SFA offered me that opportunity.
Read the full story from Fishing For The Truth