NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE
Our observation of industrial scale fishing which must be devastating stocks of the west coast of Ireland continues.
We started a week ago tracking the activity of the Margaris, the second largest trawler in the world, actually trawler is a misnomer as this leviathan of the sea not only catches the fish but processes it at the rate of hundreds of tonnes a day.
As Margaris left Donegal the world’s largest ‘trawler’ Annelies Ilena arrived in the area and again it’s has a monstrous capacity of 250 tonnes a day it can process.
We advised as well that the Annelies Ilena had ‘form’ having been fined earlier this year for illegal fishing practices.
We had assumed that Margaris had filled her holds and left the area but today (as this report is compiled 6:00pm Tuesday 17th November) the two vessels are of the North Connemara coast and they have been joined by another large super trawler the (German flagged) Jan Maria a real ‘villain of the sea’.
He is an extract from a Greenpeace Netherlands report from two years ago:
“On March 28, 2013, Greenpeace Netherlands lodged a legal complaint with the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authorities (NVWA) against the Dutch fishing company Parlevliet & Van Der Plas, beneficial owner of the vessel. Greenpeace was given two parallel log books that show that this super trawler belonging to Parlevliet discarded 1.5 million kilo of dead herring during a fishing trip lasting only three weeks last year. Fishing vessels such as this are obliged to provide all catch data in an official logbook. This is to ensure that that company sticks to fishing quotas. Greenpeace acquired the official and one unofficial log book from a whistleblower, who formally worked on the super trawler ‘Jan-Maria’ as second mate. The logbooks show that the official figures have been tampered with. “On several occasions, over one hundred thousand kilos of fish per day were not registered in the actual official documents, but visible in the unofficial document.”
There’s a video, appropriately entitled WILD WEST AT SEA, which shows the falsified or double log books – so much for EU fisheries policy (see link the video is Dutch language but with sub titles):
https://zembla.vara.nl/seizoenen/2013/afleveringen/16-05-2013/extras/wild-west-at-sea/
Yesterday we urged the Irish government to act obviously whilst industrial fishing on this scale will devastate fishing grounds off the west of Ireland the situation has a knock on effect to the eco-system of all the sea areas around the British Isles.
Ironically others countries including third world countries such as Mauritania one of the poorest countries in Africa have had the sense to ban these trawlers meanwhile the EU ‘sits on its thumbs’ over the issue!
Related link:
https://www.celticleague.net/news/sea-monster-moves-in-for-the-kill/
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BERNARD MOFFATT
Issued by: The Celtic News
17/11/15
THE CELTIC LEAGUE INFORMATION SERVICE
The Celtic League established in 1961 has branches in the six Celtic Countries. It promotes cooperation between the countries and campaigns on a range of political, cultural and environmental matters. It highlights human rights abuse, military activity and socio-economic issues