NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE
With communities up the west coast of Ireland and Scotland battening down the hatches the seafarers on that sea leviathan of a trawler the Margaris are still working it seems off the west of Donegal. It would seem that even a force 9 gale is not enough to deter the second largest trawler in the world. (See our earlier story):
https://www.facebook.com/805941286121301/photos/a.806379472744149.1073741828.805941286121301/929984807050281/?type=3&theater
Additionally it looks as if fish stocks of the west of Ireland may be scheduled for an even greater battering as for the past few days we have been tracking the progress of a trawler even larger than Margaris as she heads down the Channel towards to south of Ireland.
The ANNELIES ILENA is currently south of Falmouth heading west. The massive trawler was previously Irish registered by Irish businessmen, Kevin McHugh and based at Killbegs. At one stage accounted it for one-third of the Ireland’s fishing capacity.
Dubbed locally the ‘Sea Monster’, there were concerns from an early stage over its large capacity with claims it would have an ‘unsustainable’ impact on the environment.
Despite the (then) Irish Marine Minister pronouncing its commissioning as one of the “proudest moments of the Irish fishing industry”, the ship was only permitted to sail in Irish waters for a very short period of the year. The European Commission also refused permission to avail of the existing agreements with non-EU states.
To get around this, the ship had to fish for nine months off the year off Mauritania, West Africa. However, five years later it was expelled from those waters.
It is now Dutch owned and has a crew of 60.
In 2013, it was detained by Irish authorities over allegedly taking part in a prohibited practice akin to discarding, where legal-sized but lower-value fish are ‘graded out’ and returned to the sea dead. They owners were eventually fined Euro 103,000.
The vessel was lost in Irish waters in January 2015 and if it is on its way to join Margaris in the waters of the west of Island both vessels will have a huge impact on available fish stocks.
Related link video inside ‘The Sea Monster’:
BERNARD MOFFATT
Issued by: The Celtic News
12/11/15
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