THE EUROPEAN ANGLERS ALLIANCE
Report from the West Region June 2004


Sudden Death of Tony O'Leary

It is with deep sadness that I report the untimely passing of Tony O'Leary, Conservation Officer of the Irish Federation of Sea Anglers. Up until his passing Tony had been doing great work for sea angling on behalf of IFSA and in the Sea Sub-group of EAA. He will be sorely missed.


Meetings

The last meeting of the Region took place at the General Assembly in Dinant, Belgium however due to lack of time we were unable to complete the agenda. The report of the meeting along with the report of the General Assembly is attached.


Report from the Board

1. Financial Issues

1.1 Contract Jan Kappel.
With effect from 1st August 2004, JK Consulting, (the company of Jan Kappel) will be offered a new contract by both EFTTA and EAA. It will be a rolling contract with a six-month notice of termination subject to satisfactory performance.

1.2 Office
EFTTA have agreed to share office facilities with EAA subject to a maximum cost to them of €10,000. The office should be completely furnished with up-to-date communications, computer and receptionist facilities with the contract commencing at the same time as that with JK Consulting. JK is presently researching available space.

1.3 Budget
A revised budget will be circulated shortly that will reflect the proposed changes to the contract of JK Consulting and the hire of office facilities.


2. Revising the Statutes of EAA

2.1 Secretary General
The Board aims to change the Statutes at the next General Assembly to allow for the election of a new position of Secretary General on the Board. The election procedure for the position would be similar to that for the positions of President and Treasurer and would be for a term of 3 years.

The SG would be responsible for the following tasks.
· Implementing the policy of EAA.
· Co-ordinating the actions of EAA (including lobbying)
· Communications
· Administration
· Accounts

The SG must be in a position to attend at the EAA office on 2 days or 3 half days per week for which he would receive an allowance for his costs of €24,000 per year. He would also have up to €6,000 available to him to hire consultancy services as necessary. In the meantime the Board has asked Chris Poupard to take on the responsibility of SG until the next GA. In the meantime national organizations and regions are being asked to come up with names of potential candidates for the position. These will be discussed at the next regional meetings and recommendations made to the Board before its next meeting in mid-September.


3. New subscription scheme

The working party on subscription fees has held one meeting and has made recommendations to change to a scheme that includes a fixed fee adjusted for the national GDP factor and a per capita charge. This was felt as a fairer system than the present one however it was recognized that it was impossible to come up with a scheme that would suit all countries, East and West, large and small. The board has asked the working party to look again at the scheme and to apply the GDP factor to the fixed fee as well as the per capita fee for the East European countries and also to apply a different per capita charge for the larger countries e.g. France and Germany and €0.01 instead of €0.015.


4. EAA Strategy

4.1 Web site
The updated web site is now ready and will be made public on 1st July. It will have pages for public viewing as well as password-protected pages for members. A daily news feed is planned which will allow members to access items of interests a lot faster. A Newsletter is planned to announce the launch of the website.

4.2 Lobby Support
JK has arranged meetings between member organisations and the EU Commission on a number of occasions in the past year. One such meeting resulted in the Commission taking a case against Ireland on a water quality issue. It is only fair that EAA should get some credit for achievements like this and will be asking members for this in future. 4.3 EAA Promotion The Board has suggested that the EAA logo should be on all our member's web sites and also on their stationary. A draft motto is planned e.g. "for fish, the environment and anglers".


5. Socio-economic benefits of angling - RECFISH Project

John Crudden (JC) reported meeting 3 people from the EU Commission on 3 different occasions in the previous month. On each occasion he introduced the RECFISH project and was advised to seek partners to advance it. JK reported that IUCN, the world conservation union, has offered itself as a partner and has started to lobby support for the project. We would need to be careful that our needs would not be watered down by a more powerful organisation. Bernard Breton (BB) reported that the European Inland Fisheries Advisory Commission (EIFAC) has a working group dealing with the socio-economic aspects of freshwater fisheries. They could be potential partners as well. Another possible partner could be the World Tourism Organisation. JK reported that the EU Commission would shortly announce the tender for a socio-economic study on the value of recreational fishing at sea.


6. Updates

6.1 Regional Advisory Councils
The EU Commission has now agreed the terms of reference for the establishment of the RAC's. We still don't know how many seats we will get on each. The total number of seats has been increased to up to 28, however, allowing for a representative from the catching sector from each country with an interest in a particular region that could leave only 4 seat for environment/angling sector. The North Sea shadow RAC is up and running. Our representative on it is Jan Willem Wijnstroom, Netherlands. There are at least 3 other candidates willing to represent us in the North Sea region, Yvind Fjeldseth, Norway, H kan Carlstrand, Sweden and Peter Mohnert, Germany. So far there are no candidates from any other region.

6.2 Cormorants
The REDCAFE report has created tensions since it was published. Some countries are using the findings in the report as a basis to do nothing about the problem. The base figure of 150,000 birds is being quoted as the total number of birds. EAA will produce figures by the end of this year to show that the total figure has passed the 1,000,000 mark. The EU does not mind if the we have a cormorant population of 10,000,000 but they do care if we can show that they are doing harm to a protected species so this may be the way we approach the problem in future.

6.3 Eels
The collapse of the eel has created a big debate at EIFAC. Stock levels have been declining since 1980 and they are now at an all time low. The EU is being asked to do something urgently but the question is what. The problem seems to be at the glass eel stage when they are at sea. Our first priority should be to get it on the IUCN "Red list". We should ask EAA Holland to lobby their government during the Dutch Presidency. Possible collaborators in this could be the commercial eel sector there. In Ireland a 4-year study has just been completed on behalf of the government. The report, which has not yet been published, found that stocks are in decline but the situation is not as bad as elsewhere.

There are 3 reasons for this
(1) low level of exploitation,
(2) good natural juvenile recruitment due to our Western European location,
(3) slow eel growth in our waters due to lower summer water temperatures.

The report suggests a number of factors for the decline including over-fishing at all life stages, barriers to migration, habitat deterioration, pollutants, parasite infestation and climate change. In the UK the Environment Agency and DEFRA have been urged to introduce immediate protection measures to reduce exploitation, however these have largely been ignored. In Germany the national organisations have rejected the eel resolution preferring instead to heed their own scientific advice and implement their own protection programme. The French are looking for a complete ban on the fishing for glass eel but they are experiencing a lot of opposition to this.


7. Reports

7.1 NASCO
CP reported that the NASCO conference in Iceland would debate a proposed review of its structure. The present structure cannot deal effectively with today's problems affecting salmon. The US, Canada and Norway are in support of the proposal while the EU has adopted a wait and see approach.

7.2 EIFAC
Report BB reported that EIFAC has established a new working party to implement a code of practice for recreational angling in Europe under his chairmanship. A contact has been nominated in each country and a draft document will be circulated in December. A questionnaire will be attached seeking data on illegal fishing (all species). Closer co-operation with EIFAC including regular meetings will happen over the next year.

7.3 EurOcean 2004
The marine science and ocean technology conference was held in Galway, Ireland from 10th to 13th May. The theme of the conference was "communicating science and sustainable development". 550 people attended, 70% of them were from the scientific community with the remaining 30% being government representatives and stakeholders. EAA, represented by John Crudden, attended the conference so that we could observe and report on the proceedings but mainly to promote EAA (short meeting with Giles Ollier, EU Commission).

During the conference the EU Commission announced the proposed headings for the 7th Research Framework Programme (2007-2010). These are: Collaborative Research, Competition in Basic Research, Technology Platforms, Human Resources, Research Infrastructures and Enhanced Coordination.

7.4 Biodiversity and the EU.
This conference was held in Dublin to discuss the loss of biodiversity in the EU and to set out the targets that must be achieved to halt the loss by 2010.

7.5 Water Framework Directive
A conference and workshop organised by the Dept of the Marine on the implementation of the WFD was held in Ireland on 2nd/3rd June. The 120 delegates heard speakers from the EU Commission, the Environment Agency in the UK, the Dept of the Marine and Central Fisheries Board in Ireland deliver papers on its implementation under the theme " challenges and opportunities for Irish Fisheries". The main focus was on Irish issues however a number of comments may have relevance for EAA. The Minister for the Marine stated that the Irish Government were seeking a derogation from the Nitrates Directive which would allow Irish farmers to spread up to double the figure set out in the directive (EAA Ireland has already submitted that no derogation should be allowed). Helmut Bloech from the EU Commission stated that funding for the WFD would come under CAP. Agriculture policy was crucial to its implementation and the compliance of the farming community was a precondition of receiving payment under decoupling. Stephen Colclough from the EA in London delivered an excellent paper on the theme of "fish in transitional waters". On the pressures affecting fish in transition waters he said that the salt marsh is probably the best fish nursery ever but they are almost all lost and hydro power stations are killing 50 tons of migrating fish each every year.


8. General Assembly 2005

8.1 Location
Denmark has agreed to host the next General Assembly. It will be held in Kolding in Jutland. The date and costs have yet to be announced.

8.2 Motions to the GA
The papers for the Assembly must be distributed 2 months in advance so notification of motions will need to be made 3 months in advance. In the event of an emergency motion being proposed the Assembly can decide to accept it or not.

8.3 Presidential Election
At the last GA, Harm Minekus announced that he would be standing down as President at the next Assembly. Nominations for the position must reach the Board before the next meeting due mid-September following which they will announce a recommendation. Region South has already indicated that Bernard Breton, France will be their nomination. The Board expects that each region will nominate a candidate.


9. Sea Sub-group Report

As previously announce I indicated that I would issue a sub-group report every 2 months and I called for a report from each country involved. To date I have had no correspondence. Once again I am asking for a national report and hope to deliver my report by end of June.


10. Next Regional Meeting

We will need to hold a Regional before the next Board meeting which is due to take place on 17th/18th September. Among the items on the agenda will be the proposed change to the Statutes, nominations for President, promoting EAA, new resolutions, cormorant problem, new subscription scheme, SG's contract, EAA strategy etc. Just an idea perhaps we could organise the meeting with a meeting of the Rivers Sub-group.



Report by John Crudden 11th June 04

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