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An introduction of
organic fishery - through the mobilisation of small-coastal
fisheries in 1998
During 1998, the aim is to mobilise
small-scale fisheries, through regular meetings, newsletters and
an international workshop, and thereby facilitate their
development of a self supporting, self regulating and organic
coastal fishery.
Organic fishery: In the autumn of 1997, the
Danish Ministry of Fisheries establishes a committee with the aim
of producing an action programme for the introduction of an
organic fishery in Denmark (law No. 233, 1996/97 concerning the
promotion of an organic conversion within fisheries).
Compared to The Marine Stewardship Council
Initiative by the World Wide Fund for Nature and Unilever
introducing a concept of a 'sustainable fishery', the 'organic
fishery' has further implications. An 'organic fishery' includes
the fishing, and trade and distribution. In the development of
management measures, criteria for utilisation of energy (both in
fishing and in the fish treatment), for protecting the social
milieu in the local, fishing communities and evidently the ecology
of the sea are necessary preconditions for the future 'organic
fishery'.
The situation
Djursland on the east-coast of Jutland has
two major fishing ports: Boennerup with 48 active fishing vessels
and Grenaa with 56 fishing vessels. More than 50% of the
registered vessels are carrying on a fishery that is characterised
as coastal fishing. At present, these vessels are selling their
fish in competition with the industrialised 'consume' fisheries.
The result has been that the daily catches of fresh fish of high
quality, in periods of large external supplies, has been unable to
obtain the minimum prizes and hence, has been destroyed.
This summer the largest fish firm in Grenaa,
Thorfisk shut down their fresh fish division, which effected the
discharging of 219 employees, mainly women. At present there are
no plans to re-open this important part of the local fish trade.
This negative development makes topical the need for new thinking
in the areas of treatment and distribution of fish on Djursland.
Notice, this development is by no means unique in Denmark, nor in
Europe.
The project aims at developing the necessary
basis for decision-making among the coastal fishermen, in order to
encourage the small-scale coastal fisheries to establish a trade
structure, e.g. in andelsselskaber (co-operative societies), or
trade partnerships, concerning the landing, the treatment and the
distribution of the fish in a company that can supply the nearby
markets with organic fish.
Besides the fishermen from Boennerup and
Grenaa, fishermen from Esbjerg, Thorsminde and Thorup Strand will
participate as the central partners in this project. In addition,
fishermen around the North Sea and Baltic Sea will be involved.
The project objectives
- To establish a national and international
network within the coastal fisheries.
- To raise the attention among the coastal
fishermen on the necessity and the advantages of a sustainable and
organic fishery.
- To have the active fishermen, working in
the coastal fishery, organise themselves in local trade structures
that make it possible to distribute fish products outside the
established highly industrialised systems of treatment and
distribution
- To raise the attention in the fishing
commerce and in the smaller industries on the necessity and the
advantages of the marketing of fish products from a sustainable
and organic coastal fishery.
- To raise the attention among the consumers
on the advantages in purchasing fish products from the small-scale
coastal fishery.
- To support the introduction of a blue
label for organic fish products that satisfy a set of organic
criteria and rules, laid down and controlled by the public
authorities.
SPECIFIC TASKS
To mobilise the small-scale coastal fishery
as the first fishing trade that reaches the status of an organic
fishery. The project will work with the development of criteria,
rules and control measures needed for the initiation of a legally
binding organic fishery. For this purpose, the project will work
toward introducing a blue label for organic fish. 75 % of the
participants in the project are active fishermen, and they shall
among other things supply the committee in the Ministry with ideas
and recommendations from the directly involved professionals.
Throughout the group will experiment with
fishing methods, and discuss the possibilities of the organic
fishing. These experiments and discussions will then be
distributed among coastal fishermen from other countries around
the North Sea and Baltic Sea. To round off the project an
international workshop will be held by the end of 1998, and there
the organic fishery will be discussed among invited fishermen and
experts. Therefore, it will also be a specific task for the
project to establish an international network of interested
parties with experience in mobilising coastal fisheries, e.g. from
the Southern European countries.
Within Landsforeningen Levende Hav (LLH) a
working group focussing on the introduction of an organic fishery
has been established. The group has twelve members, of whom eight
are active fishermen. LLH co-ordinates the work in the group, and
this project aims at facilitating and intensifying the group's
meetings and discussions in 1998. The groups' major task will be
to discuss and practically examine the possibilities of the
coastal fishermen to convert to an organic fishery. (In 1998: The
group will be between 15-20 members)
To describe the theoretical and practical
implications of the group's results in two internationally
distributed newsletters, a 16 page newspaper in A3 format, with
articles and pictures, similar to an existing newspaper Danske
Fiskeritidende (Danish Fishery Times), will be published in two
Volumes, spring and autumn 1998.
Thus, the project will publish two
newsletters during 1998 with information and debate on the subject;
papers that are to be send out broadly in the Danish fishing trade.
The papers will describe the theoretical and practical work
carried out within the past two years, work that in 1998 will
produce concrete action in the efforts to establish an organic
fishery. An adapted version of the two papers will be translated
into English and distributed in the international network that
will be expanded during 1998, in the preparations for the working
seminar.
Prepare and carry through an international 4
days working seminar in late 1998.
The 1998 work will be completed with an
international working seminar entitled "The Role of The
Small-Scale Coastal Fishery in a Future Organic Fishery". The
seminar addresses especially fishery interests in the countries
around the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. The seminar is to be held
towards the end of November with participation from coastal
fishermen and experts from 12 countries. Expected attendance: 100
people, mainly fishermen.
MEANS AND METHODS
The working group (means)LLH provides the
over all project co-ordination. A secretary of the project will be
engaged throughout 1998. This secretary will function as the
working group's daily co-ordinator. The work begins on January the
first, 1998, and will be based in Aarhus, in an
office-collaboration with Landsforeningen for Økologisk Jordbrug
(The Society of Organic Agriculture (LØJ)).
LØJ has many years of experience in the
fields of developing necessary action programmes, publishing
newsletters and -papers, and LØJ have at their disposal meeting
rooms and the office-facilities necessary to publishing
newsletters. In the office-collaboration, besides LØJ, there are
also other national societies engaged in the discussing and
furthering of and conversion into organic agriculture, animal
breeding, non-food production and building projects.
The participants will continuously test the
recommendations from their theoretical discussions concerning the
criteria for the organic fishing in a dynamic dialectic with their
daily practices e.g.
- Is it possible to use the selective
fishing techniques
- Is it possible to cool the fish with ice
water, instead of using ice
- Is it possible to develop a system of
packing the fish at sea, i.e. that the fish will be landed in
hermetically closed cooling boxes with information of the catching
time, place and fishing technique and vessel
- Is it possible to revive the traditions of
landing the still living fish
- Will it be necessary to employ a larger
crew on the vessels
- What are the economical consequences of
changing from a fishery based on quantity and into a fishery of
quality products.
The development and furthering of a
small-scale, coastal, organic fishery will require an independent
newsletter to spread the information about developments. Parts of
the work can be published in the public media, but the project
itself, the results from the ministry's committee and the
reactions in the public, needs an independent treatment in at
least two newsletter issues during 1998.
These newsletters can also deal with the
international reactions to the project. An edited version of the
two papers will be translated into English to be used in the
preparations and the network building before the international
seminar.
The project co-ordinator will invite writers
to the newsletter issues. Writers will include fishermen, experts,
politicians and other relevant people. The co-ordinator and the
secretary will have the over all editorial responsibility for the
two newspapers. An expert in layout will be employed on two
one-month assignments.
The papers will be distributed through the
existing organisations working with coastal fisheries in Europe.
The working title of the seminar is "The
Role of the Small-Scale Coastal Fishery in a Future Organic
Fishery"
There is barely any tradition among the
active fishermen to hold larger meetings. Only the top
representatives of the fishery organisations take part in national
and international meetings on the future of the fishery. In the
matter of small-scale coastal fishery however, it is of the utmost
importance that the fishermen directly involved in the conversion
from industrial fishery to a fishery that provides the market with
high quality fresh fish directly for consuming, take part in the
discussions concerning their own future.
In the autumn of 1996, the Teknologirådet (the
National Council on Technology) arranged a conference under the
title "The Future of The Fishery". Here, a panel of
fishermen took part, together with a panel of consumers and one of
experts. The fishermen-panel had been working for several months,
attending weekend seminars in the weeks before the two-day
conference. Everyone who participated in the conference agreed
that the fishermen had been working very seriously and with
enthusiasm with their assignment, and the conference riddled the
widely held myth that fishermen do not speak up in assemblies, and
that the fishermen care only for their own interests. LLH also
took part in the preparations, among other things with the report
that formed the background for the discussion - and with a member
of the experts panel.
These experiences have made topical
the wish to end 1998 with a international seminar and work shop,
with participation from fishery interests in the countries around
The Baltic Sea and The North Sea. During 1998, the co-ordinator
and the secretary will be responsible for preparing the seminar.
An expert in seminar preparations will be employed on a one month
assignment.
The seminar will last four days, and the
plan is to invite a group of approximately 5 people from each
country, one of these persons will then act as their
English-speaking spokesman. Each group will prepare an
introduction of the situation and developments in their respective
countries, this means at least 12 introductions.
The introductions will be grouped on the
basis of national similarities in experiences. Between the groups
of introductions there will be workshops where the participants
can discuss and possibly co-ordinate developments and learning
processes between them. The seminar will function as a method to
anchor the international co-operation between small-coastal
fisheries.
The co-ordinator and the secretary together
will collect all the information and discussions from the 1998
work, and will be responsible for the final report from the
project to the Commission. This will be their major task in
December, 1998.
TECHNICAL AND ECONOMIC
BACKGROUND
The 95 members of LLH are professional
fishermen, cooks, fishmongers, biologists and consumers.
In 1996 the society held a conference
entitled "Organic Fish - Possibilities and Necessities."
The purpose was to examine the possibilities of raising the
general attention on a living sea and making the small-scale
coastal fishery more visible, through an introduction of organic
criteria in fish trade. In the conference, more than 60 persons
from private and public Denmark participated.
The results from this conference were later
taken into consideration in the Danish National Budget of 1997, in
the law concerning "Support to furthering of organic
conversion in agriculture, fishery and others". Since then,
the society has been active in the debate concerning an organic
fishery founded on a small-scale coastal fishery, a fishery that
provides the local markets with daily caught fish of high quality.
The aims and reflections of the society in
this area can be read, in the booklet "Økologisk
Fiskeri" ("Organic Fishery") that was published in
June, 1997.
Key persons in the LLH have arranged a
number of campaigns, and succeeded in informing the public and
arising the attention from the mass media. Further, they have
arranged larger seminars on fishery and environmental subjects and
with participants from Europe and the Baltic Sea countries.
Usually the participants are people unaccustomed to participating
in international seminars.
Economical background Currently the LLH is
financed by the members fees and from a grant from the Danish
Ministry of Environment and Energy to employ a working chairman,
and to pay administration costs. Earlier the Society has received
fundings from the Ministry and from private funds to carry out a
number of projects and campaigns.
EXPECTED RESULTS
Primarily, the work will result in a
changed attitude among the people involved in coastal fishery and
their colleagues in other areas. Through this project the
small-scale coastal fishermen will recognise that their work is
not finished, when the fish is landed. They realise that, if the
small-scale fishery shall survive in the future, they must
initiate a development where they themselves must change from
being contractors that deliver industrial raw material to
producers of food supplies, and into self-supporting conscious
suppliers of food. They will realise that the ongoing development
in other areas of provisions, where the producer is increasingly
visualised, will also be inevitable in the fisheries.
The 1998-work will ideally result in
establishing a small producers company that catches, treats and
sells fish and fish products on a socially and organicly
sustainable basis. The project-description of such a company on
Djursland has been worked out and is now to be discussed and
tested among the fishermen that are to carry through the idea.
Another subject worth a discussion, and
perhaps an option for a future development, is the use of broken
up fishing vessels to create sailing fish shops; another of LLH's
plans that has gained political attention.
According a letter (of February, 21. 1997)
from the Minister of Fisheries to LLH, political attention is also
devoted to the thoughts about using an organic fishery as a way of
regulating the coastal fishery, replacing the quota-system. The
idea being that an organic fishery might be a means to local self
regulation among the coastal fishermen, instead of e.g. the
individual quotas.
QUALIFICATIONS
Even though LLH is a relatively young
society, founded in 1995, the originators and several of the
members have for a long time been active in discussions and
actions concerning alternative fisheries, and in the public
involvement in environmental - in both the natural and the social
sense of the word - issues connected to the sea.
LLH has, as the only society or organisation
in Denmark, a well documented history in the development of a
future organic fishery. Among the members of LLH are fifteen
professional fishermen, and most of them are owners of fishing
vessels.
LLH has been invited to participate with two
members in the committee of the Ministry of Fisheries, concerning
the furthering of an organic fishery.
LLH has contacts with fisheries in Holland,
Sweden, Finland, Ireland, France, Germany, Estonia, Latvia and
Kazakstan.
LLH has a full time employed working
chairman.
The three responsible persons in this
project are:
Jan Grüwier Larsen (1954)
1979: Published "Havet omkring
Danmark" ("The Sea around Denmark"), Danmarks Radio
1982: Graduated as marine biologist from
Aarhus University
1982-1995: Film-making, e.g. "Kvalt i
kvælstof" ("Strangled in nutrition") and
"Fisk og fiskeripolitik" ("Fish and fishery
politics")
1995- : Manager of the Djursland's Sea- and
Coastal College
Kurt Bertelsen Christensen (1951)
1971: Professional cook
1974-88: Fishing skipper
1988- : Project co-ordinator, e.g.
"Baltic Sea - common Sea common future" (1992, supported
by Ministry of Environment, 400,000 Dkr); "Green partnership
- Thunø 1993" (supported by Ministry of Environment, 480,000
Dkr); "From Kattegat to the Aral Sea - a fishery
project" (1996, supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and private funds, 1.5 million Dkr) and "In honour of the
fish" (supported by PESCA, 460,000 Dkr). "Refitour"
(1996, supported by EU-commission 50.000 ECU)
Knud Andersen (1940)
1971- : Fishing skipper
1978- : Founding manager of
Fiskerikollektivet af 1978 (The fishery co-operative from 1978,
the co-operative works with fishing, trade and social pedagogical
tasks) The co-operative has functioned as the economically
responsible institution of a vast number of different projects,
supported by public and private funding.
1994-97: Organiser of the local demands for
the enlargement of the moles in Boennerup, and the construction of
wind mills on the moles, supported by PESCA and other funding.
Chairman of the wind mill organisation of share holders.
The fishermen
The fishermen in the working group, whom are
also members of LLH have been preparing for this assignment since
medio 1996. They have been active in projects such as "From
Kattegat to Aral Sea" (1996), Refitour (1997) and "In
Honour of The Fish" (1997). The majority of these fishermen
are men that are active in other organisations as well. One is the
chairman of the local branch of the Fishery Union, others are
members of their local boards; all these men are of course
relatively trained in participating in meetings and discussing the
fate of the fishery. And in 1998, they will be extremely busy
discussing, since this project must be expected to raise a lot of
questions among the participants local colleagues.
In the working group there will also be
people with qualifications in the Danish fish trade.
LINKS WITH SIMILAR OR OTHER
PROJECTS
*The national development and promotion of
an organic fishery in Denmark. The concrete work commences in the
autumn of 1997 in the Ministry of Fisheries, where an action
programme is to be shaped, plus grants for research pilot-projects
in the field. LLH is an active participant in this work.
*"In Honour of The Fish" - summer
of 1997 (supported by PESCA) was a project with the aim to
distribute fresh fish through a direct contact between fisherman
and consumer. This project will be copied in several Danish
harbours in the summer, 1998.
*This year the Fiskerikollektivet af 1978
has initiated a commerce of daily caught fish in Copenhagen. The
consumers receive information about place of catch, the time and
place, and the kind and name of vessel that caught the fish.
*The fishery project "From Kattegat to
Aral Sea" has since 1995 been active in the development of a
sustainable fishery in and by The Aral Sea. Recently also as
regards the development of new, smaller trade structures
(co-operatives) among the fishermen by the Aral Sea.
*Nordic Council of Ministers established a
working group in 1996, it works to develop a publicly controlled
sustainable fishery.
*Refitour, an EU-supported PESCA-project:
1996 DG XIV, file no. 044684.
PROSPECTS FOR COPYING PROJECT
The project will be made available in the
final report that concretely describe the possibilities inherent
in an organic fishery. This report will among other subjects deal
with the future action programme for an organic fishery, including
the criteria, rules and control measures that are to form the blue
label for organic fish products.
The report will tentatively describe the
most suitable structure of the coastal fishery in Northern Europe.
We limit ourselves to Northern Europe, the North Sea and the
Baltic Sea, in this area the vessels and fishing traditions are
fairly similar. This is the reason why the project so emphasises
the importance of the international working seminar.
We believe it should be possible to use the
newsletters and final report in other European countries as well -
especially the reflections from the working group and the seminar
concerning an organic fishery.
It must be presumed that the industrial
fishery will be interested in the project results, and this might
cause an even broader tendency within the European fishery. It is
inevitable that the development of an organic fishery will change
the public debate concerning fish and fish products, and there
seems to be a larger public interest in an organic fishery than in
a sustainable, one could mention the question of energy as an
example. Through the development of a public debate, all divisions
within the fishing and the fish trade will be affected by this
project.
The Danish Society for a
Living Sea
Boennerup Habour, Denmark,
October 1997
Contact person Kurt Bertelsen
Christensen
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