The Atlantic Dawn Group, a Killybegs based fishing company, has a statement on ‘Responsible Fishing’ posted on its web-site, which runs:-

To future generations we guarantee the sustainability of fish stocks by respecting fishing quotas, only using authorised fishing gear, and avoiding at all times breeding grounds and jeuvenile (sic) fish.
The future of fishing is our future...............’
and more in a similar vein.

I had better put my cards on the table, with a little personal history. Back in the 1970s, I used to fish herring from Teelin in Co.Donegal. I owned a 33ft half-decker, with a 40hp engine, and ten second-hand drift-nets from Scotland, which we used to anchor in fleets of five with anchors made from old cart axles. We had no electronics at all to start with, just looked for signs from sea-gulls. This fishery provided much needed winter income for some 50 coastal fishermen in the parishes of Glencolmcille and Carrick, as well as jobs in fish factories. We were doing well, but up the road in Killybegs, a handful of fine fishermen were doing a lot better in 65footers with the new technique of mid-water trawling.

It was of course precisely the breeding fish that were being caught; it is when fish gather in dense shoals for spawning that they are most vulnerable, especially when the new electronics enabled fishermen to target them. The foundations of a few serious fortunes were being laid in Killybegs. As the decade progressed, with the price of herring reaching unprecedented heights, every shoal of spawning herring quickly attracted a swarm of boats. Our biggest problem was to anchor our nets some place where the trawlers would not tow them away.

I vividly recall one winter evening when a fleet of small boats had shot on signs of herring right under the lighthouse in Broadhaven Bay. Most of the Killybegs men would at least try to avoid fixed nets, even if they were in their way. Along comes one ambitious pair, who deliberately towed straight through the set nets. Well, there was a fine shoal of herring there, and they stood to make thousands from it…. The herring fishery collapsed at the end of the decade, as did subsequently just about every other fishery in Donegal Bay. But the brave men of Killybegs went on to other pastures. I cut to 20 years later, quoting from an article in The Ecologist magazine, which nonetheless contains nothing that is not well known…..

‘The Atlantic Dawn, the world’s biggest fishing vessel, was launched in Dublin in August 2000. It cost its skipper-owner, Irish businessman Kevin McHugh, £50m. Built in Norway, the ship also cost Norwegian taxpayers £4m in government shipyard subsidies. These subsidies have helped keep Norway’s shipbuilding industry afloat.

’Even though Ireland was already exceeding the EU’s mandated maximum allowable domestic fleet size by 30 per cent, the Irish government gave the Atlantic Dawn a temporary fishing license to fish in international waters. But in October 2001 the European Commission launched two court actions against Ireland for exceeding the allowable fishing-fleet size and for registration infringements concerning the Atlantic Dawn.

’EU regulations mandate that all fishing vessels be placed on a European fishing registry. Having the Atlantic Dawn added to its fishing fleet would have blown Ireland’s already excessive over-capacity way out of the water. The Atlantic Dawn was, therefore, initially placed on the merchant marine register.

’In December 2001, the commission did a remarkable deal with Ireland. Behind closed doors, it legitimised the Atlantic Dawn by increasing the permitted size of the Irish fishing fleet by 14,055 gross tonnes – the exact size of the Atlantic Dawn. The deal also allows the Atlantic Dawn to fish in EU waters three months out of the year. This is thanks to the transfer of the fishing entitlements of another super-trawler (also owned by McHugh) – the Veronica. In exchange, the Veronica (106 metres in length and 5,206 tonnes in weight) has been removed from the Irish fishing register. It now operates under Panamanian registration – a well-known flag of convenience.

’McHugh managed to secure a private licence for the Atlantic Dawn to fish nine months of the year in Mauritanian waters. It wouldn’t have been possible for the Atlantic Dawn to fish in Mauritania’s waters under the EU’s taxpayer-subsidised ‘cash-for-access’ agreements, as it is 5,000 tonnes bigger than the size allowable in the EU scheme.

’In all these murky waters, it is difficult to decide whose hands are the dirtiest. Is it the commission, which says one thing and does another – thereby undermining its own attempts to establish a sustainable fishery policy? Or is it the Irish government for doing dirty deals behind closed doors to secure the Atlantic Dawn’s registration as part of its fishing fleet?

’What role have patronage and party politics played? McHugh is a well-known supporter of Ireland’s governing Fianna Fail party. And what about the Irish banks that have financed this huge investment? What pressures have they been applying?’
(From <http://www.theecologist.org/archive_detail.asp?content_id=370>)

Mauretania and Senegal of course are the countries on the mainland coast of Africa opposite the Canaries, where the Atlantic Dawn has been doing most of her landing in recent years. Here is an account from the BBC web-site of a meeting on a beach there:-
‘When we met, he was sealing up the cracks in an old fishing boat, preparing it, coincidentally, for his third attempt to reach the Canaries.
‘Pape pointed out that nobody would be going without the fishermen or their boats to carry them.
‘For years, he and his colleagues had been making a modest but respectable living in their small, open boats and hand-cast nets.
‘But now, the fisheries have collapsed.
‘And instead of struggling and failing to make a living at sea, the fishermen say they are much better off by loading their boats with paying passengers, for a one-way trip for Europe.
‘And here is the irony.

The remaining men in the village feel they have few options

‘Waving his hand over the horizon, Pape blamed Europeans for the crisis. "The only thing that has changed in recent years," he said, "is the arrival of big foreign trawlers just off shore, that sweep up far more from the sea than the Senegalese fleet has ever done. "If Europeans take our fish they can take our people too." ‘

The sufferings of those people crammed into rickety open boats, with very little food and water, and no shelter from the sun and salt spray as they fight their way against the Portuguese trade wind to the Canaries, must be just about unspeakable. The damage has been done now off Africa and the Atlantic Dawn has moved on, and apparently sold to a Dutch company. One thing is for sure, she won't do much fishing off Holland. She has been seen in Killybegs again lately. The old carry-on still goes on there, with massive bags of fish being killed and then let go if they are too small for the market. The bigger the boat, the easier it appears to be to run rings round the Irish authorities, who seem to be much better at policing small boats than big ones!

Well, Kevin McHugh passed away recently, God rest him. Certainly he is far from being single-handedly responsible for the misery of the African fishermen. And weren’t our politicians and media all over him when the brave man from Killybegs brought out the biggest fishing boat in the world?

The fallout from our version of progress continues, leading where? What are we doing about it? Buying a new SUV perhaps? Donegal may now be somewhat depressed, but we did have the Tiger to give us a living one way or the other. Spare a thought for the fisherman of Senegal and Mauretania, even as the EU gets together a fleet to keep them from their desperate voyages.

Map of the EU’s ‘Frontex Deployment’:-

Meanwhile, it is well past time for us to get our heads around building a sustainable relationship between humanity and the sea; and one characteristic it will surely manifest is basic human fair dealing and justice.

I have written a little ballad about all this:-

Donegal Fisher’s Lament.

Oh the herring shoals are gone,
The mackerel scattered far!
“My Johnnie what have you done?
In the town there’s no more singing,
the boys no more are bringing
silver darlings to Kilcar!”

“From Inishmurray o’er to Rathlin,
from Achill round to Tory,
long since the boats ceased trawlin’;
though we thought we’d found an easy way
and happy days were here to stay,
now ‘tis the same old story.

“Leave the wee cottage, the sweet
sights of Muckross, Ben Bulben and Bunglass;
forget the rick o’ turf and the tidy street.
I will not follow fish in boats so big
their men need not a sailor’s rig.
Come on away, my Donegal lass.

“I would scorn to raid those sunny seas
beyond St Vincent’s Cape;
keep Tenerife for holidays please.
Let those who rob the poor men’s fishes
say what’s to do with the desperate wishes
of them that flee the sun-baked shore in deathly shape!”

Perhaps someone can find a tune for that?

Joe Aston, January, 2007