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The benefits of sustainable fisheries and the need to mitigate the environmental impacts of fishing and aquaculture are increasingly in the public consciousness. Poorly implemented, government run, command and control management schemes have often failed to curb fishing effort, prevent overfishing and avoid environmental degradation. Alternative, market based approaches have shown promise and, among these, enabling informed consumer choice in seafood purchasing can generate strong motivation for improved catching and culture practices.

The new Seafish Corporate Plan for 2015-18 sets out our mission, vision and values for the next three years. The Plan includes the new High Level Objectives and strategic outcomes for Seafish, along with more detailed information about the Seafish work programmes which support them. The Plan has been developed in partnership with industry and key stakeholders and will be our key tool in communicating our delivery promise during 2015-2018.

Report on the Current State of Driftnet Fisheries in the UK.

The report concerns UK seafood wild capture supply chains reliant on domestic and international production. It covers major impacts from key climate change drivers, from production to processing, and sets out major areas of adaptation action.

The reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) introduces a landing obligation to eliminate discarding. The objective of this research, was to determine the potential economic implications of this discards ban on selected case study UK fleets through establishing a) how would the landing obligation affect fleet economic performance, b) at fleet level, and given current discards, what would the quota requirements amount to, and c) identify any ‘choke’ species that could limit operations of the fleet. The report highlights two key aspects of the landings obligation: the restricting effect of so-called “choke” species, and a lack of clarity surrounding the permitted flexibilities contained within the legislation. The results confirm what we already thought: much work remains to be done in order to ensure that we have a fishing fleet which operates sustainably, profitably and in line with the recently agreed landings obligation.

The use of pure plant oil (PPO), also known as vegetable oil, as a diesel fuelextender or as a total fuel substitute is known. The concept gained popularity during the fuel crisis in the 1970’s although engine technology at this time was relatively basic. The concept today has two primary drivers for land transportation: cost reduction and environmental footprint. The use of recovered and suitably processed used cooking oil (UCO) can offer further substantial atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) mitigation together with a reduction in other regulated exhaust pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide, as well as additional cost savings compared to virgin PPO,.Regenatec has developed technology which retro-fits to diesel engines and allows them to be fuelled by diesel or PPO or UCO. This technology is found in products being sold to owners of land based vehicles, both commercial and domestic. Initial trial work performed by Regenatec on land based vehicles has shown promising results. This project investigated the use of PPO in a trawler, the Jubilee Quest, based in Grimsby, UK, operated on PPO during the Autumn of 2006. The aim of this trial was a technical investigation of the technology and PPO: it was not designed to be a commercial deployment. The use of PPO (and even UCO) is currently commercial unviable in UK marine applications due to the economies of scale enjoyed by the petrochemical industry. (The use of PPO and UCO is only viable for land based vehicles because of a duty rebate currently enjoyed by bio-fuels.) As biofuels start to scale and when the environmental costs of fossil fuels are fully reflected in the cost of the product, it is anticipated that biofuels will become economically viable. As a key part of this project, Regenatec developed their technology into a system to be used at sea by a trawler. Their dual tank system is under electronic control to automate the use of PPO in a diesel engine. This has significant advantages over existing, less sophisticated technology. The engine is started on conventional marine diesel (or biodiesel) and then automatically switches over to the lower cost, more environmentally friendly PPO. The automation greatly improves the ease of use for unskilled operators and removes the potential for engine damage when compared to manual control. Additionally, Regenatec is heavily involved in fuel additive work investigating what fuel additives commonly used to enhance the technical and environmental performance of mineral diesel are applicable to PPO and UCO. This work is being undertaken under Confidentiality Agreement in conjunction with a leading mainstream additive manufacturer. An ‘additive pack’ was not fully developed and therefore not available for field deployment during this project. However, lab work and land based field trials in this area have provided encouraging feedback.

This note explains what discards are, why they occur, their significance and what can be done about them. The idea came from the Discard Action Group, one of the ‘issue forums’ that Seafish runs in order to resolve problems affecting the whole seafood supply chain. This group was established to start a cross-industry dialogue in response to the European Commission’s proposals to minimise or ban discarding. This is an updated edition of February 2008 briefing note. Discarding has moved up the political agenda again: in a global context European discards are still disproportionately high; the Commission is further developing its policy aimed at minimising discards across Europe; and the wasteful nature of discarding is increasingly seen as unacceptable throughout the supply chain. This briefing note includes an appendix that describes the initiatives introduced over the last couple of years, many initiated by the fishing industry, in order to reduce discarding in UK fisheries.

The Fisheries Management Issues Report summarises some of the current issues affecting the UK fishing industry. The Fisheries Management Issues Report summarises some of the current issues affecting the UK fishing industry. Information is collated from regional, UK and European sources and regular topics include discussions at the EU Fisheries Council meetings, official landings into the UK relative to allocated quotas and the extent of bans on fishing due to shellfish poisoning around the UK.

These pages contain technical advice on the cultivation of Pacific and native oysters. They are complimented by an economic modelling tool that enables you to explore how a potential oyster business might work. Key words: Aquaculture; Mussel; Scallop; Oyster; Clam; Halibut; Turbot; Cod; Manila; Pacific; Hyperbook; Economic; Model; cultivation; farming; King; Queen; algae; trestle, rope; cage; seabed; suspended; hatchery; nursery; production;

This study provides a close look at the UK seafood value chain for the species cod (Gadus morhua), haddock (Gadus aeglefinus) and nephrops (Nephrops norvegicus). This report treats each value chain separately, and the main findings from each analysis can be found below. In addition, the key points extracted from the interviews held with industry players and the implications of the main findings for the major stakeholders in this study are presented here. When seen as a whole, these observations provide a background for understanding some of the developments that are observed in the seafood industry today for the selected species.

This report has been funded by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation in the frame of the project “Ökologisch verträgliche Krabbenfischerei” – “Sustainable brown shrimp fishery” (FKZ 3512 85 0400).

The aim of the work is to analyse the impact of the landing obligation in a whole supply chain context, and from financial, legal, operational and market perspectives. This project will:- •Map the UK supply chain and identify existing and perceived issues for each sector. •Assess the impact of issues in respect of changes in policy •Discuss potential consequences for each sector; for example, changes in operational behaviour, policy issues, loss of supply or loss of market. •Identify gaps in information and suggest better use of existing information. The analyses will be mainly qualitative.