This short piece in no way reflects on the SFPA (Sea Fisheries Protection Authority) who have absolutely no hand, act or part in the current Sprat debate. The SFPA’s primary role is the enforcement of fisheries regulations. As the crux of this issue is that there are currently no quotas for this species, the SFPA effectively has no role, for now.
Members of the IEN (Irish Environment network) attend at least one meeting with SFPA each year in their Clonakilty offices. It’s a good opportunity for this important state agency to engage with environmental NGO’s on the issues of the day. Both sides get a lot out of these meetings and if nothing else, there’s always a photo op at the end of the session!
On our first such meeting, I found myself distracted by this wall mounted graphic, which depicted all the species which presumably fall under their remit, or are considered important enough to merit inclusion. No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find Sprat on it. I took out my lens cloth and gave my glasses a wipe, still no luck. I then made some excuse to move seats for a closer look and my suspicion was confirmed; Sprat was not included and they were in good company as neither were sand eels, sauries and other coastal forage fish.
Next up on the agenda was an update on the sprat situation and I broke the ice with this casual observation, which was met with an awkward chuckle. But there was a more important point, as this omission is a good example of the blind spot that currently exists in government thinking on forage fish, which cascades down to state agencies such as the Marine Institute, SFPA, BIM & NPWS etc, which then trickles on to the industry, until eventually the pelagic boats in the harbours get the message loud and clear that Sprat are off the radar, which of course gives them carte blanche to do whatever they want with the stock, with impunity.
We all know what this means, and it’s the one sentiment we keep hearing from these big boat owners……”but we’re breaking no laws”. Of course they are right, they are breaking no man-made laws, which is a pretty low bar. As for the laws of nature and common sense, well that’s for another day.