UK fishing communities are having their fishing rights stolen from them. Having lived in a fishing community in the UK for four years and fished for pleasure and profit, I have seen the devastation of this policy, and the myriad of other EU and UK fisheries policy, has wrecked on the livelihood of local small boat fishermen, who make up 75% of the UK fishing fleet.
Again we see big business forcing the hand of politicians for their own gain rather than the protection of a public resource and livelihood of those that depend on it.
The decline of the British fishing industry is often blamed on the EU quota system – the means by which European policymakers decide how many fish European fleets are allowed to catch every year. Less is generally said about how the UK government allocates their share of EU quota domestically – and how this unfair allocation represents a stealth privatisation of public rights, destroying the British fishing industry and the coastal communities that depend on it.
Read on: Who owns the right to catch fish? Manchester United?
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