The discarding of cod in the North Sea, Eastern
Channel and Skagerrak is costing the UK economy, environment and society in
wasted resources, according to a new report from leading independent think-tank
nef (the new economics foundation), published today, Monday 1 August
2011. |
Fish are discarded because they are unwanted, not
profitable enough or do not conform to fishing regulations. The report, Money
Overboard: Why discarding fish is a waste of jobs and money, shows that
there are benefits to be made from landing fish which would have otherwise been
thrown away, but that much bigger benefits would come if fish were given more
time to grow by fishing more selectively: |
- £2.7
billion worth of cod was discarded in North Sea, English Channel and Skagerrak since
1963.
- Of these,
UK threw away nearly one billion (£935 million) missing out on 711
additional UK jobs.
If discards
had not occurred during this period, and left in the sea:
- The cod population would have been an
average 13.2% larger year-on-year
leading to an increase in profits and jobs supported by this stock.
|
The reform of the EU Common Fisheries
Policy: an opportunity for change
The reform of
the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) provides a unique opportunity to turn
this situation around and instigate a policy framework that will force a ban on
discards and ensure compliance, for the sake of the industry and the
environment. |
Read the stark facts about the haves and have-nots. We must support reform of the banking system, otherwise we're undermining our own future. And of course, the bankers will be laughing all the way to the bank (they already are). The Good Banking Forum includes a unique range of leading figures from academia, finance, politics, the law, trade unions, consumer and civil society groups that are demanding real reform of the banking sector. |
The Forum emerged from the Good Banking Summit, organised by nef (the new economics foundation) and Compass in May 2011. The Forum challenges the limited scope of the Independent Commission on Banking, will mobilise public pressure for ‘Good Banking,’ and is campaigning to break-up the banks as a necessary first step. |
- Government support for Britain’s banks has reached a staggering £850bn and the eventual cost to taxpayers will not be known for years.[vi] |
- Home repossessions hit 14 year high in 2009 [iii] |
- 1.31 million people were made redundant during the recession [i] |
- Unemployment hit a record high of 2.53 million people in January 2011[iv] |
- The global banking bonus pool for 2011 is likely to be between $600 billion and a $1,000 billion (one trillion dollars) worldwide.[vii] |
- Total UK based bonus payments are still expected to amount to more than £6bn this year, with HSBC’s Stuart Gulliver in line for up to £10m, Barclays’ Bob Diamond £9.5m, RBS’ Stephen Hester £2m in shares and Lloyds’ Eric Daniels £1.45m in shares.[viii] |
Take note! It's worse than we thought. The oceans are in a worse state than previously suspected, according to an expert panel of scientists. |
In a new report, they warn that ocean life is "at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history". |
They conclude that issues such as over-fishing, pollution and climate change are acting together in ways that have not previously been recognised. |
"As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the oceans, the implications became far worse than we had individually realised. |
"We've sat in one forum and spoken to each other about what we're seeing, and we've ended up with a picture showing that almost right across the board we're seeing changes that are happening faster than we'd thought, or in ways that we didn't expect to see for hundreds of years." |
These "accelerated" changes include melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, sea level rise, and release of methane trapped in the sea bed. |
"The rate of change is vastly exceeding what we were expecting even a couple of years ago," said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a coral specialist from the University of Queensland in Australia. |
Life on Earth has gone through five "mass extinction events" caused by events such as asteroid impacts; and it is often said that humanity's combined impact is causing a sixth such event. |
The report's conclusions will be presented at UN headquarters in New York this week, when government delegates begin discussions on reforming governance of the oceans. |
Carbon dioxide levels are now so high, it says, that ways of pulling the gas out of the atmosphere need to be researched urgently - but not using techniques, such as iron fertilisation, that lead to more CO2 entering the oceans. |
On 2 June 2011, OCEAN2012 will launch a photo and documentary exhibit at ZSL London Zoo Aquarium. The event is one of more than 100 being organized by the OCEAN2012 coalition to launch the second annual European Fish Week (June 4 – 12, 2011), which will engage citizens across Europe to call for an effective reform of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). These collective actions coincide with World Oceans Day on June 8 and the anticipated publication of the European Commission’s proposal for a reformed CFP in mid-July. |
Most EU fish stocks are now
overfished, many of them below safe biological limits. It was not always like
this. In the recent past, stocks were healthier and fishing communities were
wealthier, with more fish, boats, fishers and communities dependent
on fisheries in Europe. |
During this week of action,
OCEAN2012 member groups are inviting EU citizens to witness the impact
overfishing has had on the marine environment and learn how the EU’s CFP reform
is an opportunity to go back to the future. |
According to the International
Union for Conservation of Nature and the Census of Marine Life’s History of
Marine Animal Populations project, evidence of Europe’s lost fisheries is
clear: |
- In 1900, the average length of cod landed in the North Sea was 1
to1.5 metres, and the average age was eight to 10 years. Today, the
average length of landed cod is a mere 50 centimetres long, and the
average age is less than three years.
|
- In 1949, the bluefin tuna fishery in northern Europe peaked with an
annual catch of 5,485 tonnes. Today, the commercial fishery for bluefin
tuna in northern Europe is closed because the fish are gone.
|
- In the 1640s, the Dutch herring fleet had 700 to 800 vessels manned
by a total crew of 11,000 to 12,000, with an annual catch of about 50,000
tonnes. Today, one trawler with a crew of 10 to 11 can catch the same
amount of herring.
|
Our banks are not fit for purpose. They have amply demonstrated that themselves. Yet, they continue in their old ways, focussing on their own profits (using OUR money!) with scant regard for the needs of ordinary people and business. What can be done to reign-in this outrageous behaviour? The award-winning documentary film Inside Job does for banking what An Inconvenient Truth did for climate change. It's an hour and 20 minutes that quietly and clearly documents the appalling corruption that brought the global economy to the brink of collapse. Made by American Charles Ferguson, it is about to be released as a DVD in the UK. It needs to go viral, and kickstart public pressure on the faltering Vickers commission on banking reform. As the film points out, each banking crisis in the last 25 years of deregulation has been progressively bigger and costlier, culminating in the massive bailout of 2008. Yet effective reform has stalled, all the key players and institutions are still in place: business as usual. |
Outrage against the banks is no longer a leftwing hobby; across the media there is an increasingly frantic desperation from commentators, even in such unlikely hotbeds of revolution as the Evening Standard, where the admirably infuriated Anthony Hilton declared recently: "Our problems were wholly caused by the greed and irresponsibility of some in the financial community. But the culture has not changed ... What more will it take?" He may well ask. |
Yet evidence emerges on a weekly basis of the banks' outrageous behaviour. Last week it was announced that they were failing to meet their own agreed levels of lending under Project Merlin, the one quid-pro-quo for their huge taxpayer-funded support. They are strangling the economy (as Polly Toynbee wrote on these pages at the weekend), while ripping off customers with insurance scams and poor service, and creaming off the profits. Just over 200 "core" staff at Barclays took home £554m last year, while thousands of shareholders, who had lent £51bn of equity capital, were left with £653m in dividends. This is an ongoing institutionalised bank raid. |
But the biggest puzzle is the public. The enormous advertising campaigns of the banks must play a role; some say the total spend last year was around £30m. The cutesy animation and friendly "real" bank staff must work at some level to delude the public, to calm and reassure that all is as normal. It's trading on some folk memory of banks as sober and reliable. Add to that the massive patronage – of the arts, sport and good works – in the last few decades designed to inspire shock and awe. |
Last week the New Economics Foundation and Compass brought together a diverse and passionate coalition to formulate an agenda for banking reform. Its determination and energy had something of the flavour of the early meetings of the debt relief campaign for the developing world in the 90s. That comparison is not exact but it is instructive: it's going to need a huge public education programme to convince people that the reality of banking is far crazier than anyone can imagine – which is where Inside Job can help – and furthermore, that leaving reform to the experts is a recipe for inaction. Of course what may pre-empt all of that is another crisis, another bailout, this time accompanied by the blind rage that emerges when the idea of reform no longer seems credible. |
Sick or what? What an insult to womanhood. One of the biggest insurance companies in the world held a party for salesmen where they were rewarded with the services of prostitutes. |
Munich Re is the world's biggest re-insurer - in other words, the company acts as an insurance company for other insurance companies. |
One of its divisions, Ergo, told the BBC that the party had taken place to reward salesmen in 2007. |
The gathering was held at a thermal baths in the Hungarian capital Budapest as a reward to particularly successful salesmen. |
A German business newspaper said the prostitutes had worn colour-coded arm-bands designating their availability, and the women had their arms stamped after each service rendered. |
According to Handelsblatt, quoting an unnamed participant, guests were able to take the women to four-poster beds at the spa "and do whatever they liked". |
"After each such encounter the women were stamped on the lower arm in order to keep track of how often each woman was frequented," the paper quoted the man as saying. |
In a world of heightened
social responsibility and community everyone plays their part: consumers are
encouraged to be ethical in their choices and business is told that it can do
well by doing good. An eruption of ‘green’ and ‘ethical’ products fill
our supermarket shelves and have enjoyed a significant prominence in the past
decade. Not many businesses, however, seem to have mastered the ‘doing
well by doing good’ mantra and, according to business guru Michael Porter,
society’s faith in the corporation is at an all time low. |
There is one business who is
trying to marry the two parts of this conundrum: Global Ethics Ltd and its
brand of One Difference products, as I discovered at an event last week. |
The concept is relatively
simple. Global Ethics produces number of basic products such as bottled water,
condoms, plasters, toilet tissue and eggs for sale in the UK and USA. The
products follow the same distribution and sales channels as other ‘ethical’ or
‘non ethical’ brands of the same product, finding their way to our local and
national supermarket shelves. But therein ends the similarity because
Global Ethics donates 100% of its net profits of to its foundation – the
One Foundation. These go towards funding like for like health and
sanitation programmes in Malawi using innovative creations such as the PlayPump. |
In the quest for a high-well
being, low carbon world, the concept of a business giving away its profits for
social good is an obvious social and financial breakthrough and invites a
number of questions. To what extent are the raw materials used ecological
and green i.e. does the concept of doing well by doing good run through the
vertical value chain? How will the business guarantee to its consumers that it
is actually doing good (we don’t just believe what we’re told)? How does
the business ensure that its profits are being used to create sustainable,
positive social change? To what extent is the model replicable? |
"Bye, bye BNP", or "hello new fascist threat"? The British National party's dominance of far-right politics in the UK is under threat for the first time in a decade after a string of poor election results and a growing rebellion against its leader, Nick Griffin. |
The BNP chairman, who has led the party since 1999, is facing a second leadership challenge in less than 12 months, a mass defection of key organisers and the prospect of a new "popular front" made up of other far-right groups and former BNP activists. |
This week Richard Barnbrook, who was the BNP's sole representative on the London assembly until he was expelled from the party last year, said it was time for a realignment in "nationalist politics" in the UK.. |
Griffin has been under growing pressure since the BNP's poor showing in last year's general and council elections, when it lost all but two of the 28 councillors up for re-election and was wiped out in its east London stronghold of Barking and Dagenham. And the rebellion has gathered pace since this month's local elections, when it again performed poorly, losing all but two of the seats it was contesting. |
The growing rebellion has seen a growing number of BNP organisers either leave the party or defect to join other rightwing groups. Searchlight says dozens of BNP members – including several key figures – have left and joined the English Democrats recently. Lowles said there appeared to be a "concerted and orchestrated attempt by many of the BNP's most effective and competent former organisers" to establish a foothold in the English Democrats. |
By not having to account for emissions caused by imported goods, rich nations are living in Alice's wonderland |
It
allows us to think that, even if too slowly, we are heading in the right
downward direction in terms of our emissions. When in fact the more
comprehensive, latest figures reveal that the UK's CO2
emissions didn't fall by 28m tonnes between 1990 and 2008 at all, as the
official record indicates, but rose by a substantial 100m tonnes. Rich
country emissions went up 12% over the period when hidden, traded
emissions are included, and anomalies such as Russia, whose economy
collapsed in the early 1990s, are left out. |
Other downright peculiarities emerge, such as the boomerang trade
,which sees the UK importing and exporting often near identical amounts
of goods, like sending 5,000 tonnes of toilet paper to Germany, then
importing 4,000 tonnes. |
Apart from failing on its own terms and
being distorted by faulty measurement, the model – rising overall
consumption fuelled by debt and export-led development – assumes endless
supplies of cheap oil and infinite natural resources. Neither are available. |
EU citizens are consuming far more fish than European seas can produce, becoming increasingly dependent on seafood from other waters. If the EU were only to consume fish from its own waters, it would run-out of fish on July 2nd, making it wholly dependent on fish from elsewhere from July 3rd. |
This report highlights Europe’s increasing reliance on fish products originating from external waters for its fish supplies, and provides pointers towards a more sustainable future for dwindling global fish stocks |
Based on a Member State’s or region’s total annual fish consumption, the fish dependency day is the date in the calendar when it would start to depend on fish from elsewhere because its own supplies were depleted. |
For the EU as a whole this is now 2 July, indicating that one-half of fish consumed in the EU is sourced from non-EU waters. Last year it was 9 July, which indicates that there has been a further decline of almost 200,000 tonnes of fisheries products over 12 months. Since 2000, the EU’s fish dependence day has fallen earlier and earlier in the year and is now more than one month earlier than in 2000, revealing a continuously increasing level of fish dependence. |
In a context of finite resources and growing populations, the current EU model is unsustainable. The EU’s increasing fish dependence has implications for the sustainability of fish stocks globally, which are also overfished, and for the communities that depend on them. Read more at www.neweconomics.org |
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UK has discarded £1bn in cod from one stock in last 50 years
