Seafish researchers to visit Orkney for fishing fleet survey

Seafish is calling for vessel owners and skippers across Orkney to participate in its annual economic survey of the UK fishing fleet.

Researchers will be covering collecting data on fishing and vessel costs in order to build an up-to-date picture of the UK fleet’s economic performance. They are due to visit Orkney in the first week of August.

The results, to be published in 2017, are intended to help industry and policy makers better understand the socio-economic consequences of changes in fisheries management measures and the wider financial climate.

Following the historic Brexit vote and the first year of the landing obligation for some key species which aims to stop the discarding of fish by 2019, this is an especially crucial time to gather data on the economic performance of the UK fishing fleet.

All vessel owners can benefit directly from participation by requesting a free financial performance benchmark report which allows comparisons with the average performance of other similar vessels.

Steve Lawrence, economics project manager, said: “Thanks to the participation of several hundred vessel owners, the Economics Team at Seafish has been able to accurately represent the economic performance of the UK fishing fleet for a number of years.

“Only with the continued support of the industry across the coast can we keep up this hugely valuable exercise, producing outputs that allow us to better understand the industry as a whole and to inform key decision makers. Therefore, we would encourage skippers and boat owners from Stromness to Westray to speak to our researchers and complete the survey so that we can present the most accurate picture possible.”

The survey is supported by the national federations and local associations around the UK. All information provided is treated as confidential and no individual vessel figures will be revealed in any report.

As well as the UK fleet report to be published next year, Seafish will publish its annual Quay Issues magazine later this year which includes stories and features gathered by the researchers as part of the survey.

Anybody interested in taking part in the survey should contact Steve Lawrence at Seafish on 0131 524 8663 or email steven.lawrence@seafish.co.uk. The results of last year’s report can be found on the Seafish website: www.seafish.org