Ms Karin Dubsky:

I wish to address marine protected areas and the in-depth analysis of another way of doing aquaculture and fisheries. The National Parks and Wildlife Service has finally set the conservation objectives for marine protected areas. However, the Commission is already looking at the issue. Many of the sites we have were assessed in an Article 17 report, which was sent to Brussels. It shows that our marine environment much more than our land environment is in serious trouble. An awful lot of the inshore habitats are not in good conservation status and that means this country does not continue monitoring but must take measures to get it to good conservation status. That is almost like putting the two together because when one has grade A shellfish waters, one is quite likely, although it is not guaranteed, to have one’s habitats in better condition, so it would serve a double purpose.

I understand the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is however doing something on integrated water management but I do not have the detail. It appears that farmers would get training and extra funding for agriculture in sensitive areas. If that included shellfish waters then we would be moving in the right direction. What was done in the Bay of St. Michel by the French was very interesting because it was a Natura 2000 site and it still contains aquaculture and wild fisheries, but only certain aquaculture, which is compatible with such a fine site. The farmers were doing a combination of tourism showing people why the site was designated, what measures were being taken to get it to good conservation status and, at the same time, they were also showing small-scale aquaculture and wild fisheries. The products are all labelled as to location of origin and whether the oysters are native oysters. They do still have gigas oysters but they are in the process of phasing them out because one of the main problems is that the gigas can become an invasive alien.

I concur with what Deputy Ó Cuív said about the need for in-depth analysis. The money went into looking in-depth and on spending millions on how to help fish farms. We should have done it before but now we urgently need money to be spent on seeing whether it is possible for us to develop the industry. I maintain that is absolutely the case because we have a fantastic diversity of shellfish and crustaceans. It is possible to develop the industry but we must find a way to do it.