Dr. Ruth Brennan:

I refer to Deputy Ryan's very good question. He asked if quota species are to be fished under the Bill, how we would stop a local cod fishery being wiped out and whether there are models that could do this. He also raised the point that modern fishing gear, even on small boats, has a much greater capacity to catch fish. Just because fishing gear is modern does not preclude it from being used to achieve more sustainability. Fishing gear adaptations such as escape hatches and creels are good examples of this. The Deputy's questions should force us to reflect on what assumptions we make that underlie how we frame fishers. He asked whether specific models are in existence that could address this. I can look into the literature and find umpteen models that would address it, but my approach is always to work with local communities and to listen to them and ask them what their approaches are because they are the people who have this knowledge.

Coming back to the point on framing and the question on how we stop it wiping out a local cod fishery, we are automatically framing fishers with only one identity, which is as individual competing fishers who are damaging a resource. The approach I come from is to recognise that all of us have varying identities, and the important identity I work with always is to support an ethos of marine stewardship, and working with fishers, in particular, as marine stewards. If we come from this platform of viewing fishers as stewards of the marine resource, which islanders want to do because they want to keep the resource, and work with them to use their local knowledge to develop models that make sense from a local point of view and that are informed by their knowledge, which has been garnered over generations, then we can come up with viable models that will guard against the Deputy's concerns.

I was recently awarded funding by the European Commission to do the work I am describing with IIMRO. It has funded me to work with IIMRO for two years to develop innovative governance initiatives that meet conservation objectives at national and European levels. We will work to develop this marine stewardship ethos and bring together the policy environment and objectives that need to be met with this local knowledge, which we need to value, harness and make visible in the policy environment.