You say this is an exciting time for the Fishermen’s Association?
Hopefully produce a future Welsh fisheries policy. A document came out towards the end of last year called Net Benefits which was brought out by the prime ministers strategy unit, asked them to look into the state of the fisheries and fish stocks and make the most of it and this is the outcome. So, there are a number of representatives from the industry, myself and other fishermen from this area, there’s recreational anglers involved. Also you’ve got South Wales and North Wales, which have got similar representatives. There is a fisheries consultant, who does a lot of work with sea fish, and the Welsh Development Agency are involved and the Welsh Assembly Government. From our discussions we will build a future Welsh fishing policy.

Is it going well at the moment?
At the moment it is going really well. We have had 2 meetings so far, we have another one scheduled for February, the final document has to be produced by April. At the moment we are interested in protection of the Welsh Fishing industry.

How does that manifest itself, the protection?
At the moment, anyone has the right to fish. It’s a bit awkward to say you can’t because of prehistoric rights, comes down from the ages, and because of the European Equal Rights, we can’t just turn round and say, “You can’t fish here”. We have to come up with ways of protecting our fishery.

So you don’t want everyone fishing is that what you are saying?
Well, there’s not enough stocks there for everyone to fish, the state of affairs at the moment is if the big crabbers who work in the English Channel wanted to come to Wales for any reason whatsoever, they could, fish us out in one season and everyone would be out of a job.

Is this the same position as other countries, do they have bans on areas?
Places like Jersey and the Isle of Man, have technical measures, where they say you can’t fish here if your boat is over a certain length.

If the government don’t protect it what will happen do you think?
If things stay as they are then fishermen will carry on and scrape through, to earn a living, but, if for instance the bigger boats decide to come up, then they could literally decimate the stocks, within one or two seasons.

Has that ever happened where they have come?
At the moment, no. But things are happening, in parts of the country where it could become a real danger, so we are looking at technical measures, things like boat length, number of pots we are allowed to fish per person, escape patches on the size lobsters and crabs can escape.

Right, you stock the waters as well don’t you?
What we are doing is a V Notching programme; it’s paramount to stocking I suppose. What we do is we catch a berried female, that’s a female carrying eggs, then it’s paid for by the North Western Sea Fisheries Committee, the fisherman gets the money for it as if he was taking it to the market. It’s notched with a V in its tail and released, so that then the female can release its eggs and restock the bay.

Ok. How would you explain what these projects funded by Objective 1 do to someone like myself, not knowing much about sea fishing?
Well, the Development Officer project is more or less doing what we’ve been talking about just now and also getting money for the safety equipment and so on, new radios, GPS’s (Global Positioning Systems), Personal locater beacons, we’ve got life jackets behind me, which are on test, I was supposed to go out this afternoon to test them but it was too cold (laughter).

So when did your job start?
June 2003, its only a 3 year funded post, so by 2006. The first part of my job was really getting to grips with what is going on around here and also the first priority was to make them all safe because, they only had the basic minimum, but I wasn’t happy with the basic minimum. So I spent easily the first year putting together the projects, to increase safety and so on. There was a little bit of policy work going on in the background. The majority was about funding. Now, the policy work has taken over.

So looking at the 3 projects you have had funding for amounting to 200k, the funding will be coming to an end in the next year, have you seen most of the outcomes of the project by now?

Not yet, only half of the safety equipment has been given out following the “Safety Equipment Upgrade” project, and only 2 have benefited so far from the “Fishing Vessel Refits for Safety, Comfort and Catch Quality” project. It’s trickling through. I’m waiting for them to be qualified; you have to be qualified to operate the kit. Before I give it out I am making sure they are qualified.

Is that the sort of stuff like global positioning?
That’s right yes,

So is this stuff by law you have to have it?
No, it’s way above that; the law is quite basic, all you need to go to sea, is a couple of lifejackets and a few lights.

Have there been a lot of accidents in the past then or preventable things?
Not in this area, I am a member of the Lifeboat Crew in Aberystwyth, there have been a few fishing boat vessels in the last few years, The Inshore fishing industry is probably one of the most dangerous industries you could work for. You know about the boat that sank over Christmas?

No?
Eves Marie and Rio it was called, on it’s way from Pwlleli to the South coast, for a refitting and the battery box caught fire, and it sank. St David’s lifeboat took all 3 on board, nobody died. If it hadn’t have been for the safety equipment on board, nobody would have known they were on fire.

Wow, amazing they were saved,
It was atrocious weather as well.

Sorry to change the subject, how many jobs do you think were created by the Objective 1 funding?
Just my own, the object of the safety equipment project, to make the vessels safer. It might create jobs indirectly by creating an image of a safer place to work, because there is a bit of a recruitment problem in that area.

Is the industry suffering?
There’s a big recruitment problem in the fishery, nationally, people don’t want to be fishing. In this industry, it’s cold, it’s dirty, it’s rough, being in the sea in all sorts of weathers, it’s not something people want to do. I think a big factor of that is that it is seen as being dangerous. Round here all our boats are day boats, they go to sea and come back in a day. So the biggest factor is that people don’t want to be seen working with smelly fish, but if they see it as dangerous they are not going to do it either. We’ve eliminated that one!

Is it part of your role to tackle the image?
I suppose you could say part of it yeah.

Do you not get people leaving school and going into it anymore?
Not as many, if a Fisherman loses his crew, then it can be months before he has replaced him, it’s not easy to find new crew.

Is it a low paid job as well?
It’s an average wage for round here. The money is not the problem; it’s the whole image of the job, as well as the danger.

So what does the future hold?
We need to continue this job, we need to secure more funding, the 3 years is not enough because after we’ve done this Welsh policy document, there is plenty of holes in the fishing industry which needs to be filled by processing, marketing, getting a fair deal for the fishermen, because at the moment everything that is being caught is being exported, so we need to keep the product in this country and sell it after we have added value to it, rather than exporting the live product and the added value being done abroad. So 3 years is not enough, to develop a fishery, so we would be looking to access more funding in the future. 3 years is not long enough to do much at all, so fingers crossed; we’ll be looking at European Fisheries Fund replacing FIFG. I’m in part of a group at the moment, which is made up of the 4 fishermen’s associations in Wales, and we’re advising WEFO on where money needs to be spent, in the fisheries so they can put together a bid. We are also looking at putting together a Welsh federation of Fishermen, rather than having separate associations to cover all the different areas. There is no national body, in England they have the NFF, so we’ll have a federation for Wales, which will tie together all the associations.

Is it just lobster you fish for?
Lobster, crab, in the winter there’s prawn, one or two are doing welks, giant prawns, mackerel, we go out for mackerel in the summer, bass, all the white fish we let them market themselves, just the shellfish we promote at the festival.

And you say it all goes abroad?
What happens is a fisherman will land, he’ll meet a trader, in one of the lay-bys or at the port, and sell directly to the trader, and then the trader goes down and keeps them in tanks, at Milford or wherever they’re based, and when there’s enough of them to fill a lorry they drive them to Spain.

Don’t they have their own seafood there?
The brown crab we have is prime, it really is good quality meat, and although it can be caught as far down as the Mediterranean, its not as common a fish down there.

You are missing out in the chain then?
Basically we are shipping out a raw product.

So how could you add value, by packaging them and selling them on after?
Well even if you cook it you have added value to it.

Right.
What we are looking at is cooking, processing and picking it, because nobody enjoys picking a crab, if you can do all that for them and it’s nicely packaged,

You really need businesses to come in then?
Yeah. We need processor plants basically, we’ve done a little bit of work with the Horeb Food people, back backing, shelf life testing, to see how long stuff will last.

What’s your background?
I’m qualified to degree level in Marine Biology, I studied in Aberystwyth, but as far as marketing goes, we really need a marketing officer, as that’s not really my area.