East Anglia fisheries initiative announces Blue Marine partnership
The REAF project was launched in 2018 to help regenerate the fishing sector in East Anglia
Last updated 19th Jun 2022
The initiative tasked with helping reinvigorate the fisheries sector in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, has partnered with ocean conservation group Blue Marine Foundation to achieve their goals.
Renaissance of East Anglia Fisheries (REAF) was founded in 2018. It aimed to create and deliver a strategy to help understand the priorities, actions, and resources required to realise the full potential of the sector.
The project is chaired by Waveney MP, Peter Aldous. He says "Blue Marine promote sustainable and responsible fishing like us. So our objectives coincide so we're looking forward to working together and realising the objectives that we got".
Those objective were part of the recommendations presented by REAF this summer which included the following:
- Improving fishing opportunities: a fundamental overhaul of the fisheries management and quota allocation in England to produce a fair distribution of fishing opportunities, with a view to protecting and strengthening the economies of coastal communities.
• Safeguarding the offshore area and reducing CO2 emissions: support for the government’s proposal to ban all forms of bottom trawling in the Dogger Bank and other offshore marine protected areas while recognising the need to mitigate displacement of fishing effort by the vessels affected
Mr. Aldous says the project aims at "promoting a local industry where people are eating fish caught locally from their own shores and all the benefits of that going back into local commerce and communities".
In a statement, Charles Clover, Executive Director of Blue Marine Foundation says “We are delighted to work with REAF and support its campaign to see fish stocks restored in the southern North Sea and for fishing opportunities to be delivered in such a way that supports lower impact small scale fisheries rather than industrial fleets.”
Another aspect of strengthening the industry involves recruiting young people to take the mantle up and work in the sector. "In regenerating the industry, people might say hang on, this is an industry we want to be part of. Therefore, you can generate interest", he adds.