Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and a lot of to see. If it matters,
Thank you for listening again. Need me today is Hans Pullet,
scientific director at ILVU, the Belgian Research Institute for Agriculture,
Fasherism and Food. Welcome Hans, thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you very much, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. We could start by asking you
about the EU fasheries management, any of the frustrations or burdens.
What is good about the EU Common Fashionries policy.
Speaker 2: Well, I've always been a fan of the EU and
of the common Fisheriest policy. I've been doing this job
for thirty five years and I've seen a lot of benefits.
I think it's thanks to the common fisheriest policy that
we still have, you know, fish in the sea. It
mainly helped bring let's say, the capacity of the fishing
fleet in balance with the productivity of fish stocks. And
I think some ten years ago we kind of read
that and I was very positive and optimistic about the
future back then. But somewhere along the road I lost
my faith, being confronted well with, first of all, a
lot of frustration in the fishing industry, and as I
have plenty contacts, I've been at sea a lot. I
really wanted to have a deep look into that issue.
I'm not a fisherist manager, I'm not a fisheriest biologist.
I'm a fishing gear technologist, so I from a very
technical side of the thing. I've been studying fisheries a
bit ignorant about management and stockers. But then I saw
things going wrong. I saw a lot of complaints of
parties involved, and I started having a deeper look into
stock assessment and fisheries management, and I kind of saw that, well,
let's say, at all levels of the whole fishery system,
I see flaws. I see problems, big ones, small ones,
and each one on its own probably not dramatic, but
I think if you add it all up, bring it
all together, I think we have a system that's well
in desperate need of innovation.
Speaker 1: Let's say, Wow, such dramatic and desperate need desperate.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, go ahead, Sorry, No.
Speaker 1: It's just that when the way you said that, if
you could see it was pretty important that it did
get Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, actually, coincidently, this morning we had our meeting with
the fishing industry where we pose the advices and scientific
advices that have been made in ices for the fish
stocks they fish, and well, it's negativity all around. They
don't agree with the results. They are afraid of the future.
They kind of say or predict that they will be
able to maybe fish for another few years, but it's
going to an end. They're very pessimistic for different reasons.
First of all, in the de light of what we
discussed today, the accuracy of the determination of the THACS,
so the total allowable catches the quota. In a number
of cases they agree, but in many cases they completely
disagree with the advice and they have a lot of
difficulties coping with they say, the complexity of the common
fisheriest policy, of what European managers are imposing on the system.
They have a huge out of administrative tasks too much,
and many of them they don't see why they have
to do with what's the added value. And they suffer from,
let's say, the top down micromanagement and the very strong
focus on control and enforcement. So within the whole system
there's pressure on the fishing industry. And then they have
to cope with nature protection. They have to cope with
wind farms coming in and taking fishing grounds. They have
to cope with closed areas or areas with restrictions they
have to cope with not to underestimate the consequences of
climate change, and then climate change kind of messes up
the whole stock assessment. Scientific fisheries advice. They have to
cope with these things. They have to cope with a
landing obligation that gives them choke species which makes them
stop fishing often or wouldn't say often, but in some
cases with the wrong quota, so the quota are underestimated,
so they have to stop fishing while there's still that
kind of fish and thecy so all these things together
make that already quite a few fishing vessels have left
the industry and they say, well, many more will follow
if we don't change the system.
Speaker 1: It sounds the way you talk there, and it sounds
like very similar to what we've very often find and
the UK that you get specially scientists and the civil servants,
and they don't listen to fast Man and they know better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they see the daily reality and that's what well,
mainly I think managers and brussels are missing, but also
quite a few scientists. We don't want to criticize these people.
I mean they are my colleagues and I'm part of it,
and they are hard working people and very clever. But
often we have let's say the modelers who do the
computer work and simulating the ecosystem and the fish stocks.
These people are quite detached from reality as well. There's
a scientists who go at sea they have a good feeling,
but that's often not the scientists who do the actual
scientific work the stock SYSM. So there's a difference between
data collection and stocka SYSM. So the further you are
up the chain of the say the scientific system, the
further you are from the reality. And that's something that
we are lacking in science. We really should get that
feel again with reality, and for that you need a
good and intense contact with the fishing industry. That's what's
often missing. I mean, I think in Belgium we're doing
it to be not humble for once, but I think
we're doing a terrific job. We have been working to
other intensely with a fishing industry for the last fifteen
years and the nice thing about that is that we
have access to all their information, all their data, so
we actually have a direct link to all the instruments
on board. Also the scale. They also allow cameras on
board and we have real time accumulation of this data
in our data bases, so every hour we get this information.
So just because of the good relationship we have built,
there is trust risk cooperation and we have access to
all the data we need. Now. Of course, in order
to actually get the real value of this data out
of there, we cannot do it in the present management system.
We have to change the system. But we can come
back to that later. But to come back to your question,
is actually the fissures who see the reality, who are
confronted or reality and also confronted with the scientific advice
and often these two don't match, and so what what
to do then? And that that's the one of the
puzzles we are facing now, you know.
Speaker 1: It takes me my mind has to two conversations I've
had in previous podcasts, one more recent and at the fact,
I'm just wondering if you're maybe would know the guy is.
He was many years with the Marine Laboratory in albernein
and he was involved with gear Jack Roberts.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, I remember him very well. I mean he
was active quite long before I became a scientist. But
I've been. I have seen a lot of his underwater
footage because I think he was he was a diver
now taking filming fishing.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and he is what he classes as his
baby was the square mesh, cod ends and panel and
the point I put hands and be interested in just
to put the same to you, it was some I
would have I was having a conversation with an a
fishery scientist in Iceland on Christians and his name and
he's well retired. I mean he's in his eighties. Now
what his The point he made with Jack pretty much
agreed with be interesting to get your view. He says,
when they were doing the job, all they did was
they were out in trawlers and do all their work,
you know, the assessments and surveys, and it would all
be done out on trawlers with fishermen. And then they
decided they were going to get their own vessels.
Speaker 3: And the way he put it, which is not in cdios,
that he says, oh, we don't want to go out
on dirty, smelly trollers. We'll have our own maze news
ships and he reckons. That was pretty much one of
the biggest mistakes they ever made in Iceland because he
says they twok freshermen on scientists apart.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of truth in that. I
can't even say that we are heading in the other
direction again. We're moving away from research vessels to do
this kind of service and we are starting to do
them again on commercial vessels. First of all, the need,
as you say, the contact between the fishers and the scientists.
Scientists have to understand what fishers are facing, the problems
they are facing at sea. And at the other hand,
it's very interesting as fishers start to understand the whole
stock assessment system and how this prediction of the fish stocks,
how this works, so that they come to some mutual
understanding and they find some common ground, and that's very
important for cooperation. And then I have a bit of
a problem with surveys on research vessels. I mean, I
won't talk for the other countries, but for Belgium, we
have a research vessel of seventeen meters long, three eight
hundred tons, towing a beam troll of four meter and
a beamtroll of eight meter. I mean that's the kind
of troll that is towed by a twenty four beam
troller with a tonage of seventy tons. I mean, so
I have a fishing gear that is towed by a
vessel that is fifty times the tottage compared to the
fishing vessel. I have a problem with that. I mean,
if the weather is if the sea is flat, there's
probably does not so much of an issition. But as
soon as that vessel starts moving, that fishing gear is
a toy. Just the stone off the ground is not
the fishing anymore. And that's the advantage of scientists like
me who have been at sea a lot, who know
how fishing gears work. That thanks also to Jack Robertson
who took the video footage of these gear so you
can actually see how it operates, how it moves on
the seafloor. If you don't know that, you have no
idea what's going on. And then you're on your fish
on your research vessel, and you follow the scientific procedure
and you think you are doing the right thing. And
they they are honest people. I don't doubt them, but
I doubt their practical knowledge. And you you actually need
fishers to to do something like that properly. If you
go on board of a fishing vessel to do this
kind of service. Then you have the right fishing vessel
with the right fishing gear and the right expertise on
board to make the gear work. I mean, if you
go on board of a beam troller you have two trolls.
The skipper each hole looks in detail at the difference
of the catch of the two gears, because he knows
that while you are fishing, things change in the gear,
a little damage or so, and the catching effisiency can
suddenly go down. So that every hole they adjust the
fishing gear if it's needed, and they do that with
their practical knowledge, which most scientists don't have. So this
cooperation is essential.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting and it's what fascinates me. Not so
much fascinates me, but it's a talent point. And listen,
you say that every person involved in this, who I
read and I know, is doing good things. They all
say the same, just exactly the same as your said.
So what's really interesting, And it's credit to Belgium if
you're going I don't think that's when you're doing that
again with the fissures. That's not a backward step. I
see that, although it's maybe doing what they did before,
but it's not and it's forward.
Speaker 2: It's a forward step definitely. And the thing is, if
you start this cooperation with the fishing fleet, you can
actually change the system. For example, for the survey. I
think it's a very interesting example. I talked to you
about the technical side of things. There's also the temporal
side of things. The survey is they usually go on
in the month of September, and they do that every year,
and that's a good thing. I mean, it's it's a
time series and you can see through time how the
fish evolves, but you're limited to the month of September. Now,
we also know that with climate change that seasons move.
I mean, fish behavior follows the weather and the temperature
in the sea and so on, and due to climate change,
there's a shift. So things that were happening in September
in the past maybe now are happening in October or
in August. These things change. So what are you actually
measuring with your survey in September? Are you measuring the
same thing as ten years ago? Can you use that
time series with confidence? I have doubts. What I'm advocating
for if that is that you use the fishing flee
to do your surveys and allow the fissures or work
together with the scientists to have kind of this young
fish survey, because that's what these surveys are, after the
fish with fishing gear, with small measures to catch the
young fish. So your young fish survey, you should spread
it over the whole year. And if you use the
fishing flee to do that and you give kind of
assignments to the different vessels to go fish there with
small messhon there there, spread over the year, you get
that picture of the young fish over a wide area
throughout time, so you can actually follow up how fish
move geographically, how it changes in time, how quickly they grow,
what is the mortality rate? All this information you get
thanks to spreading the surveys over a wide area and
throughout the year. And really I'm really advocating for that.
I think this would be a big step forward, especially
because with climate change you have these sudden changes or
these huge changes that you don't pick up with a
regular surveys or not quickly enough. So if you do that,
if you can do that quickly, as a manager, you
can react quickly. As a fisher, you can react quickly.
You also have a better idea about the geographical distribution
of the young fish. I mean, you want to save
the young fish. If you don't know where they are,
it's not easy when you plan your fishery as a
fisher But if you have these maps, let's say, kind
of a heat maps of distribution maps of small fish,
then and you know where they are and how they move,
and you know where the commercial fish is that you
are targeting, well you can plan your fishery to save
the young fish and maximize the catch of your marketable fish.
So there's a lot of value in this cooperation and
in better data collection.
Speaker 1: Yeah, correctly. What I'm a little bit puzzled with when
you see what you're doing in Belgium, can you do that?
And I thought it would have to be eel policy. No,
we don't have to do that.
Speaker 2: No, we are not doing this yet. This is what
we are suggesting. We have this, We have this alternative
approach that we would like to have. We would like
to for example, we would like to do that in
the North Sea and we would really love to have
the British there. I missed my old friend them since
the Brexit, But I mean it makes a lot of
sense to manage an area like the North Sea with
the same rules, with the same scientific approach, with the
same cooperation together. You know, we are if we are
politically separated. I mean, fish don't have borders, no, so
let's co operate there. But the thing is now, we
are not allowed to do that yet, so this survey
is on board. Yes, we can do survice on board
of commercial vessels, but that's a much different approach. You
have to really plan, and so we are still stuck
with the surveys in September. We do that on board
of mostly on board of commercial vessels now, and we
have to have a special permission to do that. So
as long as we stay in Belgian waters that's not
so difficult. But our survey goes beyond that British and
Dutch waters, and so we need a special permission and
it often takes us six months to get that permission.
So I mean there's an administrative burden there as well,
so we should get rid of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you when you said that, when you made
the point the good borders don't know borders, I think
I think is that the term you used?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: I think so, yes, I would I would take that
at stage further hands and say personally said this, and
and people like yourselves don't have borders, s preasures don't
have borders. It's just when you take politicians and that's
when the problems starts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's but I think we're stuck with that system.
Speaker 1: And what would you say is gone wrong with the
U c f p E.
Speaker 2: Common Facial Well, I think when you have a system,
any system to manage something, and you see some flaws
and you want to improve, well, you add a layer
of additional rules, and then a few years later there's
again a people look at the quality of the system
and they see some flaws again, and so every so
many years there's a layer of regulations and administrations added
to the system, which more and more makes it complicated.
That's the same with most of the management systems in
our society. And that's what politics do. Politics identify a
problem and they add a number of laws and regulations
to solve it. But if you keep on doing that,
after a while, your system becomes so complex that it
is just not workable anymore. And that's this is what
we have seen in the Common Fisheriest policy. There's very
few people actually understand the whole system. Ask an inspector
when it goes. Let's see if you know all the
technical measures and can actually see any fishing gear, if
all these things are correctly rigged or not. I think
they know that. The main things that they don't know everything.
For a number of regulations. They don't know exactly if
it goes about selective panels, square meshed panels, for example,
how exactly it must be fixed in a gear. It's
not easy, and to control that is not easy. So
it's all becoming too complex and well, the common fisheriest
policy has always stimulated innovation in science in fisheries. I'm
really grateful for that. But the one thing they forgot
is to innovate themselves. So we have an old fashion system. Yeah,
the same with fisheries science. I think we still have.
Of course, it has improved over the years. It has
become more and more efficient, but the basic system is
still Beverton and hold Stock assessment idea from behind the
second just after the Second World War. We're still working
with the same ideas. We have to fundamentally reform and
not just ajust. But that's what we're doing. Every adjusting
a little bit and fixing this a little bit and
in the end, well it's more or less acceptable for everybody,
but it doesn't really.
Speaker 1: Work, and are would you say creatures? Our scientists are
happy with the management system.
Speaker 2: I have the impression that amongst scientists they have just
learned to live with the system and have kind of
accepted it and try to cope with it. And especially
the younger people. I mean, they come into that system
and this is what it is, and this is what
they have to work with. I mean, I have seen
the system evolving over thirty five five years. I have
seen strengths and weaknesses coming back, and I know where
the system is flawed. But most scientists just just cope
with it. And one other thing, yeah, yeah, well, I
think the most important thing is that most scientists don't
believe that we can fundamentally reform the system. They just say, well,
that's a missy mission, impossible. Let's not try even try that.
Don't put energy in. That won't work. We will try
to fiddler around and try to copy with it. That's
the attitude.
Speaker 1: And when you see the flaws and that you feel
the common vers it's policy could be built around a
lack of proper information.
Speaker 2: A lack of proper information. No, I think you you
need decent information to manage this, of course. Yeah, well
I think no.
Speaker 1: But do you think it's built on although they didn't
realize that?
Speaker 2: Can you rephrase your question and I don't think I under.
Speaker 1: Sorry, Sorry, I'm just asking what with freshialties, scientific fressurities advised?
Is it if the common fashionist policy is built around
a lack of information?
Speaker 2: Ah? Yes, I think so, a lack of a lack
of knowledge of the reality at sea. I really think
that that's the thing, because you have a management system
in the EU that's focused on control and enforced enforcement.
So by this definition, it's based on distrust between the
managers and the fishers, and the consequence is that the
fishers will not release all the information they have. They
will often even release information that is just not true.
I mean, if you have regulations that are too complex
to follow, well, then fishers will find a way around
it and will withhold information that is real, reliable, and
will spread information that is just wrong. As a consequence,
the perception of the fisheries, of managers and often scientists
as well, is not correct, does not reflect the reality
at sea. So if you look at all the different
data sources that we use as scientists, well, each of
these data sources have an issue. Lockbook data I mean
logbook DTA. We have one data in twenty four hours
that's to start with low resolution. It's so called digitized,
but it's still manually put in, so it's open to errors,
it's open to fraud, and we know there is fraud.
So logbook data are I think, not very reliable. It's
not as I mean, the scientific system will not crash
or be completely wrong because of the logbook data. But
if you add the other uncertainties to it, I think
you really get to have a problem. For example, discards
for stock assessment, we have to know how much fish die,
so we also should know how much of the small
fish is called and thrown back overboard. We send observers
at sea to do that, and we have a coverage
of about one percent. Now every fisher who goes at
sea knows that variability of fish catches is very high.
I mean, you fish at one side of the sandbank
and you get this type of catch, and you move
one hundred meters to the other side of the sand
bank and you get a completely different catch composition. Fish
catches are very very variable, so you need a really
high sampling percentage to get reliable data. If you only
have one percent, well I have doubts. I'm only a
simple fishing gear technologists, but I mean, if you know
how fish catches are and you know your own have
one percent coverage, I think there's a problem. Then scientists
challenge me and say, do you have any scientific proof
that statistically this one percent is not enough?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Sorry, I don't. I don't. It's just my common sense,
which can be wrong, of course, But I mean that
there's just quite because there's a question there. But then
there's other uncertainties, like, for example, natural mortality. In fish
stock assessment models, natural mortality is very important because you
have to assess of all the different ages every year
how much fish will die. So part of them will
die due to fisheries, and this is something you can
more or less measure with an error which is I
guess too large. But you also have to estimate how
many fish die a natural death, and for small fish
this can be very high. Usually this number is kept
constant every year because it's very difficult to to measure
in the sea. How much fish die a natural death,
that's a very difficult thing to do, so they try
to estimate this based on a number of parameters, and
because we don't have the information, it is kept constant
over the years. Now, in a stable ecosystem with stable climate,
stable weather, I think this is not really a problem.
So I think for many decades this was not a
problem before climate change started to kick in. Now we
see with climate change that things are happening. For example,
we didn't used to have squid in the North Sea
and we had pelagic fish stocks herring, mackerel. Now the
last three four five years we see massive amounts of
squid coming into the North Sea. They eat things. If
they are massive in numbers, well, fish they eat is
massive as well, so they eat herrings, they eat all
this kind of pelagic fish. But this is not taken
into account in the stock assessment. The natural mortality is
kept constant. But the natural mortality due to the squid
is changing dramatically, and we see this with other fish
stocks as well. We see the octopus coming in the
western English Channel, we see the cottlefish coming massively in
the Eastern English Channel. They eat stuff and all this
is not taken into accounts. So natural mortality is one
of the main problems in stock assessment, and this is
getting worse due to climate change. So well, there's quite
a number of issues with information in the common fisheries policy.
Well other things just told me when I talk too much.
But for example, the technical measures messize regulation. Well, in
every fishery where valuable fish escape, the gear escape the
net through the measures, fisher will notice and fisher you
don't like that. They's just just just see the money
swimming out of the net. If the messize the legal
messize is too high because the marketable fish escape, well,
fishes will fiddle around with a mesh, they will do
stuff so the fish cannot escape anymore. And this is
something that you see going on throughout our region. I
wouldn't say not in every fishery, but when small but
when market valuable fish escape, it happens in it In
the management system, people believe that the messiized regulation is
that fishes just follow it, but they don't. So again
there's a perception that control and enforcement works, but in
reality it doesn't. So yeah, there's quite a lot of
problems with information.
Speaker 1: It's quite fascinating when you talk about the squid and
licking it to the suation have gotten south west of
the the octopus. That's really interesting. I'm sure that there's
something going on. The only thing I was wanting to
ask you as well, when you're with you're mentioning a
claimate change is quite a bit times when you see
about since it kicked? Then? How when what sort of
tame skilled would you give when that started becoming under shire?
Speaker 2: I think it's already an issue.
Speaker 1: I think what, yeah, yeah, but since how since when
would you would?
Speaker 2: Well? I think I do this job since the nineteen nineties,
and I have seen in the Southern North Sea, which
is probably temperate, change is quicker in shallow areas. In
the Southern North Sea is a shallow area, so I
think we have seen the climb change consequences quite early.
So halfway the nineteen nineties I saw the first signals
when I went, that's see you because you would be
doing these experiments every year.
Speaker 1: Well. Yeah. The reason I asked that is because I
remember there worst boats, especially out of out the Adia
and what we call the deep water species. You know,
they were in the well into the Atlantic and the
deeper water catching things like black alabed blue ling species
like that, and there were scientists going out with them.
Now I'm going back into the eighties and just maybe
into the nineties, and there were a wild swing in
the temperatures in the deep water as much as six degrees,
which in percentage terms was massive, and they were recording
that many years ago.
Speaker 2: I look at that. Yeah, there's probably a lot of
things we actually don't know or do not take into account.
Speaker 1: And how are you dealing with freshratas in Belgium in
what way? Just there's things you're talking about with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well we struggle, you know, we really struggle. Well,
first of all, we started up this corporation, and I
think all all levels from the ministry, the administration, scientists,
the industry and also the NGOs, we are on the
same line. We all think fisheries should be sustainable, fish
stocks should be within the safe range, ecosystems should be healthy.
But on the other hand, we all also believe that
we should have a fishery that is profitable and that
can focus on efficient fishing. I often, often, I had
in the past been criticized by saying that fisheries should
be efficient. But I think if you fish efficiently, then
you use fewer resources also less fuel to catch the
same amount of fish. So fishing should be efficient. We
all believe that we are behind that idea, so we
are there's unity in Belgium to deal with fisheries, and
we all think that we are facing problems that are
caused by the system. So we all also think that
we should change the system, and we are working on that.
We are continuously trying trying to think about alternatives. That
this is why fishers are giving us all their confidential data,
because they say, here we are the good data, do something,
do something with it so we can get rid of
this system today that doesn't work and move to something
that actually does work and do that in co So
I think this is how we are dealing with fisheries
in Belgium. We we have problems, but we are actually
trying to think outside the box to find a solution.
The thing is we have to convince other parties because
we are tiny. Belgium is a tiny country. We have
sixty five kilometers of coast. Compare that to the thousands
of kilometers. I guess in the UK we are insignificant.
But I do think that the small Belgians have some
good ideas worth spreading, so we are looking for support.
We are looking for other parties to actually help us
question the presence system and also work on an alternative.
We have some ideas, but it's not worked out in detail.
We cannot do it by ourselves as well, so we
are trying to copy with our own problems, but also
trying to set up cooperation from the countries around us.
Speaker 1: And can you see a better system could arise from it?
Speaker 2: Well, we started this idea, I think a number of
years ago, thinking but acknowledging there's an issue and trying
to find solutions. And I think we have a pretty
good idea of what could work. And well, the first
thing is the data collection that I think it all
starts with observing what are the consequences of fishing on
the fish stocks and on the ecosystems. In order to
do that, you need good information, you need good data.
So and the fishers agree with that, we want to
put cameras on board for a full catch analysis. So
many fishermen are opposed to the idea to have cameras
on board. I don't need cameras to see what fishers
are doing. I just want to know the catch. That's
so in Belgium we put the camera above the conveyor
belt and all the fish that passes are recorded. It's
a technology in development and so it doesn't work full yet.
But the idea is that if we do that, we
can calculate the mortality caused by each individual fishing vessel.
What is the impact of that vessel during that year
on the fish stocks. Now, if you know that and
you can still of course, you still need quota and
you can, if necessary, limit fishing vessels with simple management
measures like for example, days at sea. This is the
whole management system. You have the observation, you have the
quota to limit, and you have the days at sea
to get involved or to steer the fisheries in the
right direction. If you have that, you don't need anything else.
And the nice thing about that is you don't need
technical measures, don't need mes size, You don't need to
impose square mesh panels because fishers will use them themselves
and will design them according to their own needs and
their own situation. You don't need administration, you don't need
all these aspections that see. So imagine the simplicity and
the reduction in costs. If you move towards that system,
then all the complaints about administrative burden, complexity of regulations,
controls and so on, all these things just disappear and
you get a situation where you can actually have trust
between all these parties and real cooperation. So the data
are given without control and enforcement. Fishers say, okay, here
are by data. You can know everything I can, but
for the rest, let me do my thing. I want
to focus on fishing. I want to follow the fish
through the seasons and go fish them where they are
with the fishing gear I think is most suitable to
do that. And if I want to fish during the
daytime with this fishing gear and during the nighttime with
another fishing gear which is not allowed today, just let
them do that. Give them all the freedom to conductor fishery,
but be fully open in your catches. So this is
let's say, in a nutshell, what we want to do.
Speaker 1: That sounds very impressive, and do you think it's realistic.
Speaker 2: I think it's very realistic because we are actually already
doing it. I mean, the foundation collecting the data. We
are more or less ready except for the camera and
the analysis of the video footage. There's still work there,
but already most of the species be recognized. We can
measure their length, We even can extra can get extra
affirmation on the condition of the fishing. So the technology
is there we can do. The main thing now is
that the management system has to change to give the
fisher the freedom, because what is the incentive of the
fisher to give all his data? Because this is a
first criticism we get fishers will never give all their data. No,
but why don't they give their data because you have
a very restrictive control and enforcement regime. But if you
change that system where you say we don't need that,
we don't need all these regulations, we only need the data,
then the incentive of the fissure is the freedom of fisher,
free choice of gear, free choice of operation, within of course,
the bigger boundaries of sustainability. There are habitats you have
to protect from fishing. There are areas that are vulnerable,
there are species that are vulnerable, so you need this
kind of frame of basic protection. But within that frame,
for me, it's full freedom.
Speaker 1: It's impressive what you say there hands because it remains
me of something that Jack Robertson said when they were
talking and discussions without size of mesh on the square
panels and things, and one of his colleagues sent them
will or from above. It was thrown upon because it
was what are the pressures cheat and do something in deathland?
So there was no trust.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's the problem when you work in a
system based on control and enforcement. Well, you can enforce,
you try to, you can regulate and say, well, in
this kind of Scottish cold fishery, you have to use
this square mesh panel to allow haddock and whiting to escape,
and that panel has to be fifty messions on twenty
measures of that mesh size in that material and that
twine thickness, and you have to put it so many
from the content. I mean, this is how these things
get regulated. It's a very proscriptive, prescriptive. Now, the problem
is that for the fishing vessel where the experiments went on,
this will probably work. But if you go on another
vessel in another season with a slightly different gear design,
you will probably have to put your square mesh paddle
a little more in front or with the board in
the back, or make it bigger or smaller. I mean,
fishers have to adapt these things to their own situation.
But if your regulation says this is how it has
to be, where in many cases it just won't work.
So you have to give the fisher the freedom and
judge the fisher on the outcome on his catch. If
you have a fisher using a square mesh panel and
you have a huge amount of haddock and writing bike
or bycatch that you have to discard, well, it's probably
because the square mesh panel is not in the right position.
So you look at the catch and you let the
fisher adjust his fishing gear so that the whiting and
they had to kind of escape, not the other way around.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And is there in the EU? Just is
there a desert see?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: Another, I'm sure there's a quota system. Is there desert?
Speaker 2: See? Yes? In the EU, we have every single possible
way of regulating. Yeah, we have days at sea, we
have area restrictions, we have real time closures, we have
technical measures of all kinds, we have quota, we have
a landing obligation, we have all these things all together. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Crazy, Now you may relate to this from what you're saying.
There hands a conversation had we have a friend of
mine who was landing nor one of our rural ports
scrubs that scapper is kept an owner of the board.
And he was on the pier with me the letter
in his hand and this is missus, this is this
is a letter of all my variations what I have
to do and adhered and policymakers from civil servants. And
this comment to me Hans was missus. I can see
the person that wrote this letter that has never been
on a fashion bod in his life.
Speaker 2: And that's a problem. I mean, I have a lot
of respect for the people in the European Commission. I
mean I've been working together with the people for thirty
five years. They are hard working people. They want to
do the right thing though discussion about it, but they
miss that that feeling of the reality. And this is
so necessary. This is why stakeholder involvement and this is
one of the big buzzwords of the last ten fifteen years,
stakeholder involvement, and the European Commission has really tried to
organize that stakeholder involvement. But what do you see that
is both often meetings between managers, scientists and the representatives
of the fishing industry, which are also people who are
doing a good job, but most of them don't go
at sea anymore or just know their own special situation
when they were fishers themselves, and the stakeholder involvement is
quite superficial. I think we need much more cooperation with
the actual fishers, people who go at sea, and I
think you cannot do that at the level we are
doing that now, I mean the level meetings in Brussels.
Now you have to go local. You have to have
this let's say, more dispersed stakeholder informment spread over the
area where the local people can actually talk about their
own specific situation. And you need a management system that's
very flexible to be adjustable to local situations. And then
because this is all very difficult to control and enforce,
you get rid of control and enforcement and you change
a system that is too so it is based on
cooperation and openness and trust. So it's it's a real
complete shift in how we address fisheries.
Speaker 1: Another comment that they have been widely used here with
what the word you used. You mentioned just a last
said about stakeholders, and it's a term used here. There's
a vast difference between stakeholders and openion holders.
Speaker 2: And what's the last work here where you use.
Speaker 1: There's a massive difference between stakeholders and opinion holders.
Speaker 2: Yeah, opinion holders yet I didn't understand the word yet,
but okay, I get it now. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
it doesn't There is indeed a big, big difference. And
of course it's not easy to organize this, but I
think it's it's necessary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and hope. There's a big question. Now, how can
we get or obviously you how can you get rid
of the administration burden under the complex regulations?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well by changing the system towards what they call
an output control. So you look at the output of
the system, and the output is the catch. So you
look at the catch of all the fishing vessels. You
have to be able to record what's in the catch.
You can do do that for example with the camera
on board. And once you have this, as I explained before,
you have the system of catch analysis, you have the
quota simply regulations days at see, and all the rest
of the administration can go. And the thing is that
the data collection that we are uh that we have developed,
which is this automated automatic link with the fishing vest
So all the instruments on board that are interesting produced
data and this data goes straight through the cloud to
our database. So once you have that system, it's fully automated.
So one advantage is that there's no humans involved, so
no errors, no fraud or less fraud because there's always
possibility for fraud, but especially there no administration necessary, so
the skipper doesn't even have to fill out a look book.
It's all automatic, so the fisher can actually concentrate on
this fishing. So if you go to that system, all
administration and all complexity of regulations are how you called it,
redundant or not needed, just not needed.
Speaker 1: It's forward back in and we get would you say
where you would be in a which the stige will
observe everything and regulate less.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing, and regulate yeah yeah, less is
an understatement.
Speaker 1: How could an alternative management or government that then look
like mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Well, I think first of all, you have the central
managers in the EU. I'm talking about EU, so of
course they have to have some handle over what's going
on AT's see. So I think in the European Parliament
they have to set the boundaries. What do we mean
with sustainability, what do we mean with the healthy ecosystem
and intact habitats and they have to define how that
should look like. This is something that society has to
decide upon how much damage do we accept for fisheries
to do so that's done at the higher political level.
That's there. Then your European Commission should not deal with micromanagement.
I mean they should follow up how the whole ecosystem
and fish stocks are evolving through time, and they have
to check with what the politicians in the European Parliament
have to have decided. They have to see based on
reliable information, how the fishtocks are evolving and is this
actually what we have decided as a society how it
should be. If that's correct, well just let them do so.
You as Europein Commission has to measure the outcome, has
to measure the status of the fish stocks and the
status of the ecosystem. If that's fine, just let them go.
If the Commission sees that something's going wrong, that there's
in some area over fishing or some fish stocks in problem,
or to match damage to the ecosystem, well they have
to be able to, let's say, bring some changes and
bring back the fishery within the boundaries of sustainability. But
they have to do that with means that are easy
to implement. For example, today we have a lot of
regulations which are almost impossible to control. For example, the
landing obligation. Forget it, there's no compliance for the moment,
not possible to control. So if you can't control all it,
don't do it. Don't make yourself ridiculous, I'm sorry. Do
it with days at sea for example, So if the
Commision see is that fishing fleets are not behaving well,
reduce their days at sea. Very simple. Every vessel that
goes out and in a fishing harbor is recorded. So
it's the most easy way to control the fishery and
very efficient. So of course the European Commission has to
have some means to control that, and that's the way
they can do that. Once you have that, you don't
need technical measures, you don't need expections at sea, you
don't need minimum landing sizes, you don't need a landing
obligation and so on. Then finally fishers can concentrate on
what they are good at, and that's fishing. Finding the
higher fish concentrations and much more than in the past.
Avoid what you don't want, to avoid a small fish
and avoid the protected species, and of course record their catches.
That's the foundation of the whole thing. And then the
scientists will finally get good data and they will develop
apps based on that good information to help the fishers
with all. If you have all these catches of all
these vessels in real time, you can automatic You can
build algorithms and models who give you distribution maps which
are updated every day with the real time catch information
you get from the whole fleet. So with these distribution
maps maps, the fishes can actually plan their fishery in
a much better way than they used to. They have
this information on where's the fish I want and where's
the fish I don't want, and where are the habitats
that are vulnerable. If you have this information, you have
what you need for sustainable fishing. So the scientists will
then also based on this good data, produce meta data,
let's say, more general information on the state of the
fish stocks and the state of the ecosystem that they
can report to European Commission. So the European Commission we
get a true estimation of the status of the ecosystem
and the fish stocks, and with that much more correct
information they will be able to manage much better. And
then there finally will be a good relationship with the
scientists and the fishers, and this will become a cooperation
that is very valuable. So that I think that that's
in a nutshell, the system, how we think it can work.
Of course, should you believe me, well not, you should
not believe me. And do I believe myself, well, I
do have doubts. I'm not sure if all this will work.
I'm not sure actually how all this should work. I
mean in terms of models and and algorithms and so
these are complex things. But we are quite confident that
we have reached in Belgium now a level that is
much better than we see in our neighboring countries, a
level of data collection and cooperation. So we do believe
that this is this way forward has a lot of potential.
Now the thing is, before I can convince you, I
will have to show you. Now, before I have to
I can show you, I will be able. I should
be able to do an experiment. So that experiment could be,
for example, take the North Sea and let's say, okay,
for that North Sea. We will put the common Fisheries
policy completely aside and replace it with something completely new,
and let that for the next decade be an experiment
in the North Sea. So I can demonstrate you that
it works or it fails, and you can say, well,
and that's the this ison my get. Well, if it fails,
it's a drama. No, it's a real drama. Well, I
would say the system today as it is working, is failing.
It is failing if you look at all the problems
we have in fisheries, and if you look at how
desperate many fishers are. I mean a fishing industry, fishers
who during the last centuries have overcome so many crises.
These are very dynamic people and very resilient people who
are today saying, well, if I get the opportunity, I
get out of the business. It's all too much for me.
I just can't fish anymore. So let me do the experiment,
because what we see today is not pretty.
Speaker 1: You knows, when you keep to the point where he says, okay,
well it work. No, you know you were saying that, yeah,
that you don't know. But what came to my main
when you said there's an old saying that you hear
a lot. Where there's a will, there's a way.
Speaker 2: M hm. True, And I think.
Speaker 1: It's a world to drive it. What would be.
Speaker 2: If you have a group of people who really see
what's going on today and say we need to go
to a better system, and you see the potential of
the data we have, and you see the potential of
the cooperation. Well, I think if you have people who
believe in it, I think we can reach it. I mean,
let me give an example. It's a very different world,
but the war in Ukraine. I mean four years ago,
everybody thought that's the end of Ukraine. And this has
been so for a few years now. The last six
months you see that this drone technology has developed so
much that Ukraine is actually on the winning hand. Nobody
would have believed it, Nobody would have given the Ukrainians
a chance a few years ago. But the Ukrainians were
forced and pushed just for the sheer survival to come
up with alternative ways of waging war, and they developed
the technology so far that this underdog is now on top.
I mean, as you say, where there's a will, there's
a way, and I think it's the same here. I
think if you look at the basics in our new
approach and you look at the value in that I
mean good data, cooperation, trust, and so whether they have
these things which are lacking today. If you have these things,
I think there's a very good chance that we can
come to a much better system than we have today.
Speaker 1: And could use almost the pressure's rule change and every
vessel becomes a scient thick observation platform.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's the thing. It's an automatic system. That's
the good thing. You can collect the information from the
fisheries catch, which is valuable for the fisheries, but which
is also valuable for other parties who are dealing with
the marine ecosystem, who are dealing with climate change, who
are dealing with weather. There's a lot of information that
you can collect on a fishing vessel that is valuable
for many parties. For example, you can put a temperate
sensor temperature sensor on a troll, which means that every
hole the temperature sensor goes from the top to the bottom,
so you get this temperature profile, which seems to be
very interesting for climate scientists and weather scientists. If you
do that on board of if you do that in
a fishing fleet. You have all these different tune it's
fishing in all these different places, and you get all
these temperate temperature profiles, which today you almost don't have
just on a few fixed points you have then, so
this is very valuable. We are also, for example, developing
a DNA sampler, so EDNA, I don't know if you
know it, environmental DNA. Every fish that swims in the
sea is behind a little bit of DNA. If you
take a liter or a gallon of seawater, there's a
lot of DNA in there. If you extract the DNA,
you can determine the species that have been swimming around.
So you based on that DNA in the water, you
get an impression of the numbers of fish pieces around
and also some indication on the quantity of fish. So
this EDNA sample is already operational on board of one
of our fishing vessels, gives us new information that is
today not available, but that we can just fit into
that data collection system on board of the fishing vessel,
again in an automated way. So you can actually make
of a fishing vessel a data collection platform that is
valuable for many parties.
Speaker 1: And what role would that play investries management.
Speaker 2: I think the main thing is that fisheries managers can
get a much better perception of the reality with that.
I think these are reliable data, high resolution data, high
quality and real time compared to what we have today
is low resolution, low quality, a very slow I mean
it takes months before lockbook data get in our database
with the changes feel So for managers, I think it's
mainly about reliable information on the state of the fish
stocks and of the ecosystem.
Speaker 1: Why specially is mortality the only metric that really matters.
Speaker 2: Because what you need to know to manage fish stocks
is how quickly they grow and how quickly they die
or how many die. Once you know, once you have
the catches, and you know what the fishing mortality is,
that it's induced by the fishing fleet, you know what
effect it will have on the fish stock. And by
collecting this catch information of all these fishing vessels over
a wide area, you also get a pretty good idea
on natural mortality. So you get a very good information
on fishing mortality by each individual fishing vessel, and by
combining all these data you get a pretty good idea
on natural mortality. So critical factor in stock assessment, natural
mortality or mortality in general. You will now finally have
much more accurate information. And if you have that, you
have enough to follow up the fish stocks and you
have enough to manage because if you will see how
this changes through time, and if it goes in the
wrong direction, well, as a manager you can say, well,
let's use this simple means days at sea to limit
where it's necessary.
Speaker 1: I have to say, hands that I admire and appreciate
the passion you have for it. But that's what you
mentioned and the system you're talking about, and I believe
that it can work. It comes out a cross load
and clear respect.
Speaker 2: You for that. Thank you very much, Thank you very
much for the appreciation. I have to say, I'm very
happy I can bring my story here. I really hope
that we can do something together. I mean you and
me this podcast, but I mean the British and Europeans.
I think, well, the sea separates us, but I think
we belong together. And I think when it comes to
managing fisheries and anything that happens in the sea, it
makes much more sense to do it together than to
draw this imaginary line halfway in the North Sea that.
Speaker 1: Separates us at hunt when you say that I couldn't.
You don't get me wrong. I'm not pulling yep on that.
I'm going to give you the measure that I agree
with you because we've already had a chat about how
you remember Jack Roberts and obviously you've worked together, you know,
So there's nobodriers there. I was talking to one of
our really successful farst young fisherman and there's not too
many unfortunately around now, but he was fishing down in
the Southern north Sea and he was talking about how
well he got on with some of the dutch Men
and probably Belgiums. He was in the Southern north Sea
and he says he was getting on really well with
them and they were honest with their patch theaters and
things like that. So can we not see what Goodoni
or Siatists talk together, pressures talk together. That's when it finished,
that's when it starts and ends.
Speaker 2: That's true. Actually I call it in my when I
gave a presentation, I call it social innovation. But this
is just expensive words of people just talking to each other.
There's so much value in talking to each other. Let
me give you an Examplengos the green people that say,
twenty years ago it was impossible to have one of
the fisher's representatives and people of the NGOs together at
one table. But then fifteen years ago we started with
this cooperation and we involved the NGOs, and in the
beginning it was a bit awkward when these people started talking,
but very quickly they started exchanging information and talking about
their problems from both sides, and after very short time,
the people of the NGOs and the fishers, they just
get along very well. So Pier old.
Speaker 1: People, Yeah, yeah, and it can stock assessment become real Dame.
Speaker 2: I definitely think it can, and not only it can,
but I think it should. I mean as soon as
you have cameras on board, and this technology is underdevelopment,
but it's already quite far. When you have cameras on
board and you have a data collection system that we
for the moment have fully operational on most of our vessels,
you have the foundation for a real time stock assessment
because you will have every fishing hole. As soon as
the catch is processed, the information goes to the database,
goes into a model together with all the information of
all the other fishing vessels, and you get a constant
update of the fish distribution and fish densities and so.
And that is the basis for real time stock assessment
and real time management because this is the goal. You
need real time management when huge amounts of octopus enter
the Western English channel in certain places. But it's interesting
to know today that this is happening. I mean the
system today between the first data collection and the actual
quota and the advice is something like almost two years.
Well that's not quick enough now to see all these
sudden changes. We have to go to real time stock assessment, yeah,
or a combination of the two. I mean, I'm not
excluding the one. I think we probably need to to.
I mean, we have to feed the old system with
better data so it performs better. But we need quick
ways to assess the system in order to have quick
management measures.
Speaker 1: And would you say we will get Do we still
need research vessels under see inspections becoming obsolete or would
they big?
Speaker 2: I think research vessels we will probably still need for
the more fundamental research, but I would not use them
for the let's say, the operational research like surveys and
so on. I think it's it's much more efficient to
use the fishing flee to do that, it will have
its own challenges. I won't say it will just be
very easy, because there's differences between vessels, so a catch
of one vessel means something different than a catch of
another vessel. And then then you have other fishing methods.
A catch of anglers means something different than a catch
of a palgic troll. So I mean there's challenges there
as well, but I think there's much more value there
and I think we can overcome the challenges. So research
vessels for that probably obsolete inspections. I think the inspections
can be much less. I mean all the inspections on
technical measures are not needed anymore. So meash sizes selective
panels and so you don't have to check it anymore
because it's free choice for the fissure. What we'll probably
need inspection is the functioning of the camera, but a
lot of that can be done the remote. And then
what catch is actually in the hull of the vessel,
and that is probably I think that we'll need some
kind of control how that should look like. I think
inspection should also undergo a paradigm change, because now the
fishers and inspectors are against standing against each other. No,
I think we know we need social scientists or people
with social experience from other sectors to have a look
at that. But I think inspectors should probably be involved
more in a cooperative way and in a way to
collect information. I mean, the way we do it. We
know where the bad guys are in our fisher we
know what's going on, we know what kind of road
is going on, we know how people fiddle around with
fishing gear. Why, because we have this social interaction, We
talk to each other and there is social control within
the fishing industry. Fishers know from each other who is
doing the bad thing, and this information is shared. So
I think an inspector should also be more involved in
the fishery like that, and where social control becomes more important,
and where the good guys who meanwhile for sustainable fishing
work together amongst them cells and with the scientists and
with the inspectors to actually push the bad guys to
behave better, because it is in the interest of everybody
for fishers who actually behave in a sustainable way, and
the bad guys just ruined it for everybody. So I mean,
it's a very different way of dealing with each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's put more trust than each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so much more fun. I mean, if you get along. Now,
if an inspector goes on board of a fishing vessel
and he has to be guided with policemen with machine guns,
I don't know if this inspector has a fun job now,
But if an inspector can go on board in a
very different atmosphere, well maybe this job can become fun
as well.
Speaker 1: Can push in fleets become the world world's largest ecosystem monitoring.
Speaker 2: Network, definitely, definitely, I'm sure it can. Yeah, because they
are indeed active over the whole world, and you can
fill them up with sensors, any sensor you want, and
you can put it at the surface, and you can
put it on the fishing gear so it reaches the seafloor. Yeah.
And if fishers cooperate in that and also give a
hand in maintaining the system. I mean, a fisher who
has has his main commercial activity fishing, but has to
work in the system of data collection and does not
have to spend time anymore on all the administration and
the complexity and so on, well, he can spare some
of his time in making all these sensors work, so
you don't need expensive maintenance. I mean the fisher himself
can play an important role in maintenance of cameras and
maintenance of sensors that but are put on fishing gear.
So you get a cheap system with very cheap maintenance
to actually observe the marine ecosystem as a whole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and who we want specialize data.
Speaker 2: Well in our system today is the fisher who owns
the data. So we have no rights regarding the data.
Of course, if you want to enter the system that
we are suggesting, the basis of the system is good data.
So if you voluntarily join the system, you will voluntarily
provide me with your data. If you don't want to
do that, find for me, but then you will be
part of the common Fisheries policy as it is today,
with all the control and enforcements that comes with it.
But you have the choice. We will never force any
fisher to join our system, but we have seen that
the majority has done it voluntarily.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, And what are the risks of an observation
based management system?
Speaker 2: M hm? The risks? I think we will probably find
out the risks when we are trying it out, But
I think the risks is well, the questions I have
is will we find ways and models who are actually
clever enough and quick enough to process all the information
we will be getting. That's one thing. Another risk is
well compliance, will fishures maybe find ways around our camera
system to avoid the quota they are for facing. I
think these are the two main, main, main things for me,
main risks.
Speaker 1: When I say this, it's just my own thoughts myself,
and I don't want to put you in a position hands.
But one of the problems the round about what we've
been discussing, and it comes from, you know, a point
a friend of mine, an Irish man, made to me
just recently where he felt that the there have a real, real,
real issue on the macro code in Ireland. And he
says that the problem where they feel the difficult position,
the fuel they're in. He says, it's not Brussels. Brussels
is not the problem. It's not coming from Brussels. He said,
the problem is Dutch millionaires.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well now you're talking about it magic freed of course, and.
Speaker 1: But the system is just shocking I feel anyway, and
I'm not hard left in anyway, I'm not at all
the conservative all my life. But you don't feel the
country should own the quota and it's allocuted accordingly.
Speaker 2: So you're saying that it's the country who should own
the quota. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 1: Yeah, rather than because another thing that a diientist, especially
scientist from Aberdeen Marine Lab, he once quoted he is
the biggest mistake they ever made here was putting a
value on quota and license, because he says, now the
chances of a young guy leaving school his ambition is
to be a fresherman, going own, to be a skipper
and eventually with his own board. He says, that's impossible
to do now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see, I see what you mean. Yes, I
think I agree, But I think I have been pro
something in between, because we now have that system where
the Belgium state owns the quota still and is also
strongly involved in dividing the quota amongst the different companies.
I think the advantage of that is that indeed you
can give the opportunity to young fishers to start. You
you can actually steer your fishery a little bit so
that it's done in a social way. The disadvantage is
that with the complexity of mixed fisheries and all these
different quota and the chokes pieces issue, and so you
need a system where you can easily and weekly distribute
quota to where they are needed. So you need some
kind of exchange or rental system. But you can perfectly
do that while the quota are still in the hands
of the state. Every year, Belgium could distribute the quota
but still have some hand on how it is done.
Speaker 1: Well, my reponts to that hands is well done Belgium,
to thank you. That seriously mean that how much uncertainty
is an acceptable in a real tame management system.
Speaker 2: Well, I think we can allow ourselves quite some uncertainty
because well we know that the cameras will increase the
information hugely, so we will make a big step forward
if we start using this cameras to analyze the full catch,
so it will be much better than today. But to
have a perfect catch re registration of all holes is
just not possible, so we will have to accept some
sort of error and uncertainty. But then I think the
information that we will have will be probably more than
enough than needed to actually know where the fishes and
how they evolved through time.
Speaker 1: But I just in my own head, which I don't
think I'm missing anything. But from what you said about
the other romo you're proposing the cameras. For sure don't
like cameras. But the big bat for me han't listening
to you. It is there's so many other changes that
it'll it will just be part of a whole package
and will be acceptable.
Speaker 2: I think the reason fishers don't like cameras is because
you have a complex set of rules that are difficult
to comply with. Now, if it's difficult to comply with, well,
quite often you will have a situation that you don't comply.
And if then each time a camera will register or
what's the word camera will actually show to the manager
that you did not comply with the rules, well, a
fine is the next thing that will come, or you
will vessel will be put on the chain on the
key side, it will stop fishing. So there's the fishes
are scared to just provide the managers with their true
information on their catches. But when you change the system
and it's not so much based anymore on control and enforcement,
that changes the whole attitude of fishes because they don't
have to be afraid to be put out of business
if they just don't follow the rules for a few times. No,
it's a much more flexible system.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and can atually signed as realistically processed millions
of observations per day.
Speaker 2: Well, I think they can, but the amount of information
will not be so huge because we are not transferring
to the cloud the images. So what we will do
for each all we will analyze the catch and for
each of the species we will have a linked distribution.
So for each fish this means maybe I don't know,
thirty numbers times I don't know, twenty species is six
hundred numbers for a whole. I mean that's tiny, tiny,
So for each all we get a tiny amount of information. Okay,
if I have to do that for a few thousand vessels,
still compared to the huge amount of data we are
able to process these days, well, this information coming from
the fish fishing fleet will still be tiny. I mean
what I think the information the amount of data you
use if you use Facebook for an hour is probably
much more than the amount of data that you would
produce with the fishing fleet in the North Sea. So no,
it's just link distributions, it's just numbers.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah, no, that's excellent. And where can our
listeners follow you online? Active on social media?
Speaker 2: I'm trying to be a I'm sixty one years old.
Now I'm not so active on social media, but the
last six months I have been more active on LinkedIn,
mainly to spread my message. So I force myself to
be present, and I have to say I kind of
like it. It's nice you get somebody, get to know
people with different ideas or the same ideas, and it
gives discussions and discussions bring wisdom because I don't claim
to hold the wisdom and the truth in myself. I
know I make errors and if people discuss with me
and they will point me at weaknesses in my story,
and that's for me very interesting because then I can
will improve my ideas. So no, I'm very happy to
be there for the moment there, Thank.
Speaker 1: You, Thank you. I would just bebe point that you
you to the wrong person that you refer you refer
to being sixty one to somebody who's going to say
to you, oh, is that all You're that young?
Speaker 2: When I have a few black hairs in my mustache,
you're probably all white very much.
Speaker 1: So it's a long time. I would like to thank you.
The only another point I was going to make because
we include Hans was as I mentioned earlier, and I
do mean it, well done Belgium, and but I have
to be upfront. That only goes to the point we fishers,
I won't be most of still want Scotland to beat
Belgium when we're playing football.
Speaker 2: Well, we had better times. I mean we had to
ross during the three last matches and only the last
one we won, and so yeah we're going through, but
we were a bit nervous, you know, we had better times.
Speaker 1: Well, well you're still there, so you're doing better than us.
Speaker 2: That's true, that's true. Well next time better. I wish
the Scotch the Scott's sold the luck.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we emptied Boston as far as alcohol is okay,
Well no, thank you, thank you so much. I really
appreciate your time and credit to it, your looking at
doing and I all the very best was that. I
really do hope you have success. That's fantastic, forward thinking
and definitely the way to go.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. My pleasure and my greetings to
the Scotch fishers and and all scottsmen and women.
Speaker 1: Thank you all very much, thank you, same to to
Belgiums
Speaker 2: MHM