Tag Archives: fisheries

Policy From the People: Laying the Groundwork for Brexit Environmental Policy

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Image Credit: Elliott Brown, CC BY 2.0, Image Cropped

Making Brexit work for environment and livelihoods: Delivering a stakeholder informed vision for agriculture and fisheries (2019) Beukers-Stewart et al., People and Nature, https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10054

The Crux

Ok, last article on Brexit for the time being. Everyone rest easy. This week’s paper looks once again at the consequences of Brexit for both the agricultural and fishing industries, and the knock-on effects on Britain’s farmland and marine ecosystems. As has been echoed both by this week’s earlier interview with Abigail McQuatters-Gollop and the views from this week’s British Ecological Society Annual Meeting, Brexit can represent an opportunity. An opportunity to put together a directive that helps maintain both marine and terrestrial ecosystems whilst not putting the people at a disadvantage.

This week’s paper is trying to get an understanding of how to put together that framework, by speaking to the people Brexit will likely impact more quickly than others: farmers and fishers. Government subsidies support many British farmers, and it’s not clear whether they’ll remain in place going forwards. Quotas could shift dramatically for fishers.

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Focus on Brexit at BES2019: Resigned But Resolute

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Image Credit: Marco Verch, CC BY 2.0, Image Cropped

I’m in Belfast this week for the British Ecological Society’s Annual Meeting. Whilst I’ll write a more comprehensive summary of the event next week, for now I want to talk (again) about the looming fragmentation that Brexit represents, its impact upon British ecology, and the ecological community in general.

I took a tour of the city on my first day here which focussed on Belfast’s history of violence, and I don’t believe this conference could have had a darker backdrop with regards to Brexit. Fears of a no-deal exit from the EU are sparking worries of the return of a border wall with southern Ireland, which could lead to local redeployment of the British army. Public opinion is starting to sway towards reunification with southern Ireland.

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Cooperation in the Aftermath of an Ecosystem Reboot

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Today’s catch lays in front of me. As I marvel at how used to the stink of dead fish I’ve become, the fisher who brought them in points out a couple of larger Arctic charr as the researchers standing by him gush over the presence of a couple of tiny sticklebacks. He is fascinated by their appreciation of the smaller fish, which I had almost mistaken for baby trout. He offers to bring in more tomorrow if he can find them. It might not seem like the most significant of interactions, but it’s one more example of the willing assistance that the researchers here have enjoyed over the last week from local fishers.

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Brexit and Ecology

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Image Credit: Max Pixel, CC0 1.0, Image Cropped

The last three years have seen some serious political upheaval in the European region, Brexit being perhaps the pinnacle of that. It’s an issue on which everyone has an opinion and which no one seems to have any answers to. So I thought that this week I’d try to put together a synthesis of sorts on how Brexit will possibly affect the ecological science community. Below are a series of links to articles that describe the affect of Brexit on, and responses by, the ecological community.

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A Snapshot of Ireland’s Ecological Landscape

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Image Credit, Sam Perrin, CC BY 2.0

Last week, the NTNU University Museum’s Department of Natural History was benevolent enough to send its staff on a four day journey around Ireland. My previous experiences with Ireland have been two somewhat ill-fated trips on New Year’s Eve 2008 and St. Patrick’s Day 2012, so I was eager to see Ireland’s greener side. In an attempt to spruik some of the more interesting parts of the trip, I’ve broken it down below.

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