FISH 133 Spring 2019

IFM News
IFM News
Event Date Location
IFM Big River Fish Hunt 2019 June 16 th UK Wide
50 th Annual Conference
Learning from the Past,
to Inform the Future
October 8 th – 10 th 2019
Nottingham Conference Centre
and the annual dinner will be
held in the Council House
For further details on up and coming events: www.ifm.org.uk/events
Some reflections from Dr Peter Spillett,
IFM President
Brexit blues
As I write this two thirds of the way through May,
the current impasse on the Brexit process has
meant little news or progress on the Agriculture or
Fisheries Bills, both of which of course will impact
on the activities of the IFM. The expectation
is that they will not be returning for the Report
Stage until after a Brexit deal has been agreed –
your guess when is as good as mine!
Plenty of activity, however, at the Environmental
Policy Forum (EPF) where much of the focus
has been on trying to influence the forthcoming
Environment Bill. A multi-sector group has been
set up, including EPF members such as IEMA
(Institute of Environmental Management and
Assessment) and CIWEM (Chartered Institute
of Water and Environmental Management) to
engage with Defra and other bodies to help
steer the draft legislation.
As a result, the group has met regularly with
Defra every two weeks and discussed, inter alia,
introducing objectives and establishing a process
for setting targets and milestones in the Bill, nonregression
of existing environmental standards,
flexibility on outcomes, improving the status of
the proposed Office of Environmental Protection
(OEP) and advocating a common and consistent
approach amongst the four UK administrations.
In terms of timing, the Bill was originally expected
in June/July but it is now thought to be in the
autumn. One other current uncertainty of course
is the contest to take over the Conservative Party
when Theresa May steps down.
Since Michael Gove has played such a leading
role as Environment Secretary in the drafting
of the Bill and production of the 25 Year
Environment Plan, there are concerns over future
progress should his role change.
Of course the proof of the pudding is in the eating
– we will need to see what eventually appears
in the Bill to work out whether all this lobbying
has been effective. The group are cautiously
optimistic though; they’ve met with Gove
personally, they’ve met with Philip Hammond and
the Treasury and also had separate discussions
with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The group’s approach has been labelled the
Broadway Initiative (see FISH 132) and has the
full support of this Institute.
Moving on to more domestic matters at the
England Fisheries Group (EFG), consultations
on the close season came to an end. As
has been the problem all along, the lack of
scientific evidence one way or another makes
any proposed change to the status quo rather
problematic.
At the last meeting in February Katie Whitlock
reported on the Environment Agency’s Coarse
Fish Strategy, the aim of which is basically to
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