NEW SPFA CHAIRMAN KEEN TO ADDRESS CHALLENGES FACING SECTOR

New SPFA chairman keen to address challenges facing sector. Richard Williamson, the new chair of the Scottish Pelagic Fishermen’s Association (SPFA), says he is honoured to take on the new role and build upon the excellent work of the previous long-standing chair, Alex Wiseman, and vice-chair, David Hutchison.

Now, with Alexander (Ally) West, co-skipper of the Resolute, moving into the vice-chair role, the SPFA has a new leadership team at the helm to help chief executive Ian Gatt steer it through the challenges of the coming years.

Richard Williamson

Richard, who is the co-skipper of the Whalsay based Research, says the Scottish pelagic sector has an important role to play in ensuring that Scotland’s seafood sector is globally recognised for both the quality and sustainability of its products.

“The Scottish pelagic sector has a vital role to play in ensuring both national and global food security for a sustainable, low carbon footprint and healthy-to-eat, nutritious source of protein.

“Sustainability is a word heavily used by environmental NGOs, yet they often think it is solely their preserve and don’t seem to recognise that communities in places like Whalsay are totally dependent on fishing and where sustainability is the fundamental bedrock of everything we do. My family’s fishing heritage goes back several generations and sustainability means everything to us because our futures depend upon it.

“This is why we are so keen to participate in initiatives such as the industry science-data collection programme where we can enhance our knowledge of stocks to ensure better management. Of course, there are many current challenges, not least the failure to ensure an agreement on north-east Atlantic mackerel shares and quotas among coastal states – a situation which is totally outside our control as a fishing industry. However, at least some progress was made in the recent three-party agreement between the UK, Norway and the Faroes, which was a step in the right direction in reducing fishing pressure, and hopefully the other coastal states will come on board with an all-encompassing agreement.   It is vital to get a common sense and pragmatic agreement on this where zonal attachment and historical track record are among the key considerations.

“It would be great to get north-east Atlantic mackerel back into the MSC programme again and this is something everyone in the Scottish pelagic sector – both catchers and processors – are keen to achieve. On a wider scale, it would also be good to see more marketing initiatives for Scottish pelagic fish – for example herring is a fabulous fish where there is much more scope for promoting consumption in the UK market.”

On the issue of forthcoming implementation of remote electronic monitoring (REM) on pelagic vessels, including the installation of cameras, Richard believes it simply amounts to more cumbersome, expensive and unnecessary bureaucracy in an already heavily regulated sector, and questions whether the Marine Directorate will even have the resources to analyse the information obtained. He also wonders how much of a level playing field will be operated for monitoring and enforcement on other nations’ pelagic vessels in Scottish waters.

Richard is tremendously proud of his fishing heritage and the lineage of the vessel Research, which today is a 79m state-of-the-art pelagic trawler, but the origin hails from a Zulu class herring drifter acquired in Shetland in 1935.

The first steel vessel named Research was built by Richard’s father, Robbie, along with 10 other equal shareholders in 1980. The vessel Azalea was acquired by the partnership in 1994 and fished as a pair team with the Research initially, before the decision was taken in 1997 to consolidate the two vessels into one and invest in a new boat carrying the name Research. A more modern replacement was built in 2003, culminating in the current vessel, built in Norway and delivered in 2019.

This investment, which is typified throughout the Scottish pelagic sector, has ensured the development of an efficient low carbon footprint fleet with ultra-modern catch handling and cooling systems to ensure a premium quality catch.

“Catch quality is really important to us,” he says. “Countries like Japan, for example, demand the best quality fish, and by investing in our fleet, we can compete with countries such as Norway in the export market. It is important that all the Scottish fleet to do this together so that we can drive up quality and the global reputation of our catch.”

Climate change is another area that may throw up challenges in the future, which is why Richard is keen for the Scottish pelagic fleet to participate in science initiatives such as data collection. As an example, he has noticed fewer herring about in the summer season, but more appearing during the winter months, perhaps suggesting a seasonal shift in distribution and abundance.

“There are still lots of gaps in our knowledge of pelagic stocks, and as an industry, we are determined to play our part in addressing such shortfalls,” he says.