Expert argues fishers must be empowered to control fish stocks

A fisheries expert from our University is arguing that fishers must be empowered to take the lead in the management system of fish stocks.

Professor Paul Hart is delivering the 2017 Buckland Lecture- with talks in England, Scotland and Norway.

Frank Buckland (1826-1880) was an eccentric Victorian zoologist who was inspector for salmon fisheries in England and Wales and sat on the various fisheries commissions that took place in the latter part of the nineteenth century. In his will he asked that his wife should have a life interest in his estate but on her death £5,000 would be used to establish a trust fund to support ‘a professorship of Economic Fish Culture, to be called The Buckland Professorship’. The money became available in 1925 and in 1930 the first Buckland Lectures were given by Professor Walter Garstang. It is clear that Frank Buckland intended the term ‘Fish Culture’ to be widely interpreted and to cover much more than fish hatching and the rearing of fry.

The Buckland Professor for 2017 is Professor Paul Hart who is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behaviour. The title of his lecture is ‘Stewards of the Sea. Returning power to fishers’.

The lecture will examine the factors that have distanced fishers from the fisheries management process. It will then discuss ways in which fishers are being brought back into the process of managing their stocks sustainably and contributing towards marine conservation. Finally it is argued that fishers must be empowered to take the lead in the management system.

Professor Hart first gives the lecture on 20 September at the National Marine Aquarium, Plymouth. The lecture will be repeated on 12 October at the University of St Andrews, 19 October in Bergen Norway, 8 November at the University of East Anglia and finally on 9 November at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) Fisheries Laboratory, Lowestoft.