news/editorial

31 May 2015 News/Editorial

Before getting to the meat of this week’s effort, please note the Tweed Foundation’s annual auction for 2015 is up and running, and details can be found online at

http://www.rivertweed.org.uk/news/?p=5055

There is much good fishing to be had there and at very reasonable prices, often on beats pretty much unavailable by any other means, so please do bid as much as you can and all in support of the excellent Tweed Foundation.

Thank you.

---000---

I am in receipt of a copy of a letter from a German angler, who fishes the Helmsdale, to the Scottish Minister, Dr Aileen McLeod.

I need only quote a few of the comments for you to get the general drift.

“In the past 3 years I have been fishing the Helmsdale...it is a gem of a river and in my opinion very well managed”

“This is a contribution of £5,500 (for my fishing) to the Scottish economy just by the two of us. We are severely thinking of staying at home in the future or looking for alternatives, and so are doing numerous friends of us. This would result in a huge loss to Scotland’s economy and it would especially harm the rural areas.”

“Why are the salmon stocks in Scotland in decline…...the main threats are the salmon farming industry…...beside that the mixed net fisheries are doing a great harm”

“Recreational fishing in Iceland generates a much higher income to the economy rather than fish farming and commercial netting, and all without harming the environment”

It is an extraordinarily powerful letter.

It is saying (a) that the Government is to blame for some of the decline in salmon stocks because of its slavish adherence to and encouragement of fish farming on the west coast, and its encouragement/failure to control in the past the interceptory/mixed stock netting companies, (b) that Scottish rivers are already very well managed (so why completely ditch a system that works well?), and (c) that Government should be putting resources into recreational fishing rather than fish farming and netting, because it both earns more for the country and does not harm the environment (which both netting and fish farming do).

I will tell you why Government is so blindly determined on a course of “reforming” the river boards who manage the rivers (mostly very well).

The Government does not like the river boards or the people who own the rivers...that’s it.

Once rid of them, they want people running rivers who they can control centrally, in three ways:

1. By governance composition and a most definite minority of fishery owners,

2. By the imposition of central plans and standards, and

3. By controlling the money.

In short, “stuff the owners” and take central control. Andrew Thin was never interested in what the RTC or other boards do; his job was to come up with a plan to get rid of them, and listening to what a good job many of them are doing was never on his agenda, indeed it was no more than an inconvenience for him, easily ignored.

And if you do not believe all that, then you come up with another reason for their proposal to abolish the River Tweed Commission, of which neither the Government nor anybody else has come up with one word of criticism as to its constitution, its wide representation, its all species status, its reliance on science via the Tweed Foundation…..or indeed its results as a river manager.

Governments should deal with things, and people, on merit, on how they perform and on what they achieve, regardless of creed, colour, social class or anything else unrelated to performance.

Some say we should all be nice to Government, because they hold all the cards and they seem utterly determined to proceed with abolition of the RTC and all other river boards, rather than what we would propose which is that they should make all other boards like the RTC, post consolidation Scotland-wide into 15 or less rather than the current 41.

This would be sensible, considered evolution of the current system, not complete revolution as the Government proposes.

But if someone comes at you saying ”I am going to kill you off and nothing you say will stop that happening”, do you fight back, or do you say “You carry on, that’s fine and we will help you decide how you kill us and what you replace us with”?

If you believe passionately in what you have now, a system evolved here over 200 years, and if you love your river as we do the Tweed, can you really stand by and watch as Government sets about destroying it for no stated purpose, it would seem, other than hatred of river boards?

I/we am/are, no doubt, a voice crying forlornly in the wilderness and nobody is listening….which means, most reluctantly, for we all have more productive things to do with our time, we have no option but to fight, as people do when someone is threatening to kill them off.

It is very sad and avoidable, and all of it of the Government’s own making , emphatically not ours.

Instead of all this, Government should listen to that visiting (no longer?) German angler and work with us to make things better.

But will they?

I don’t think so.