Scottish fishermen are to take part in trials of “spy in the boat” technology aimed at overhauling EU fishing practices to end the waste of discarding thousands of tonnes of dead fish at sea.
The plan, devised by the Danish Government, will give fishermen bigger catch quotas in return for closed-circuit television monitoring on board. Supporters of the cameras argue that the numbers of fish taken overall will fall with the end of high rates of so-called discards.
It is a potential blueprint for the re-drawing of the EU’s failed fishing policy, which after 25 years of rows about quotas, days at sea and net sizes still results in 88 per cent of stocks overfished compared with 25 per cent worldwide. While 24,400 tonnes of