Decommissioning of the Dutch cutter sector : Impact analysis of management measures on the fishery

Samenvatting

This study is part of an overarching socio-economic impact analysis of policy decisions on and developments in fisheries. The central research question for this study is: What are the socio-economic effects of the decommissioning scheme on the fisheries sector, the fish chain and fishing regions? Looking at the historical (2018-2021) activity of the vessels that were registered for scrapping, the expected effects of the removal of those vessels will mainly be felt in the beam trawl flatfish fishery. The relative changes in landings of sole and plaice are expected to exceed the change in quota share due to Brexit. For cod this is less clear and there is a risk that the landings decrease due to the exit of decommissioned vessels in a lesser proportion than the quota due to Brexit. The landings of pelagic species are not expected to change due to the scheme given that no pelagic vessels registered for the scheme, while the share of post-Brexit quotas will go down. All Dutch fisheries regions are expected to be impacted by the exit of scrapped vessels, either because a large part of the fleet is expected to be scrapped (as in Urk) or because a large proportion of the Dutch landings is landed in those regions (as in Southwest Netherlands, Kop van Noord-Holland, Wadden Coast and IJmuiden).