Prince Charles presents proof of profit in sustainable fisheries
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This article titled “Prince Charles presents proof of profit in sustainable fisheries” was written by Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 3rd February 2012 13.39 UTCProof that sustainably managed fisheries can deliver higher profits as well as environmental benefits was presented on Friday by the Prince of Wales. The report by one of his charities was hailed as a rare piece of good news amid what is usually an unremittingly gloomy outlook for the world’s dwindling fish stocks.
Prince Charles told an audience at Fishmongers’ Hall in London: “The story today need no longer be one of doom and gloom and inevitable decline, but one that harbours the possibility of generating more value from a strongly performing natural asset. This potential can only be tapped if we manage it well.”
He said the evidence gathered by his International Sustainability Unit (ISU), which examined 50 sustainably managed fisheries around the world, showed that improved fisheries management was “actually be more profitable than perennially succumbing to the temptation of maximising short term income while deferring the costs until later”.
He quoted an estimate from the World Bank that if all fisheries around the world were better managed, they would be worth bn a year more than their current total contribution of 4bn to global GDP. But the number of fisheries that are subject to a sustainable management programme are still a minority, and global fish stocks are falling fast. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, at least a third are now overexploited, depleted or recovering from depletion, and this figure is rising.
The study found many examples of responsibly managed stocks bringing benefits to local people. For instance, in the Pacific halibut fishery, the introduction of a catch-sharing system lengthened the fishing season and consequently increased the value of fish sold from to per pound. The Ben Tre clam fishery in Vietnam, after improving its governance, now supports 13,000 households, compared to 9,000 in 2007. The report also found that the hilsa shad fishery in Bangladesh could be worth nearly US0m more annually if improved, and that recovering the bluefin tuna fishery in the north-east Atlantic could produce gains of US0m per year.
The ISU found that in sustainably managed fisheries, declining stocks were revived by putting in place controls to regulate fishermen, including restrictions on when and where they could fish and what kind of nets and boats to use. The authors said that some of the key ways to improve the management of fish stocks were to change the economics of fishing through rewarding positive behaviour by the fleets, and to look at the health of the species being netted in the context of the whole marine ecosystem, which would include the health of other species in the food chain, and pollution from chemicals, agriculture or other human causes.
They made several recommendations for improving fisheries management, including: collecting better scientific data on fish stocks and the impact of fishing on the whole marine ecosystem; identifying more examples of good management; developing mechanisms to finance the wider adoption of good management techniques; involving the private sector with more fisheries improvement projects.
But the prince warned that action must be taken urgently to ensure that more of the world’s key fisheries are subject to good management – otherwise, he said, the current rapid decline of fish stocks would become irreversible.
“Despite the current vulnerable state of global fisheries, if managed properly with a focus on the resilience of the marine ecosystem as a whole, our seas could still provide us with the opportunity to continue harvesting seafood long into the future at similar, or perhaps even higher, volumes than at present,” he said.
His call was echoed by David Nussbaum, chief executive of the conservation group WWF-UK, who said: “We share the view of the problem and the collaborative, science-based approach to finding solutions that will protect the marine environment and ensure long-term sustainability for those whose livelihoods are dependent on it. To minimise the danger of catastrophic collapse of fisheries, we must look beyond short-term gains for some to the long-term interests of all. We should ask ourselves, ‘if fisheries and marine ecosystems face collapse in the same way as the banking system did, who will bail out the oceans?’ “
The ISU report, entitled Towards Global Sustainable Fisheries: The Opportunity for Transition, was the result of two years of consultation with the public, private, scientific and NGO sectors.
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Calls for relaunched Britannia were stage-managed
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It is a project for which the outpouring of support seems to have come from nowhere. In the past week, calls for a new royal yacht to be commissioned in the Queen’s diamond jubilee year have been made with enthusiasm by politicians, business leaders and newspapers.
But on closer scrutiny it seems the support is part of a well-choreographed campaign to make the yacht a reality. The project has had the backing of the royal family, a national newspaper, and the tacit support of at least two major organisations, for more than two years, suggesting last week’s enthusiastic headlines have been a long time in the planning.
The campaign can be traced back to the mid-1990s when a powerful group of industrialists and monarchists, anticipating the scrapping of the royal yacht, devised a replacement that would not require funding from the taxpayer.
Documents filed at Companies House show the Future Ship Project for the 21st century, known as FSP21, secured Buckingham Palace’s support at least two years ago and probably as far back as 2009. According to the organisation’s accounts for the 12 months ending 31 January 2010: “Agreement has been achieved with the palace that the FSP21 will provide royal apartments for use by the head of state.”
The accounts show the organisation, which will also use the ship to train young sailors, has spent the past three years seeking to raise £80m by exploiting its “contacts with trusts and industry, livery companies, schools and local authorities”.
They also note that “a national newspaper will raise public awareness of the project next year [2011]“, suggesting that at least one title, thought to be the Daily Mail, had pledged its backing for the plan at least two years ago.
Two dinners held on board HMS Warrior, the Victorian warship berthed in Portsmouth, were used to market the project to potential donors. And the accounts confirm a business committee was established and that “letters have been sent to individuals and organisations seeking support”.
The initiatives seem to have been a success. As far back as January 2010, the organisation, which is a charitable trust, revealed it had high hopes of securing funding from two major donors despite the “difficult fundraising climate”, a reference to the recession that was then gripping the UK.
The accounts note: “Particular interest in the project has been expressed by British Antarctic Survey and Edexcel, who are the project’s science and education partners respectively.”
Edexcel is owned by the FTSE 100 company Pearson, and describes itself as “the UK’s largest awarding body offering academic and vocational qualifications and testing to schools”. It has major contracts with the Department for Education, whose secretary of state, Michael Gove, has been a vocal cheerleader for the project.
An Edexcel spokesman said: “In 2009, we had some initial conversations with the group about the educational aspects of their plans, and said we would be happy to offer our expertise in support, if and when the project came to fruition. We have not been closely involved with the project since then.”
Last autumn, Gove wrote to David Cameron, stating that FSP21 “looks to be a highly commendable project, both for its contribution to our scientific knowledge and for the opportunities it offers to young people. I believe that approving this ship to become a royal yacht would be an excellent way to mark the Queen’s diamond jubilee.”
David Willets, the business minister, also wrote to the prime minister last year urging him to back the plan.
Last week the government said it would “react favourably” to the project, which is believed to be backed by the Prince of Wales and Princess Anne. In addition to royal events, the yacht would be used for trade and business events. It is expected to have room for “300 people – 200 trainees, 65 crew, 35 VIPs and passengers”.
It also emerged that Cameron had written to the project’s chief architect, Rear Admiral David Bawtree, a deputy lieutenant of Hampshire who represents the Queen in the county, giving his full support for the new 4,000-tonne, four-masted yacht last autumn.
On Friday, one of the Tory party’s biggest donors, Lord Ashcroft, announced he was donating £5m to the project. Ashcroft said “the murmurings … of a privately financed replacement for Britannia are hugely heartening, even if there is a very long way to go to make this happen”.
The murmurings were being made even before 1997 when the Labour government took the historic decision to decommission the royal yacht Britannia in its first year in office, a move that was greeted with dismay by the royal family.
Interviewed in Our Queen, Robert Hardman’s book about the monarch, Tony Blair indicated he regretted the decision. “I think if it had happened five years into my time [as prime minister], I would have just said ‘no’,” Blair said. Britannia is now a tourist attraction in Leith in Scotland.
Anticipating the Labour government’s decision, a group of businessmen formed the Cadland Consortium, which floated the idea of a privately financed yacht that would double as a training vessel. The idea was later supported by the then Labour education secretary, David Blunkett, who enthused about how it could raise “educational aspirations”.
Although the project fell out of favour, several of its supporters refused to let it die. Bawtree, who is a director of Visor Consultants, a private security company, continued to make the case to potential donors. He has been supported by his fellow directors, Maldwin Drummond, former commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron, and Graham Robb, an adviser to the DfE.
John Blashford-Snell, the explorer and founder of the Scientific Exploration Society, has also been an enthusiast for the scheme, explaining on the society’s website: “In overcrowded Britain, as our wide open spaces are reduced, the peaks of the popular national parks are being worn down by hordes of hikers. Yet on our doorstep we have the finest adventure training area of all – the sea.”
Last week their dream to replace Britannia, the 66th royal yacht in an unbroken line stretching back to 1660, came significantly closer to reality.
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Queen’s jubilee flotilla will be privately funded
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The £10m cost of the Queen’s diamond jubilee flotilla on the Thames in June will be met entirely by private sponsorship and gifts from individuals, the organisers have said, with the government so far refusing to lift a 20% VAT levy that will add £2m to the bill.
The pageant of 1,000 boats from the Albert bridge to Tower bridge on Sunday 3 June is expected to attract more than 1 million spectators lining the river banks.
At the same time a free party will be held in Battersea Park, south London. The events will be broadcast live on the BBC, ITV and Sky.
Lord Salisbury, the Conservative peer who chairs the foundation organising the river fleet, said the Treasury had not yet agreed to lift “the hell of a chunk” of tax, and said the Queen did not want public expenditure on the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of her accession.
He said: “The Queen does not want to feel she is asking the public to contribute to the bill. She is very sensitive to that kind of thing at this time.”
Some backbench MPs from across the main parties have signed an early day motion in the Commons – an expression of opinion highly unlikely to be debated or endorsed by the government but mainly used for publicity of a cause – calling for a minister to be appointed to consider the possibility of building a privately funded royal yacht for the use of the royal family, students and scientific research.
This week Michael Gove, the education secretary, proposed a ship to replace the royal yacht Britannia, which was scrapped more than a decade ago, as a “gift from the nation”. Signatories to the early day motion included the Tory MP Julian Brazier, Labour’s Kate Hoey and the Liberal Democrat Bob Russell.
Organisers of the flotilla have secured sponsorship from Sainsbury’s – Lord Salisbury said organisers did not wish to “go a bit downmarket to make it a Tesco pageant” – and are still seeking other potential backers.
Prince Charles, who originally suggested the idea of the floating fleet, has agreed to be the event’s patron. Other, as yet unspecified, members of the royal family will also attend the pageant.
Boris Johnson, London’s mayor, described the event as potentially more exciting than the Olympics two months later. “Let’s create a platform for the summer like no other,” he said.
The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh will travel with the flotilla downriver on the ebbing tide in a decorated tourist cruiser, the Spirit of Chartwell, accompanied by boats of all shapes and sizes, from coracles and sea kayaks to Australian surfing boats, American whalers, second world war landing craft and a survivor of the Dunkirk 1940 little ships rescue fleet.
A rowing barge replica of an 18th-century royal barge – as painted by Canaletto – will also take part. Organisers said nothing like such a procession had been seen on the river for 150 years.
Led by a floating belfry ringing out celebrations from eight bells named after members of the royal family – the largest, a half-ton vessel still being cast, inevitably named Elizabeth – the flotilla will trail upstream for seven miles and take an hour and a half to pass a fixed point on the route. Onboard some of the boats will be orchestras playing Handel’s water music, pipe bands, the band of the Royal Marines, a junior brass band and the London Philharmonic orchestra.
Carol Ann Duffy, the poet laureate, is composing a folk song, and a group of nine film composers including John Lunn, writer of the Downton Abbey theme tune, has been commissioned to write a new version of the water music.
Applications to provide boats were three times oversubscribed, the organisers said.
On the 14 bridges under which they will pass, space will be made for spectators from charitable organisations. At Tower bridge, the flotilla will be met by a mile-long line of sailing ships too large to go further upstream.
The more demotic Battersea park celebrations will include a fun fair, dancing and music, morris dancing and a temporary pub called The Diamond Geezer, which is likely to be crammed with pearly kings and queens. The public are being invited to bring homemade cakes to be distributed to revellers, who will be served free teas from trolleys. A portrait of the Queen made out of fairy cakes will adorn the occasion.
The Sunday events will be the centrepiece of the four-day weekend’s diamond anniversary celebrations. On the Saturday, the Queen will attend the Derby, on the Monday there will be a concert at Buckingham Palace and on the Tuesday, a thanksgiving service at St Paul’s Cathedral.
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Royal yacht plan backed by Prince Charles
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Ministers and members of the royal family have been lobbying the prime minister for a royal yacht since September, even though Downing Street insisted government support was conditional on no public money being made available.
Downing Street said the prime minister was happy to facilitate discussions, as government officials released letters showing that both the higher education minister, David Willetts, and the education secretary, Michael Gove, had been lobbying the prime minister to back the plan.
A letter from Willetts to the prime minister claims the idea has the support of both the Prince of Wales and Princess Anne. The plan for the yacht is the brainchild of Rear Admiral Bawtree.
Gove angrily denied he supported any public funding, although a letter leaked to the Guardian at the weekend showed he did see public funding as the chief option.
Ministerial sources also conceded that Gove was concerned the diamond jubilee could be overshadowed by the London Olympics and he was anxious to promote celebrations for the Queen this year.
Willetts wrote to Cameron in September with details of a “future ship project for the 21st century” being drawn up by Bawtree and stressing no public money would be available.
The proposed ship would be made available for trade and business events, and be a potential replacement for the royal yacht Britannia.
“The Rear Admiral considers it could be used as a training resource for young people and could be made available to research funders as a research vessel,” Willetts wrote in his letter to Cameron. He asked Cameron to write to Bawtree to say he believed the idea was worthy of endorsement.
Gove wrote to the prime minister on 12 September again supporting the project: “I believe that approving this ship to become a royal yacht would be an excellent way to mark the Queen’s diamond jubilee and to thank her as a nation for her long and untiring service to this country.”
In this letter he stated: “No money should be made available from the public purse”, but in a second letter dated 11 December he did not make this point: “My suggestion would be a gift from the nation to the Queen thinking about, for example, David Willetts’ excellent suggestion for a royal yacht – and something tangible to commemorate this momentous occasion. If there is not sufficient public money available then we could surely look for a generous private donation, for example, to give every school child a lasting memento of the occasion or possibly to allow every school to buy a permanent reminder.”
Education department officials said the letter was loosely worded.
Both the royal family and Downing Street will be upset their plans for a royal yacht replacement have emerged in this way.
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Prince Charles lambasted over plans for ‘new Poundbury’ in Truro
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Champions of the scheme, including Prince Charles, herald it as a unique project that will give local food producers the chance to compete with supermarket giants as well as providing much-needed housing.
Opponents argue the development of an upmarket food hall and a housing estate on farmland owned by the prince’s Duchy of Cornwall will wreck the economy of a fragile city centre and destroy a beautiful and productive valley.
They claim the scheme on the edge of Truro is both an example of the sort of urban sprawl the prince says he abhors and of the type of out-of-town development that the prime minister’s retail guru, Mary Portas, is fighting.
At the centre of a dispute that has split Cornwall’s only city is the Truro Eastern District Centre (TEDC) scheme put forward by a group including the duchy, Cornwall council and the supermarket Waitrose.
If the proposals get the go-ahead productive farmland that supports a fine dairy herd, hedgerows and trees a mile from the city centre will be replaced by the Cornish Food Centre – a housing settlement with echoes of the prince’s controversial model village at Poundbury in Dorset – along with a park and ride and recycling centre.
The duchy and its partners claim the park and ride will lead to a reduction in traffic heading to Truro and claim the recycling centre will be an important addition to services in the city.
But the duchy and the prince appear to be most excited about the plans for the food hall and 97 new homes. The food centre is billed as a “new concept … unique scheme that could become a useful reference point for national food retailing in the UK”.
The idea is that Waitrose would share the food centre with a consortium which would buy goods from local sources and sell them under a brand called the Taste of Cornwall.
Waitrose would have three quarters of the store, the Taste of Cornwall the remainder. Shoppers would enter through a shared front door and use shared trolleys and tills.
The outcry against the scheme has been led by Truro city council, which claims the project is a “bad use of good agricultural land that will be needed for growing crops to feed the inhabitants of Truro sustainably”.
It would harm the “vitality and viability” of the city centre “contrary to government policy”.
The council believes shoppers would head to Waitrose, perhaps have a look at the Taste of Cornwall goods and then drive back home without bothering to go the city centre.
It is also scathing about the style of the housing. Plans for a grand centrepiece to the residential area have been scrapped because critics thought it looked too much like Buckingham Palace but still on the table is a network of “classical” terraces and mews.
“Truro has internationally renowned Georgian streets and a magnificent cathedral,” the council says in its official response. “It does not need pastiche Georgian terraces and crescents placed prominently in a field.”
Maurice Vella, chair of the council’s planning committee, said: “It would do good for Waitrose, the duchy and their partners. But building on good agricultural land would be the sort of unsustainable sprawl deplored by the Prince of Wales.”
In November the prince said “uncontrolled urban sprawl” was one of the great challenges of modern life.
Vella added that Portas’s review into the high street, published last month had been needed partly because this sort of development had so damaged city centres.
“We want to keep food shops and the farmers’ market in the centre, not just estate agents, clothes shops and pawn-brokers,” he said.
Stroll around the farmers’ market on Lemon Quay in the city centre and the views are just as robust.
Nigel Ekins, who sells smoked fish and cheese, said: “It is wrong to build on a greenfield site and this will have a disastrous impact on the farmers’ market and independent shops.
“They say they want to help local producers but we’re here already and doing fine. Prince Charles and the duchy are meant to be all about sustainability and helping market towns. I don’t see how they can justify doing this to us.”
Dave Buscombe, who brings his bread and cakes to the market, said it would be a “tragedy” for Truro while in the nearby pannier market butcher John Roach said the development could spell the end for the city centre. “Truro is already on the brink. This development would push us over the edge.”
A group set up to fight the proposals, Save Truro, says it is “crunch time” for the prince – is he a “man of principle” or “two-faced, saying one thing and doing another”.
Bert Biscoe, who represents Truro on Cornwall council, believes the duchy is using the city’s need for a park and ride site to “crowbar in” the food hall and the housing development.
The duchy and its partners deny the park and ride is a Trojan horse, insisting it was approached by local authorities six years ago to ask if it could help make land available for park and ride, the food centre and housing.
According to the TEDC group, the scheme will create more than 200 jobs. It argues it could benefit shopkeepers and stallholders by making Truro a “food destination”.
The group also points out that the residential areas will include allotments (albeit small ones) and a “demonstration garden” intended to help people become more sustainable.
It added: “The aim of the TEDC is to help people live greener lives by allowing them to shop local, grow their own food, recycle more and travel into Truro without the car.”
Cornwall council’s strategic planning committee could not reach a decision on whether to back the development when it met this last month. It will look again at the issue in coming weeks.
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Charles to challenge ruling to lift secrecy about his estate
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Prince Charles is to challenge a judicial ruling that threatens to expose the environmental impact of the private estate that provides his £17m-a-year income.
The prince’s lawyers have sought leave to appeal against a judgement made earlier this month that concluded the Duchy of Cornwall should release environmental information about its operations because it is effectively a public authority.
The ruling promised to lift the veil of secrecy around the prince’s £700m hereditary estate that has been in place for hundreds of years, and allow the public to use environmental freedom of information laws to inquire about its activities.
It was handed down by John Angel, principal judge at the information tribunal after a test case brought by an environmental campaigner in Cornwall.
Michael Bruton was concerned about the duchy leasing waters for farming non-native oysters in the Lower Fal and Helford intertidal area. He asked the duchy what assessments it had made of the environmental impact of the lease. The duchy refused to answer, saying it was a private estate.
But the judge said he believed that no assessment had been carried out and ruled the Duchy must release information because it was a public authority. He said a key reason it should be considered was that it provides public funding to the Prince of Wales, it operates as the harbour authority in the Scilly Isles and has the role of dealing with intestacy and company failure in the county of Cornwall, which were effectively public roles.
On Monday, Clarence House confirmed that Jonathan Crow QC, Charles’ attorney general, and the duchy “have sought permission to appeal the decision which found that the Duchy is a ‘public authority’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information Regulations [Act] 2004″.
Bruton said he would fight any appeal and has launched a fundraising campaign to meet his legal bills which are likely to run into the tens of thousands of pounds and more if the case reaches the high court.
“The duchy should be open about its environmental impact because the Prince of Wales has made his career out of saying environmental protection is key to man’s survival on the planet,” he said. “It is a great pity that we don’t know whether the duchy practices what he preaches.”
The latest legal battle over Charles’s secrecy comes as the information tribunal deliberates on a separate case in which the Guardian is fighting the information commissioner and government ministries over the refusal to release correspondence from Charles to ministers in seven Whitehall departments under the Freedom of Information Act.
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