5573 x 3702 px | 47,2 x 31,3 cm | 18,6 x 12,3 inches | 300dpi
Data acquisizione:
8 aprile 2014
Ubicazione:
Fraserburgh Harbour, Scotland, UK
Altre informazioni:
Super Trawlers and Millionaires. "This allocation method led to many low-catching fishermen being forced out of the industry as quota levels fell and they found themselves unable to survive during lean periods. Larger companies could then use their holdings as leverage for loans to buy up this quota, and ownership of the right to fish was consolidated. A stark example of this is the fishery for herring and mackerel. At one time made up of thousands of boats around the coast, over 99 per cent of this valuable fishery – which accounts for almost half of total landings by UK registered vessels — is now caught by only 33 trawlers. The value of these boats, and more importantly their share of UK fishing rights, runs to hundreds of millions of pounds. This increase in costs – the manifestation of the ‘resource rent’ promised by economic theorists – is turning fishing into a millionaires’ club4 and means that the traditionally widespread small business structure of the fishing industry, in which a boat owner/skipper employs a crew on a share (or ‘lay’) system, is gradually shifting to a model of large company ownership with significant involvement from financial institutions. Of the 33 mackerel and herring boats mentioned above, 14 are owned by just five large companies, a share that increases with every boat sale. Two of these companies (and their associated rights to fish) are owned by non-UK multinationals."
