THERE has always been tenuous debate surrounding the idea of whether man’s negative influence on the environment is greater or lesser than the environment’s negative influence on man; a debate which will again no doubt be ignited following the announcement that the State is commence a compensation plan to cut a third of the Irish whitefish fleet .

At a time when the whole world is more than well-aware of the needs to promote sustainability and build biodiversity, this plan is being introduced to protect dwindling fish stocks off our own coasts by reducing the number of fleets fishing in our waters. This will in turn protect the future viability of the fishing industry and will mean that stocks will be able to rebuild themselves, increasing their quality and numbers over time and adding to the health of our waters.

But, while the plan benefits the future of our environment, it will have detrimental impacts on the present and at a time when concerns are growing about the health of our economy, significant job losses and increasing numbers appearing on the live register, this move will lead to hundreds of job losses in Cork alone.

Whatever view one takes on the matter it is impossible to firmly say whether this new plan is wrong or right, whether fishermen were in the wrong for overexploiting waters and fleets should be reduced or even indeed that the government is wrong for wanting to protect the waters of the future at the expense of the present. Afterall, these fishermen were only doing what has been done and will continue to be done for generations ; using the earth’s own natural resources while the government are but trying to protect the future viability of stocks. However, there does come a time when we really have to question if future sustainability should or should not be achieved at the expense of present sustainability and if we should fix one thing only to break another.

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