Fishing

This desperately sad article makes me think of the work I am just rounding off on fishing communities in Cornwall. In terms of fishing there is currently very limited scope for new entrants to join the profession and limited enthusiasm about  joining it in view of the dangerous and tough nature of the work.

Not that it sounds from this article as if the young man in question was killed in a fishing accident. What is fascinating about fishing in rural communities is that whilst a small number of people might be directly employed in it, the profession still has a wide impact on people’s lives.

Less than 1000 people are full blown fishermen in Cornwall but they work out of over 40 harbours, coves and wharves across the whole peninsula and play a major role upstream of fishing itself in supporting those employed in food processing and tourism.

If more value could be added to the fish they land locally this could be even larger. Fishing communities in Cornwall have a deeper significance than simply their economic circumstances – they form a long line of continuity into a distant past which preserves a whole range of skills and resilience lost to many urban communities.

The same is true of those in other rural areas engaged in fishing and in the “Celtic Fringes” of the UK. We understand and think too little about the contribution of this sector to rural coastal communities in its broadest sense.

My recent experience suggests that whilst fishing might seem a little known and hard to penetrate aspect of some rural communities it is well worth the effort of seeking to understand it as it is more significant than many of us may suspect.