PLANS to end the catch quota system for fishermen could wipe out Brixham's fishing industry, it has been warned.

A radical reform of the controversial Common Fisheries Policy is under way.

Under the proposed new system, announced yesterday, fishermen must land their entire catch, ending a 'discard' policy which means up to half the fish netted are thrown back dead into the sea.

EU Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki said the waste must end as she unveiled sweeping changes she said were designed to bring fish stocks back to 'sustainable' levels by 2015.

"Action is needed now to get all our fish stocks back into a healthy state to preserve them for present and future generations," she said.

"Only under this precondition can fishermen continue to fish and earn a decent living out of their activities."

But Jim Portus, chief executive of the South Western Fish Producers Organisations, says banning the discard policy would be catastrophic for UK fishermen.

He said: "One of our chief concerns about the new proposals is the commission seems to be fixed on banning discards.

"Our view is certainly they should be reducing them to a manageable level.

"Fishermen should be redesigning their gear to make sure they are not catching some of these fish in the first instance — that they are released by the nets on the seabed.

"That to us is the way to go about doing it sensibly.

"But if we had a ban on discards and we had to bring everything back in, and we could not acquire a quota for the fish you did not have authority to land, that's where you would get into difficulty because some of these quotas available to the UK are very small indeed.

"We would be at the mercy of countries like France in particular that have large quotas for cod, whiting, haddock, pollack and coley.

"The majority of quota for these five fish are held by France and we would have to be doing deals with the French to enable our fishermen to carry on at sea under a zero discard policy.

"It might ultimately be more sensible to just quit the business.

"We have already lost 70 of our fleet in the UK under the last fisheries policy.

"This proposal to ban discards could potentially threaten the livelihoods of the Brixham fishermen.

"They are already at the mercy of the market, they understand and know that, that's the process of auctioneering fish, but if they are then at the mercy of other market forces, with the quotas of other countries, we will be fighting a losing battle to maintain our position as the fourth largest port in Britain and the largest outside Scotland.

"I would like to think we can maintain that position but we might find ourselves going the same way as other ports like Lowestoft and Grimsby which have already fallen prey to the previous fisheries policy and are now like ghost towns, unrecognisable as fishing communities.

"I do not want that happening in Brixham.

"I want it to thrive and be viable for decades into the future and it can be if only the rules of management are flexible enough to allow our guys to go about their business of collecting fish in a sensible manner in their local fishing grounds."

The consultation is expected to last 12 months.