THESE are, to say the least, difficult and awkward times for the Jersey fishing fleet.

We learned last week that exports of one of the principal catches in Channel Islands waters, brown crab, have been drastically cut because of public health rules in Italy. It has since emerged that a Jersey fishermen has been heavily fined for illegal fishing off the Sussex coast.

These two sets of circumstances may appear to have little to do with each other, but it is possible to argue that they are linked by the parlous state in which the fishing industry not only here but throughout Britain finds itself in.

There is, of course, no defending or excusing Jersey skipper Michael Michieli’s illegal pair-trawling activity. He and a UK accomplice were targeting a black bream breeding zone and catching fish which, if left unmolested, would ensure the stability of the stock in future years.

However, though illegal fishing is often spurred by financial greed, desperate times also prompt desperate measures and significant numbers of fishermen operating in UK waters are tempted to break the law by exceeding quotas or working in prohibited areas in an effort to make a profit.

Unfortunately, whatever Mr Micheli’s motivation, most attention will quite rightly be focused on what he actually did and the consequences for the marine environment. Ultimately, he will have done the reputation of Jersey fishermen no good at all.

Meanwhile, closer to home in Island waters – where, it must be emphasised, the fishing fraternity has no record of breaking the rules out of avarice or desperation – the problems currently being faced boil down to foreign bureaucracy and low prices.

The Italian ban on crab imports, which appears to have no foundation in logic, means that catches which account for 85 per cent of the Island fleet’s landings are fetching a fraction of what they were worth 20 years ago. Fuel and bait prices, in the meantime, have soared.

But if there is anything positive to be seen in this gloomy picture it relates to the home market. Thanks in part to a Jersey Enterprise drive to encourage Islanders to buy more locally produced shellfish, sales here of scallops, crab and lobster have risen by 400 per cent in the past 18 months. As so many of our visitors have realised for so long, Channel Island shellfish are second to none. Many Islanders seem to have realised very late in the day just how lucky we are.