April 14, 2013 — Scotland's leading chef has called for a ban on dredging for scallops in shallow inshore waters in a move which has angered trawler fishermen.
Andrew Fairlie, the only Scottish chef with two Michelin stars, has warned that the £30 million-a-year scallop fishing industry is a “free for all” and threatens the seabed environment and the livelihoods of coastal communities.
His call follows clashes between Scottish fishermen and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall after the latest series of the celebrity chef’s TV Fish Fight campaign alleged that dredging was destroying the seabed and shellfish stocks. Around 98 per cent of Scotland’s scallops are harvested by dredging, which involves dragging large metal rakes behind boats, and around 20,000 tonnes are landed annually
Fairlie, who runs his eponymous restaurant at Gleneagles, said: “I don’t think you can ban dredging [altogether], although they have banned it in Norway where they have one of the healthiest fishing industries in the world.
“But I think inshore shallow dredging should be banned. It has to be managed properly and at the moment it’s a free for all.
“Some of the scallop divers I talk to have terrible problems with some of the [dredging] boats. They understand that the guys who work on trawlers are part of the community too but they [the dredgers] can’t continue to fish as they are because they are ruining the community.”
Fairlie said he had tweeted about dredged scallops and “got quite a lot of abuse [online] from fishermen… I was accused of being elitist and trying to make scallops a rich man’s food”.
He added that he was now prepared to meet industry representatives to talk about the fishing methods used.
Read the full story at The Scotsman