Saving Seafood

Scottish Fishermen’s group claims new seabed controls threaten livelihoods

June 22, 2015 — New limits on trawling and sea-bottom dredging threaten jobs in a £50 million a year rural industry, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation has warned, as a row between the Scottish Government and a key Scottish exporting sector threatened to escalate.

 The SFF say that restrictions on the £40m west coast langoustine fishery and £8m scallop fishery due to take effect from October, would close 880 square kilometres of inshore waters in the South Arran and Wester Ross Management Protection Areas (MPAs) to scallop dredging and impose economically-damaging restrictions on a further 1500 square kilometres of prime fishing grounds.

The federation claims that draft conservation orders for four west coast MPAs, announced earlier this month, go far beyond what had been agreed during months of talks with civil servants.

The SFF has demanded urgent talks with fisheries minister Richard Lochhead, now expected to take place next week.

SFF president Ross Dougal told the Sunday Herald that, following months of negotiations with the Scottish Government and its environment quango Scottish Natural Heritage, the federation reached what it believed to be an acceptable compromise.

Read the full story at the Herald Scotland