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Right now our political representatives in the Scottish Parliament are deliberating on what measures are right for the stewardship of Scotland’s inshore seas.

As collective representatives of hundreds of thousands of people who want a sustainable Scotland, we support well-managed Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) that protect our precious inshore areas from damaging fishing methods. This is not environmental dogma. It is evidence-based policy in action. And it is popular. Recently, nearly 5,000 people wrote to the Scottish Government backing our recommendations. In response, the Scottish Government has set out good plans that will restrict the most damaging types of fishing within inshore MPAs. The measures contain compromise, but we welcome them as urgent and necessary action to better manage the public resource of our seas.

Our MSPs are now looking at these plans and must navigate (more…)

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It’s the holy grail of marine conservation, or at least it is to many skippers, fisheries managers and governments. The win-win-win: whereby improving the ecological health of our seas leads to real in-the-pocket benefits for the fishing sector, with higher value landings (based on a combination of increased biological productivity and high-value catch) making a positive contribution to the national balance sheet. It’s no surprise that it is the focus for extensive scientific research across the world.

There is increasing evidence that MPAs offer significant long-term secondary economic benefits flowing from the environmental benefits of (more…)

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As part of series of case-studies, we are exploring how Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) interact with fisheries management and how emerging science from other areas around the world shows some encouraging signs of the fisheries benefits of MPAs.

Case Study 1: MPAs along the Norwegian Skagerrak coast [1]

This study was based on a group of MPAs establish in 2006 along the Norwegian Skagerrak coast, designed to protect shellfish and partially protect fish stocks. The researchers used Before-After Control-Impact (BACI) methods to try and determine what the effect of the MPAs would be. This means that they collected field data on the numbers and sizes of lobsters (more…)

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[youtube video=_cKIjHejQ4s ]

Our animation narrates a short history of Scotland’s seas – a story of increasing industrial activity and ecological decline. But if given the chance, our seas can bounce back to health… and Scotland’s local communities and businesses will benefit from this environmental recovery. Watch the video, share far and wide and…

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Scotland Programme Manager for the Marine Conservation Society Calum Duncan provides some broader inshore context for the recent measures introduced to regulate Scotland’s king scallop fishery.

In July, the Scottish Government announced new measures to manage Scotland’s King scallop fishery. This announcement was much-anticipated and followed a public consultation ending in January. The consultation itself was the outcome of a broader industry review, which fishermen and environmental charities had patiently requested over many years.

In short, the consultation was a big deal. It was the first time the Scottish (more…)

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Something important is happening. For the first time in years, we (Scotland) are having an increasingly open debate about how we fish our inshore waters. These issues are usually confined to the clipped minutes of a regional fisheries meeting, quayside chat between skippers, or the dry consultation correspondence on proposed technical regulations. Over the years there has been very little media coverage of one of the most significant ongoing problems: how do we best manage our inshore waters, which have suffered from decades of lack of management, resulting in declining species and habitats and which are now experiencing intensive fishing competition.

But on Monday night, a programme aired on prime time TV – a documentary called ‘Prawn Wars’ as part of BBC Scotland’s Landward – Prawn Wars series. It was followed by a live debate on Scotland 2015, BBC Scotland’s flagship current affairs slot.

It was a watershed moment. It focussed on the very real and pressing (more…)

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This blog has attempted to chart the long, and sometimes torturous, process of setting up Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Scotland. Many of you may be wondering what is happening with Scotland’s MPAs? Are they going to be paper parks? Or are they finally going to help reverse the fortunes of our inshore waters, which have suffered such serious ecological decline? Before wading into the detail of this post, we urge you to read our Running History of MPAs in Scotland. If you’ve seen that, read on…

There is a lot of noise around the MPAs right now. Some (not all) fishing groups are criticising the MPA process at a crucial stage. We need to re-wind a bit here to understand why this is the case. And to fully grasp the situation, we also need to understand the structure of the Scottish fishing industry.

A few weeks ago, Marine Scotland (more…)

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In response to the Scottish Government’s announcement of fisheries management in Scottish Marine Protected Areas:
Calum Duncan, Convenor of Scottish Environment LINK’s marine taskforce and Scotland Programme Manager, Marine Conservation Society said: “Our ‘Don’t Take The P out of MPAs’ campaign has struck a chord. Thousands of people wrote to the Scottish Government urging them to avoid creating paper parks – and Ministers are now clearly starting to listen, by proposing that larger areas of the seabed be protected from damaging fishing activities. We will now be looking closely at the newly-drafted measures to make sure they fulfil the clear and widespread public expectation that MPAs should be managed to recover the ecological health of our seas. We are making a strong social, economic and environmental case for meaningful management that protects our precious seabed and boosts future opportunities for sustainable fishing.”
Kara Brydson, Head of Marine Policy, RSPB Scotland said: “Too often fishermen are blamed for the declining health of our seas, but here we see that by excluding the most damaging fishing activity from our most sensitive wildlife, fishermen are part of the solution.” (more…)

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Scotland’s marine protected areas (MPAs) are in the balance. The Cabinet Secretary Richard Lochhead is in the process of signing-off crucial documents that will indicate the proposed future management for Scotland’s MPAs. We are concerned that certain types of fishing which can damage seafloor habitats will be allowed to continue in large areas of the new MPAs. That’s why we continue to call that our representatives: ‘DontTakeTheP’ out of MPAs.

The decision about how the Scottish Government intends to manage Scotland’s new nature conservation MPAs will perhaps be the most obvious signal yet of just how progressive our Government is in terms of its marine policy. There is a choice: maintain the status quo, which has seen the steady and unchecked decline of biodiversity in our seas, or manage for the future, by (more…)

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Artist Julia Barton has a good idea. She is convinced that art can make a difference to the health of our coastal environments. So she set up the Littoral Art Project in 2013 and is now crowdfunding for an innovative tool that could help change the way we think about the litter problem on our beaches. Read her story here (and please consider chipping in to help with the project. She needs £3,000 by 4th May…)

It first started after walking on a beach in Wester Ross in 2012. Artist Julia Barton, quite literally experienced ‘a fear of drowning’ in litter. “As I walked along the strandline I became sickened by the number of plastic objects: trays, buoys, bottles, ropes, toys, cups, cigarette lighters,” she explained. “Looking closer, I realised that the seaweed was heavily laced with thousands of small pieces of cord, rope, (more…)

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