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Open Seas

Sustainability in Scotland's Seas

A lesson from Loch Carron

What happened in Loch Carron is a window into the bright future that could exist along our coastline and a lifeboat moment for sustainable fishing in Scotland. It shows what can be achieved with popular will, local support and political leadership – that the guardianship of our seabed for future generations is possible, and is a good thing for coastal communities.

On Friday 17th May, a diverse group including local fishermen, divers, marine scientists, school children, campaigners, and a local politician, gathered in Plockton to celebrate Loch Carron becoming a permanent Marine Protected Area. Some literally gathered in Loch Carron itself, snorkelling and diving to see first-hand what lies below the waves.

Inverness Sub-Aqua Club, Ullapool Sea Savers, Maree Todd MSP, fishing businesses, community groups and environmental campaigners gathered in Plockton

Back in April 2017 a scallop dredger had been witnessed towing its heavy and damaging dredges through the sea loch known by locals to be a rich and diverse seabed – a flame shell reef. Recreational divers were able to record the extensive and depressing damage and, by May 2017 public outcry had led the Scottish Government to designate it as an emergency Marine Protected Area (MPA).

These divers had helped to record the destruction and subsequently raise awareness: Sue Scott, Chris Rickard, George Brown, Neil MacInnes, Lynne Mackay, Andy Jackson, are among the unsung heroes who shone a light on the problem and prompted action (read ‘Loch Carron No More‘ for background). At this gathering, now two years later, some of these divers returned to the same area to look for signs of recovery.

Fortunately, because the reef is thought to be the largest in the world, undamaged and healthy sections of flame shells next to tow marks have been able to partially recolonise the dredger’s tracks. The seabed showed signs of recovery, though the flame shell reef itself appeared fragmented and thinner compared to the undamaged areas.

The Loch Carron celebration included a boat trip into the MPA, during which Maree Todd MSP and young environmental campaigners the Ullapool Seasavers snorkelled in the waters around North Strome exploring the life that lives under the waves. In the afternoon, people returned to shore for a seafood lunch of creel-caught langoustine, hand-dived scallops, mackerel, oysters, crab-claws. It showed the incredible quality of sustainable, local, Scottish seafood – the harvesting of all of this produce will benefit from protecting coastal waters.

There were many words spoken during the day, but few will echo more poignantly around the loch than those of a scallop diver:

Being a fisherman for the past 30 years has been depressing, watching our seabed being destroyed, piece by piece … It is great now to see this MPA being celebrated.”

The damage to our seabed has been an environmental and sustainability disaster, unfolding slowly for decades, below the water and out of view. Loch Carron has been an exception, after an episode of reckless scallop dredging, it was quickly closed using new legislation only enacted in 2010. Unfortunately much of the rest of Scotland’s seas have suffered decades of scallop dredging, out of public sight, until the reefs are gone, degrading a once rich seabed.

In recent decades following the decline in fish stocks, or the concentration of fish quota away from some of our fishing communities, scallop dredging has become widespread along a once fertile shoreline, raking and altering the life on the seafloor. Kelp-fringed sands have been ripped up, living maerl beds three feet deep crushed into dead gravel. Testimonies of older dredge fishermen recount the huge amount of ‘other stuff’ that was brought up in dredge hauls in the 1980s and ’90s. It will take years, potentially decades, for these areas to recover. Loch Carron is a beacon of the richness and productivity of our inshore waters, but also, we hope, a window in to what our seas can become again, if we treat them right.

The distinctive tramlines of scallop dredge damage in Loch Carron in April 2017 – the SNH Research Report No 1038

We are not currently treating them right, damage to seabed is extensive, bycatch of juvenile fish remains the main reason why some stocks won’t recover, catch rates are falling. The scallop dredge fleet is literally fishing harder for less, the very definition of unsustainability. Everyone agrees something has to change.

However, change is difficult especially for those fishermen who are currently trawling or dredging in these areas. Many have turned to these fisheries following the decline in fish stocks or the fact that bigger boats operating out of the consolidated ports like Peterhead amassed much of the fishing quota.

Long term there are benefits to be had from allowing a recovery in our seas – profit margins for cod fisheries are nearly double prawn trawling, for example – but in the short term there is a cost and it would be hugely unfair for this to be borne by unsupported crew and skippers.

Rather than consider this cost, and the ways to recover our seas, the Scottish Government are currently doubling down on the damage. Where scientific advice states there should be no catch of West of Scotland cod or whiting, the government has issued thousands of tonnes of quota for each. Where ICES recommends all herring spawning grounds be protected, a piecemeal fortnight closure is considered.

West coast landings of whiting

Loch Carron shows what our seabed can become. The divers and snorkellers saw this first hand. The seafood showed just how productive such places can be, and how we can all benefit from them through high quality food and jobs. The fact the Government took such a bold step to protect these waters shows that courage and leadership is there. But Loch Carron remains just an example, it’s time it becomes the norm.

Over the coming months, the Scottish Government is consulting on the Future of Fisheries Management. If you have been interested by what happened in Loch Carron, then take part – the sea, and the fish in it, belong to no-one and everyone. We should all have a say in their future.

Dredging in the dark

The success of Scotland’s seafood sector relies upon a reputation of high-quality, sustainable and traceable fish, and yet the Scottish Government is continuing to sit on its hands in the wake of repeated instances of illegal scallop dredging. We document a recent incident of suspicious fishing activity in the Sound of Mull, and explain how inaction by the Scottish Government is undermining the recovery of our marine environment – and why vessel tracking could help solve the problem.

Ram-raiding MPAs

In recent weeks, community organisations, fishermen and environmental groups have spoken with one voice to highlight the systemic failure by Marine Scotland to effectively manage Scotland’s inshore fisheries and protect and enforce fishing rules in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). A series of incidents of both damaging and illegal scallop dredging prompted 42 organisations – including our own – to sign a joint letter to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon calling for the Scottish Government to enforce fishing laws in MPAs and rethink the lack of management, which currently leaves 95% of Scotland’s inshore waters open to scallop dredging.

Our view is that without improved management, the productive potential of our seabed will continue to be eroded by poorly regulated dredging. This means coastal communities, businesses and our broader inshore fishing sector are being disadvantaged by a degraded marine environment. [Read more…]

Open Seas statement on illegal and damaging dredging in Gairloch

Scallop dredging pulverises our seabed, and yet it is permitted through about 95% of our coastal seas. What we have seen in Gairloch are the actions of a few greedy fishermen, for whom 95% of it is not enough. These scallopers have decided to decimate one of the few small areas protected from this damaging form of fishing.

We need to get this fishery out of our sensitive and vulnerable coastal sea, unless in areas where the fishery can itself prove it is sustainable for it to be there. We also need to establish a proper means of tracking the boats so that illegal fishing like this is stamped out for good.

The blame in this instance lands firmly with Scottish Ministers. The current regulation of scallop dredging is pitifully inadequate. This Government is failing to protect our natural heritage by allowing one of the only places where herring are still spawning to be destroyed in this way. Unless they take action soon, they will be turning their back on not only our marine environment, but the future of our fisheries and the rural economy in places like Wester Ross. Real stewardship of our seabed would be to the long-term benefit of Scotland.

In just four years, scallop landings in Scotland have declined by roughly 30% (2013-2017). There is an underlying problem that needs to be addressed urgently.

For more information and background to this issue, read ‘Probe into alleged scallop dredging in protected area‘.

We will continue to update our own news page with more detail.

Scallop dredging: eco-label the problems away

Open Seas statement on scallop dredging ecolabel decision

Yesterday (20th June 2018) the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) rejected our objection to the re-certification of the Shetland scallop dredge fishery. As a result, the MSC will now permit the fishery to sell dredged scallops using its blue tick label, despite the dredge fishery continuing inside Marine Protected Areas (MPA) and on other areas of sensitive habitat.

We think the decision, and the way the MSC have gone about making it, highlights a systemic failure in the MSC’s certification processes, and not only undermines the recovering health of our marine environment, but also shows that what MSC consider to be ‘sustainable’ is out of step with what the Scottish [Read more…]

Grey fish: Scotland’s seafood traceability problem

The recent incident of illegal dredging in a Scottish MPA has exposed a serious problem for producers and consumers of Scottish seafood, highlighting that we don’t know, with any geographical accuracy, where much our seafood comes from. Our follow up investigations suggest that legally and illegally caught fish and shellfish is being sold alongside one another, with buyers unable to distinguish legal catches from illicit ones. With increasing consumer demand for sustainable food with assured provenance and traceability, this article explores how improved vessel monitoring can solve the pressing problem of “grey fish” – fish of no proven origin – in our supply chains.

On Friday 25th January, two scallop fishermen – Davy Stinson and Steve Barlow –  hand-diving for King scallops off Scotland’s west coast, encountered evidence of damage to the seabed consistent with scallop dredging. The divers saw the tracks of scallop dredges on the seabed and a trail of broken scallop shells. The shells were cracked open, containing the scallop flesh, or ‘meat’, still inside, indicating that the damage had been inflicted recently (seabed scavengers, like crabs and lobsters had not yet moved in to eat the dying shellfish). Dredge damage is unfortunately not an unusual sight, but this damage was witnessed inside a Marine Protected Area – and also a Special Area of Conservation, designated under EU law – where scallop dredging has been banned since 2007. [Read more…]

Open Seas Evidence Behind Scallop Dredge Certification Concerns

We recently voiced our concerns about a seafood eco-labelling process for a scallop dredge fishery and have been publicly criticised for doing so. Polarised debate is clearly not in anyone’s interests, but we take accusations about our use of evidence and accuracy very seriously, and so here lay out our evidence and the reasons why our concerns remain accurate and valid. [Read more…]

Eco-labelling concerns for dredged scallops

Open Seas’ mission is to promote more sustainable fishing in Scotland. It is with some regret that we are now challenging the proposed re-certification of the scallop dredge fishery in Shetland.  Unfortunately the possible re-certification of scallop dredging here, under its current management regime, risks green-washing an important certification standard that should represent a benchmark for sustainability.

Scallop dredging is one of the UK’s most damaging forms of fishing. Dredge boats tow heavy rakes with metal teeth several inches long that dig into the seabed, dredging out the scallops. In April of 2017 the severity of damage caused by scallop dredging was revealed when a vessel towed through a well-known flame shell reef in Loch Carron. The killing of species other than scallops and the flattening of seabed habitats, means dredging has and continues to have a profoundly negative impact on the health of our seas. However, it does not have to be this way. Dredging in some [Read more…]

Cleaning up the ‘cleaner fish’

Wrasse are beautiful, charismatic fish that play a key role in the ecosystems of Scottish inshore waters. However, as Scottish salmon farmers now look to ‘cleaner fish’ as a way to address the industry’s sea lice problem, rising commercial demand is having potentially catastrophic impacts on wild stocks of wrasse. We take a look at the issue, find out what we know, what we don’t know and what we really should know about the environmental costs of the unprecedented demand for ‘cleaner fish.’ Our research indicates there is a systemic flaw in current fisheries management, which has failed to take precautionary steps to regulate this new fishery.

 

The sea lice problem

A big commercial concern for salmon farmers is sea lice: natural parasites that biologically weaken the health of salmon by feeding on their flesh and [Read more…]

Loch Carron No More

What happened in Loch Carron exemplifies a fundamental problem with the way we manage our inshore fisheries. How can we move forward?

What Happened?

This month a scallop dredger working along the west coast of Scotland, to the east of Skye and intermittently transmitting from its Automatic Information Service (AIS) transponder, entered Loch Carron. The vessel was observed in the sea loch – by several witnesses – towing around the area known to hold fragile and productive flame shell beds (we have spoken to several of these people directly). The flame shell reefs were well-known to many, and local fishermen attest that they hadn’t been dredged for at least 10 years, perhaps 15 or 20.

A squad of dedicated divers arrived at the site just a few days later and documented significant and extensive damage to [Read more…]

The cost of Scottish Marine Protected Areas, a year down the line

We published a paper in March 2017 about the impacts of Scottish MPAs. We re-publish it here in full.

Abstract:

  • In early 2016 Scottish Government established fisheries restrictions in Scottish Marine Protected Areas to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems.
  • The ‘mobile’ fishing sector (i.e. the part of the fishing industry most likely to be affected by these MPA) raised many concerns about the negative impact the restrictions could have on coastal communities.
  • A year has now passed and this analysis has been undertaken to assess what impacts the restrictions have had on landings of scallops and Nephrops (the two species most targeted by inshore fisheries) at several key Scottish ports.
  • Assessment shows that landed weight and value have not been impacted at the majority of Scottish [Read more…]