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Open Seas

Promoting sustainable seafood from Scotland's Seas

SNP-Green coalition propose to legalise throwing away juvenile fish

Ten years ago hundreds of thousands of people stood in support of fishing reforms to end the wasteful practice of discarding fish at sea. Now, new proposals, wrongly branded as ‘world-leading’, would see the Scottish Government backsliding on these environmental standards. 

Scotland’s seas have suffered from many years of decline – the Scottish Government found in 2020 that they had failed its commitment to halt the loss of biogenic reefs, to achieve a healthy marine environment and recent publications from government scientists show that overfishing is still prevalent.

The cause of this bad environmental health is pressure from human activities, and fishing, particularly the widespread practice of bottom-trawling, sadly ranks as the most impactful throughout Scotland’s seas.

In recent decades, fishing in Scotland has been ruled by the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy. After we left the EU the Scottish Government has had to replace these rules with something new – initially they intended to bring forward a Scottish Fisheries Act, something which Open Seas supports, and that is needed for the Scottish Parliament to have fully-devolved power over Scotland’s seas. However, in 2020 the Scottish Government instead sought to [Read more…]

Dredged scallops undermine Waitrose seafood sustainability claims

This month we have written to Waitrose voicing our deep concern about this supermarket’s continued sourcing of dredge-caught scallops.

When we first launched as an organisation, we started talking with those companies buying seafood from some of the most environmentally damaging fisheries here in Scotland. We hoped that by providing information to organisations with strong corporate responsibility statements, they would recognise the environmental problems and take action.

The supermarket Waitrose has recently topped the list of ‘eco-friendly retailers‘ and their commitments to sustainability are a very serious part of their organisation’s brand profile. It is therefore surprising [Read more…]

Clyde cod recovery and the bycatch problem

This week an annual seasonal closure to protect spawning cod has come into force in the Clyde. Proposed measures to protect cod have courted controversy and the Scottish Government has u-turned on their plans, apparently to appease commercial trawl fishing interests. We share evidence of cod bycatch within the Nephrops trawl fleet that calls into question the recent decision that allows trawling to continue within a closure designed to protect spawning cod.

The Clyde cod population, which once underpinned a thriving fishery, remains in a state of collapse due in part to severe overfishing in the 1980s and 90s. The spawning stock biomass for cod is estimated to be at its lowest in recorded history.

For the past 20 years the annual seasonal spawning closure, designed to safeguard cod while they spawn, has included a number of exemptions. This has meant that [Read more…]

Blue Carbon – what it is, and why you (and the rest of humanity) should care

The carbon in our seas is emerging as a vital frontier for climate action. Historically the role of our ocean and its management has been largely overlooked in climate planning. Did COP26 finally change this? We take a deeper look at the implications of COP26 for the marine environment and whether ‘blue carbon’ is finally being treated within the urgency it deserves.

In the early summer of 2021, the seas around Arran in the Firth of Clyde turned a spectacular turquoise hue, the result of a phytoplankton bloom visible from space. These tiny organisms, called coccolithophores, contain the photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll, and use the sun’s energy to form calcium carbonate platelets, which are white in colour. In their millions, the coccolithophores refracted sunlight from just below the water’s surface, creating the turquoise colour – a wonderfully literal demonstration of “blue carbon” in action [Read more…]

Are Scotland’s fish stocks in good condition?

The Scottish trawl fishing lobby has recently declared that there are “more fish in the sea than ever“. We consider the facts behind the headlines.

“Another component of the threadbare dossier produced by the greens to attack the industry is “over-fishing. This myth really needs to be put to bed, once and for all.”

Elspeth MacDonald, chief executive of Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, The Scotsman, August 2021

In recent months, some of the main trawler lobbyists, the Shetland Fishermen’s Association and its parent organisation, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF), have made far-fetched statements that dismiss overfishing as a “myth”, environmental concerns as “misguided” and amazingly ask whether “environmental NGOs are recommending mass starvation?” – this last statement is from organisations who have lobbied for their members to land more than 45% of their catch directly to foreign ports, bypassing our own food system and workers in Scotland entirely.

These comments are apparently aimed to distract from calls for parts of the fishing industry to reduce its carbon footprint and environmental impact. The industry lobbyists instead claim that “North Sea fish stocks are in a tremendously healthy state“, or recovering and indeed that “there are more fish in the sea than ever”. It is vitally important to assess whether these statements are factually correct. [Read more…]

SNP-Greens Deal fails to deliver sustainability in Scotland’s seas

The new SNP-Green deal is breaking new ground for Scottish politics. It has been cautiously welcomed from some environmental quarters, but does it promise anything new for the sustainability of our seas, and can it deliver?

In the first deal of its kind in Scottish and UK politics, the SNP and the Scottish Green Party have announced a formal power-sharing arrangement. The deal was months in the making and it was reported that marine and fisheries issues were some of the thorny sticking points that held up the cooperation deal negotiations as the parties struggled to reconcile their differences.

The tensions were arguably inevitable: the SNP’s manifesto position promised measures to put “marine ‘assets” at the heart of the economy “doubling turnover, GVA and international trade in a decade”, with little focus on environmental safeguards. And this has likely been in direct conflict with Scottish Green party commitments to ensure sustainability for the longer-term by setting “mandatory catch limits” and urgently reducing the impact of damaging industries by “excluding dredging and trawling from much of our inshore waters… with the default being within 3 miles of Scotland’s shore.” The text of the deal sets out what they agree to collaborate on within specific areas, and under the heading ‘marine environment’ promises a “step change in marine protection”, but what does this actually mean? And does it do so? [Read more…]

Secretive government scallop dredge group documents reveal inaction

Redacted documents disclosed through a Freedom of Information request reveal just 14 REM installations on Scottish dredge fleet since 2018 despite £2m of public money and a secretive Government-run scallop industry group

The Scottish Government has been promising to fit Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM)* systems to the Scottish scallop dredge fleet since 2014. This has been made more imperative by ongoing reports of illegal dredging inside marine protected areas (there were six such reports between March and November 2020 during the peak of the pandemic).

In 2018 the then Cabinet Secretary Fergus Ewing committed £1.5m of public money to buy scallop dredge companies the tracking devices – this shifted to £2m when they finally agreed the contract. In 2019 the former fisheries Minister Mr Ewing set up something called the Scottish Scallop Sector Working Group – the SSSWG. However, no information about this group was made public. In 2019 a Parliamentary question at Holyrood made its existence public, but no other information was shared.

Earlier this year, we contacted the Scottish Government to request [Read more…]

Open Seas’ concern about Fishery Improvement Projects, and greenwash

Having worked on sustainability concerns regarding destructive scallop and scampi fisheries for the past five years we have sadly arrived at the point where we are now unconvinced that the industry and government are able to resolve them.

We are now recommending consumers take more concerted public action to put pressure on the sourcing of some of the most environmentally damaging fisheries operating around Scotland and the UK. That is why this month we have launched the #EndSeafoodGreenwash campaign.

We’re hoping to empower people who love our seas and seafood to send a clear message to seafood companies that they have an urgent role to play in halting environmental harm in our seas caused by the products they sell.

Scottish scallop and scampi fisheries have had serious [Read more…]

A Seaspiracy in Scotland? Fishing for the truth

The new documentary Seaspiracy has sparked a huge amount of debate about the impacts of fishing in our ocean. Many have called it out as alarmist, especially in its apparent conclusion that people should stop eating fish. As a charity that seeks to expose unacceptable fisheries but also promote sustainable seafood we don’t agree with every aspect of the film, but in its broad sweep of the issues, the documentary highlights some of the major sustainability problems that are sadly of concern right here in Scotland and the UK…

Once relegated as a niche environmental issue, Seaspiracy has catapulted the ecological decline of the world’s oceans to public prominence, beaming it to a mainstream Netflix audience that is increasingly sceptical of big business and hungry for consumer information.

Seaspiracy tries to cover a lot of ground and begins very much at entry level, assuming little knowledge of the main problems affecting our [Read more…]

How to make your vote count for our seas

Over 80% of Scotland’s land mass is underwater. If you could vote in May’s Scottish Parliamentary election on behalf of our seas, do you know who you would vote for? We’ve created a handy guide for anyone hoping to do just that. In this one place, you can find information about how each party plans to manage our seas and address the protection and restoration of Scotland’s marine environment.

If you managed to join in our Scottish Parliamentary election Marine Hustings event earlier this month then you may already have an idea of the parties’ policy ideas for Scotland’s seas, but if you missed it don’t worry – we’re bringing together all of the most important bits here…

Where we are now?

A few months ago, the Scottish Marine Assessment 2020 was finally published, showing without a doubt that our seas are experiencing ongoing environmental decline. A decade earlier, our politicians passed the Marine Scotland Act of 2010, promising to protect and enhance our seas. This should have kickstarted a recovery from spiralling fish populations and degraded habitats. Despite those bold intentions, this much-needed ‘enhancement’ is simply not yet happening. Shockingly, the Assessment documented many [Read more…]

Rewilding Scotland’s seas

This month the Scottish Rewilding Alliance launched a call to make Scotland a ‘rewilding nation’. We take a look at what marine rewilding is, and how ecological restoration in Scotland’s seas can be led by communities

A recent opinion poll of Scotland’s adult population found that over 75% of people supported ‘rewilding’. Rewilding is environmental action on a “large-scale” which aims to reintroduce locally extinct species and “restore ecosystems.”

As a member of the Scottish Rewilding Alliance, we see this as hugely significant. It demonstrates that a strong majority in Scottish society are in favour of rewilding, and that there is a general recognition that we need to improve the ecological health of our country. We might not all be out-and-out ‘greenies’, but there is a mainstream respect for our natural heritage and awareness that we need to live in balance with [Read more…]

Brexit and bringing back Scotland’s fish – The Long Read

For years now, Brexit has loomed large on the horizon for the seafood industry, either feted as a ‘sea of opportunity’ or feared as a tide of trade-blocking red tape, but now the deal has been hashed out and the damaging realities of export disruption unfold, what does Brexit actually mean for the struggling health of one of Scotland’s most significant natural assets – our seas and the fish within them?

Since the die was cast on 23rd June 2016, many within Scotland’s ‘Fishing Industry’ have been vying for position to capitalise on a promised Brexit bonanza, where fishing rights would finally be repatriated, where government would take back control and businesses could invest to rebuild a fleet and catch more fish. As the deal came down to the wire and it transpired that major concessions on fishing were being contemplated, the story became the detail of the Deal. Amidst the wrangling over percentages of fish ‘quota’, the media focussed on the basic political question: had the ‘Fishing Industry’ been sold out? Or were we finally taking back control of our fish?

This debate, however, has rarely considered the condition of the underlying ‘asset’, or how our fish, public fisheries and seas can be better managed for the improved health and prosperity of the nation. Our seas  [Read more…]

Members of:

Scottish Rewilding Alliance
Our Seas coalition
Slow Food Scotland
Scottish Food Coalition
UKELA Scotland
Stop Climate Chaos Scotland