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Open Seas

Promoting sustainable seafood from Scotland's Seas

Scotland

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…]

Transparency is a fundamental tool for deterring illegal fishing

Earlier this week, the Herald ran a front page story ‘Justice in secret for skippers that flout laws at sea’. 

The news article focussed on concerns raised after the Scottish Government declined to disclose the identity of vessels given fines for suspected illegal trawling inside Loch Gairloch, an area of inshore seabed known to hold vital habitat for spring spawning herring. 

This is an issue we have been following for some time. Reports of illegal fishing in protected areas of Scotland’s seas are sadly all-too-frequent and despite increasing awareness of the problem, it’s still happening. This is in part due to the under-resourcing of fisheries enforcement in Scotland, but also because the legislative regime itself does not effectively deal with – and deter – illegal fishing. Sustainable fishermen, and our environment, are now paying the price:  illegal dredging or trawling can entail huge collateral damage to marine wildlife and also compromise the sea’s productivity for other fisheries. Back in 2018, we collaborated with local divers to investigate the seabed after reports of illegal trawling in Loch Gairloch. In July this year, the Scottish Government confirmed that two vessels were issued ‘Fixed Penalty Notices’, each for £2,000 for illegally fishing inside the Gairloch closed area. [Read more…]

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 [Read more…]

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…]

Prawn potential: the benefits of more sustainable seafood

A new industry report is shedding light on the economic and environmental opportunities and consequences of fishing for prawns in our inshore waters. It’s part of a broader story of regulatory inertia and environmental decline in our inshore fisheries. However, debate is now growing around the case for spatial management as a way to restore more sustainable fishing and rural employment in Scotland.

Prawns are a big deal for Scotland. ‘Nephrops’ are large orange-pink prawns sometimes called Dublin Bay prawns, langoustine and scampi. Back in the 1960s only a few tonnes were landed each year, but it is now our second most valuable stock, worth £79m.

Unfortunately, the emergence of this fishery has come at an environmental cost. People want [Read more…]

Members of:

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