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Sustainability in Scotland's Seas

traceability

#FishLocal for Lobster

Lobster – it’s widely regarded as gourmet seafood, and is a delicious treat if you can afford it and it’s ethically prepared. But while lobster is likely a rare culinary occasion for most, it’s one of the staple catches within the Scottish fishing sector. Just like brown crab, lobsters are caught and landed all around our coastline mainly by smaller local boats and therefore help bring in distributed value to communities.

Scottish lobsters are populations of the European lobster (Homarus gammarus), and are dark blue unlike their brown-orange North American cousins. They are caught by creels (baited pots, set on the seabed) which coax lobsters out of their hiding spots, especially around rocky shorelines.

Lobster fishing has been practised for centuries, and fisheries have boomed in recent years. Around 1,200 tonnes, roughly doubling since the 1970s and 1980s. The vast majority of lobster is caught by Scottish boats landing to local ports. These are often sold to higher-end restaurants but there has been a increase in exports, especially since 2010. However, with some inshore fishermen considering localising their markets, there are signs that this special shellfish may be available closer to home.

Remember that lobster fisheries fluctuate and so there is a high degree of seasonal availability often due to variability of environmental conditions.

If you’re buying lobster, please make sure you check and ensure it meets the minimum landing size. Confusingly these sizes are different in different areas and also depends whether it’s a male or a female. Check out the official control guide here. Just as crucially try to make sure it is not ‘berried’. Female lobsters carry their eggs for up to 11 months and responsible fishermen advocate the return of these ‘berried hens’ to sea to allow those eggs to hatch and underpin the viability of local populations.

Unfortunately this is not happening everywhere and there is also concern about overfishing the stock and risk of serious impacts for the industry. Cases of undersized lobster catches are not uncommon. In sustainability and fisheries management terms, there is a lot that needs improved; there are no limits on the overall volume of lobsters that can be caught, stock assessments show that some populations are being overfished and in some areas the data is so inadequate that a realistic stock assessment is not possible. It’s crucial that buyers check the situation locally. Research is showing that area-based measures can help – studies by COAST and University of York of lobster populations in Lamlash Bay show that there is a ‘spillover effect’ with larger lobsters recorded nearer to the No Take Zone.

The MCS Good Fish Guide rates Scottish lobster fisheries as ‘4’ due to the shortage of adequate controls within the fishery.

This blog is part of our ‘Fish Local’ series, to help inform how you can buy locally-landed and sustainable seafood.

Mapped data courtesy of MMO and made available under OGL. Catch data – 2018 UK Vessel Landings per ICES rectangle. Landings data – 2018 UK Vessel Landings to Scottish Ports. Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-sea-fisheries-annual-statistics-report-2018.

Fish images above courtesy of illustrations from The Natural History of British Fishes (1802) by Edward Donovan (1768-1837), digitally enhanced by rawpixel.com and adapted by Open Seas

Mackerel

Nearly a third of Scotland’s fish landings (by value) are mackerel. However, there remain massive issues about where this benefit lands, given the majority of mackerel quota is currently controlled by a few individuals, that roughly half of the mackerel caught by Scottish boats is landed directly abroad and that commercial interests have resisted attempts to encourage them to land more in Scotland. Hopefully this will not continue through the COVID-19 crisis.

They are delicious, and whether you eat them fresh, smoked or even as sushi, they are extremely good for you. In fact, Scottish dietary guidelines say you should be aiming for one portion of oily fish (like mackerel or herring) each week.

We haven’t mapped the landings to foreign ports (although you can view the overall Scottish mackerel landings by value from 2015 here) but below you can see that, whilst the main ports dominate the landings – 56,000 tonnes to Peterhead, 14,000 tonnes to Lerwick – each year a couple of tonnes land to Scrabster, Eyemouth, Ullapool, some of the small port towns on the north Aberdeenshire coast like Portsoy and Rosehearty, even to Pittenweem on the Fife coast. This happens especially during the summer when shoals of mackerel head in to the coasts. Much of this has typically been used for baiting creels (shellfish pots) for crabs, lobsters and langoustine.

The Good Fish Guide has it rated green and green/amber throughout our seas – and, though there are some issues to do with overfishing in the big pelagic fishery, hand-lining is all green rated.

This blog is part of our ‘Fish Local’ series, to help inform how you can buy locally-landed and sustainable seafood.

Mapped data courtesy of MMO and made available under OGL. Catch data – 2018 UK Vessel Landings per ICES rectangle. Landings data – 2018 UK Vessel Landings to Scottish Ports. Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-sea-fisheries-annual-statistics-report-2018.

Fish images above courtesy of illustrations from The Natural History of British Fishes (1802) by Edward Donovan (1768-1837), digitally enhanced by rawpixel.com and adapted by Open Seas

 

A year since Gairloch

It has been almost a year since we reported illegal damage caused to the seabed in Gairloch – a small part of our inshore sea that has been given legal protection for over a century.

Unfortunately, the law only provides protection in principle, and there have been a number of reports of illegal damage to protected areas around Scotland in this year (such as north west Jura, Sound of Mull, Summer Isles). The Scottish Government response has sometimes been unclear; often the only information in the public domain is that which has been reported in the press. 

Enforcement activity is the job for Scotland’s Fisheries Officers, but here we want to share and explain the evidence we have, set out our view of what we think the problem is, and allow you to consider the issue yourself.  We want to highlight the damage being caused and what it means for your seas, Scotland’s seafood and the communities that rely on it. [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…]

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…]

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…]