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2015 has been quite a year for Scotland’s seas. Back in January there was significant concern that new marine protected areas would become paper parks, with little management to actually reverse the declining health of our marine environment. With the #DontTakeTheP (out of MPAs) campaign, throughout the year we have edged closer to meaningful management that could see our amazing, rich and fragile seabed habitats better protected so that our seas return to better health. This issue is by no means over and 2016 will be an equally important year. A lot of other stuff has happened too… a ruling about data release for fish farms, new marine regions, the adoption of the National Marine Plan, a moratorium on Underground Coal Gasification and some fantastic marine wildlife sightings that are a reminder of just how important our seas are.

Below are some tweets for a wee whistlestop overview of 2015. (more…)

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[PRESS RELEASE: in response to the Scottish Government’s announcement about fisheries management in inshore Marine Protected Areas and Special Areas of Conservation]

Environmental organisations have today welcomed the Scottish Government’s announcement on managing fishing within Scotland’s network of marine protected areas (MPAs). The MPAs include some of the most vulnerable marine wildlife sites in Europe and some of the 30 areas designated in the summer of 2014 to protect a range of habitats and species including flameshell beds and the common skate. However, until now the areas have been at risk of potentially irreversible damage from some fishing activities. The new proposals for fisheries management in the MPAs will (more…)

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Placing proportionate limits on bottom-towed fishing could help boost long-term jobs in fragile rural communities, as well as protect the environment, contend a coalition of Scottish charities. The Scottish Government is due to announce measures for managing fishing in several Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) later this month. Scottish Environment LINK’s Marine Taskforce has written to the Scottish Parliament with the findings of an economic review which highlights the benefits that protection of seabed habitats could provide.

Drawing on the report, the environmental groups say that if the Scottish Government (more…)

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Our Save Scottish Seas campaign was recently nominated for the Marine Conservation Award – a category of the Nature of Scotland Awards. We are delighted about this.

Our nine members (Hebridean Whale & Dolphin Trust, Marine Conservation Society, National Trust for Scotland, Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, RSPB Scotland, Scottish Ornithologists’ Club, Scottish Wildlife Trust, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, WWF Scotland) have campaigned together for over 10 years to help recover the environmental health of our seas.

You can read the history of our long-running campaign to secure progressive legislation that has paved the way for a network of Marine Protected Areas.  We are now at a crucial stage of this campaign: we are on the brink of making a strong case for MPAs for mobile species (such as whales and dolphins) and within a matter of months, key decisions (more…)

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Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have come under some heavy fire from some fishing representatives for potentially “devastating” socio-economic impacts, but we contend MPAs will help to recover our seas and boost the resilience of coastal communities in Scotland. In this blog, we explain why a lot of people around rural Scotland, including many progressive Scottish fishermen, agree: by looking after our marine environment, MPAs can be part of a rural and coastal revival.

It’s now not helpful pretending otherwise: MPAs have become a wee bit divisive. We’ve charted here, here, here and here the various twists and turns of developing a network of Scottish MPAs. But if you don’t have time to read, here’s a quick re-cap: these MPAs are ‘in the water’ (ie they were designated in 2014) but there is still no comprehensive fisheries management (except for emergency measures in South Arran and Wester Ross), which means that our fishing fleets continue to catch fish within these parts of our inshore waters just like before – using a variety of methods (more…)

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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…

TAKE ACTION NOW

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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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