THE Scottish Office is being urged to abandon its plans to push through legislation overturning a nine-year ban on Scottish fishermen using monofilament fishing nets.

Wildlife campaigners claim that the springy, large-mesh nets pose a particular danger to harbour porpoises and other small cetaceans, and are also likely to trap diving birds, seals, turtles, and other marine creatures.

Diving experts also warn that the nets have trapped divers along the English coast and that it is only a matter of time before they cause a fatality. Reintroduction of the nets to Scottish waters and the dangers caused by the nets being carelessly discarded could damage the commercial interests of those involved in dives around some of the most popular wreck sites off Scotland, such as Scapa Flow and Oban, it has been claimed.

However, a spokeswoman for the Scottish Office confirmed yesterday that there were plans to lay a derogation of the Inshore Fishing: Prohibition of the Carriage of Monofilament Gill Nets (Scotland) Order 1986 ``as soon as possible''. The derogation was still being written and finalised.

Mr Hugh Allen, secretary of Mallaig and North-West Fishermen's Association - the group which has led the campaign for the restoration of the nets - denied that the monofilament nets took more of a ``by-catch'' than multi-stranded nets in current use. In fact, they took less, he said.

He also said Scottish fishermen were being discriminated against, as the ban does not extend to English or Irish waters and does not cover foreign boats fishing in Scottish waters.

The ban on the nets was introduced in 1986 as a parliamentary order after pressure from the wild salmon lobby, which claimed the nets were used primarily by poachers.

Fishermen argue that they need the monofilament nets to catch fish such as turbot, skate, and monkfish, an increasingly lucrative area for them, and that they will use the nets only at depths of between 40 and 200 fathoms.

However, their opponents argue that some fishermen will use them close inshore to catch crawfish and lobster, and that because the nets are comparatively cheap, they will be discarded by fishermen and continue to act as ``ghost'' fishermen, catching fish, seabirds, and small cetaceans for years to come.

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Office said that, in the last couple of years, the feeling had grown that fishermen were being disadvantaged from fishing for bottom-lying fish and that the wild salmon lobby had dropped many of its concerns.