Public funding totalling £8 million is to be used to boost Scotland's fishing sector, with work to help reduce problems linked to the discard ban to receive a share of the cash.
Fisheries Secretary Fergus Ewing revealed 41 projects will benefit from the latest round of awards made by the European and Maritime Fisheries Fund.
The bulk of the cash is coming from the European Union, which is contributing £6 million, while the Scottish Government has committed £1.5 million, with the remaining £500,000 coming from other public sources.
A total of £1.8 million of the cash will go to the Scottish Fishermen's Federation to pay for independent observers on boats following the introduction of the discard ban - which was brought in to stop fisherman throwing dead fish back into the sea if they had reached quota limits.
Mr Ewing said: "This £8 million investment will encourage growth and protect jobs in the sea fisheries and aquaculture industry by allowing businesses to upgrade technology and buy new equipment.
"This is just one example of why EU funding is so important as it is helping the sea fisheries sector improve the quality of its products and enabling them to develop more environmentally friendly methods.
"We are committed to doing everything we can to overcome the damage Brexit will cause to jobs, trade, education and to our public services. In everything we do, we will continue to champion our shared interests and provide reassurances to fishing communities."
The funding allocation was announced as Mr Ewing met members of the Shetland Fishermen's Association in Lerwick, with projects in the islands receiving £1.6 million of the cash.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here