Key lessons on fishing and marine protection from the Clyde

That attention, however, is not without good reason. The Firth of Clyde, as a 2021 paper published by marine scientists Joshua Lawrence and Paul Fernandes described, “is one of the most anthropogenically impacted marine environments in the world”.

Over the past couple of centuries overfishing, pollution, shipping, industry, fishfarming and other human processes have made an impression on the life that makes its home there.

Last week, along with Herald writers Sandra Dick and James McEnaney, I looked at the controversies that surround Clyde Sea fisheries and marine environment and whether Scotland is doing what is needed to foster a thriving sea, as well as a future for fishers and their wider rural communities.

The Clyde, we learned, had not become a ‘marine desert’, as a landmark 2010 paper had warned, but it has been changed by us. Marine life in the Clyde goes on, as does the fishing. But it is not the same life, nor the same fishing as it was a century ago, and that history of change was described by Sandra Dick iin a Herald article last week.

These days the fishing is langoustine/prawn, often called nephrops, not cod or haddock. The biomass, as various papers have described, is still there, but the species balance is different - and that matters at a time of biodiversity crisis.

But also, it’s worth looking at the Clyde because one of the key marine protection measures the Scottish Government has set in place has been particularly controversial. A seasonal closure to whitefish trawling in an area where cod are believed to spawn was suddenly extended to include a ban on prawn trawlers and creel fishermen.

Fishers, marine conservationists and scientists questioned whether the extension was really justified by the science.

Some argued that the focus on spawning disturbance was unmerited. Others pointed to a paper by PhD student Ana Adao, which showed through modelling that prawn trawler bycatch was still a significant factor in preventing cod recovery.

But what was also criticised, particularly by fishers, was the consultation that preceded the ban in this so-called 'cod box' and its sudden creation.

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As creel fisherman Paul McAllister told me, “The whole process left me and my family distraught on the first year of the closure, simply because of the way the Scottish Government went about it. We were told on the February 11, that February 14 you'll be totally banned from fishing for the next three months."

The cod box is not the only marine protection measure in the Clyde Sea. Another, the Arran No Take Zone and wider MPA, is, as James McEnaney found, showing signs of positive impact on marine life in the area - and it is community led.

However, writing on fisheries and marine protection can feel like delving into two entirely different worlds.

In my interviews with fishers, I found that both the No Take Zone and the cod closure are two measures that frequently voiced grievance over, but also that they pointed out that these approaches had previously been backed by fishermen.

What was also clear from these interviews, is that fishers feel embattled and in a state of war with the marine conservation groups, and what they would often call the eNGOs.

In the fight over the Clyde, and its marine protection, it often seems as if  two sides have formed. Frequently, I heard complaints from fishermen about "campaigning groups". They noted that marine protection was their 'sole job', whereas fishers are forced to defend their business at the end of a day’s work. The arguments of such groups were criticised as "just a campaign".

The Future of Clyde Fishing (Image: Derek McArthur)

But what I see, in fact, is two opposing campaigns, one driven by the fishing industry and supported by its fishers, the other by NGOs and local conservation groups.  Fishers feel the campaigners, some of which are NGOs, others local community groups, don’t listen to them, and vice versa.

This kind of stand-off between these two campaigns, in which neither seems to be listening to each other except to pick holes, is not helpful - particularly as when you dig into what we know about the Clyde, you also find complexity.

In the Clyde, we also find a situation where data is imperfect and the “best available science” which is being used to back policy, for instance the cod closure, is questioned - in this case by both sides, and even the scientists themselves.

The inadequate funding and support that has left Marine Scotland Science, a “shadow” of its former self, has even been the focus of a Rural Affairs and Islands Committee meeting.

That said, we should be careful about undermining the good science that does exist. Fishers often expressed a scepticism around modelling, as if this were not real, trustworthy science. It’s not hard to see why. To those of us not practised in the arts of mathematics and statistics they can seem a strange kind of magic.

But this modelling is vital science, and of the type being used the world over to predict fish stocks and protect fisheries. The chief issue with some models is that they rely on the collected data, and if the data is incomplete, then the model may be skewed.

How to balance fishing and marine protection is being navigated the world over. But what seems clear to me is that globally, and locally, we need to look beyond the assessment of individual stocks, and see marine life at an ecosystem level, recognising all those species that we don’t eat, but which are important elements of ecosystems.

Fishers, of course, are more likely to see the many elements of that web than most of us. But they still see only part of it. They still mainly come to it through the lens of their nets, or in the case of one sustainable fishing pioneer I spoke to, the cameras attached to them.

We ought to remember that a healthy Clyde is not just about the cod, or the herring, or the prawn. It’s about the fuller marine web of life.

That this is the case for all seas is beginning to be recognised, not just across Scotland, but the world. Next week, at a meeting of the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission, scientists from the Pew Charitable trust will be calling on governments to take a more ecosystem-based approach.

Back in their 2010 paper, Ecological Meltdown in the Fifth of Clyde, Ruth Thurstan and Callum Roberts wrote, “The Firth of Clyde represents at a small scale a process that is occurring ocean-wide today, and its experience serves as a warning to others.”

The Clyde - even a recovering Clyde -  should serve as a warning, particularly at a time when the new industries of renewables are expanding in our seas.

But it also serves as a challenge. How are we going to recover what is lost? Do we really want to resign ourselves to the fact that the cod, as some fishers observed, is already pretty much gone from the sea?

Is there any chance still now of recovery? And what if that means quite dramatic measures, like for instance, the idea, as lawyer Robert Younger suggested in this series, of  turning the whole northern half of the Clyde Sea into a creel-only fishing area?

We ask many things from the sea. One is that it feeds us. Another is that it makes us money, and allows rural livings to be made. These needs are not going to go away. But, whether we want it or not, fishing, under the impact of climate change and other human pressures, is going to change.

What will likely be needed under some of those changes, if communities and businesses are not to be adversely affected, are what we now call just transitions.

An abrupt closure like what happened with the cod box is not an example of one of those. No wonder it lost the trust of fishers.