Twenty years ago, Angus Martin, the son of four generations of Clyde fishermen, wrote a book that should have sparked change for west coast fisheries. ‘Fish and Fisherfolk of Kintyre, Lochfyneside, Gigha, and Arran’ was an affectionate chronicling of historical fishing activity in the region, but also referenced the industry’s more recent decline.

His prologue, struck a fair-minded and pragmatic tone: “Historically, the drift-net fishermen who opposed ring-netting and pair trawling, and the line-fishermen who opposed otter-trawling and seine-netting, were no doubt concerned primarily with protecting their own livelihoods from the competition of more efficient operators, but it is also true that they feared for the fish stocks on which their communities had for generations depended.

"That many species are locally depleted to the point of commercial non-viability is undeniable, but the generality of fishermen are reluctant to admit that over-fishing and indiscriminate destruction of small fish.. might be the primary causes. Yet the apportioning of blame is pointless now. The damage has been done and it remains only to administer remedial treatment.”

Sadly, not much has changed since 2004. Leaders within the trawl fleet have attempted to innovate with more selective fishing nets, but there has been no recovery of collapsed fish stocks, as the problem of bycatch and damage to nursery grounds persist. After years of wrangling, there are now three ‘Marine Protected Areas’ (MPAs) in theory covering 25% of the Firth of Clyde, but the pattern of fishing is largely the same: trawling for langoustine remains the dominant fishing activity, supplying a fragile bulk market in scampi.

When the MPAs were finally introduced in 2015, some fishermen worried that limits on their activity would decimate the Clyde trawl fleet. But the reality saw restrictions in just a few areas in the Clyde, and which reduced bottom-trawling across Scotland’s entire inshore zone by a tiny amount, less than 1% of its existing footprint. Ten years later, some MPAs, like the Clyde Sea Sill, still have no management at all. The real economic challenge faced by some trawl skippers hinges more on access to labour and markets, than the number of square kilometres of seabed available to trawl.

The Future of Clyde FishingThe Future of Clyde Fishing (Image: Derek McArthur)

To thrive, fish populations need healthy habitats and to not be over-fished, two conditions which are not currently being met. The Clyde was once home to diverse and rich fishing grounds underpinned by equally rich and varied marine habitats: the gravelly Ballantrae banks attracted spawning herring, habitats like flameshell beds sheltered haddock, and lemon sole on the Skelmorlie Bank, as well as fringing shallower waters and sea lochs where young fish could feed and grow.

Crucially these habitats and the fish they nurtured were effectively protected  until 1984, the whole Firth of Clyde was off limits to bottom-trawling, a limit which also extended to three miles from shore around Scotland’s entire coastline.

Since the removal of that protection, concern has steadily grown, and in recent years Open Seas has sought to document the consequences of loosely regulated fisheries to promote public debate and catalyse the measures needed for environmental recovery.

The Clyde Fisheries Development Project estimated that well over 30 million fish were caught and thrown overboard within the scampi trawl fishery in a single year in the Clyde in the mid-noughties, a situation which eventually led to new rules requiring boats to land all catches.

In 2019, we published photographic evidence indicating that undersized fish - caught as bycatch in langoustine trawls - were still being thrown back into the sea dead, despite the ban on this wasteful practice. Analysis of landings at key ports like Tarbert, Troon and Campbeltown indicate this discarding continues today.

Whilst there have been some promising initiatives within the scampi fleet to trial more selective fishing gear, these remain the exception - and the continued bycatch of juvenile fish in small mesh bottom-trawl nets to produce scampi is thought to be suppressing the recovery of depleted fish populations, like cod.

We have campaigned for improvements to the management of this fishery, and urged supermarkets sourcing scampi from it to either require producers to operate sustainably, and pay fairer prices to those fishing businesses making those changes, or stop misleading the public by claiming scampi products are responsibly sourced. Progress is painfully slow.

In just 10 years since 2010, 23 hectares of marine habitats in the Clyde were lost, with 65% of its seafloor predicted to have been subject to high physical disturbance. In 2020, we investigated the impacts of scallop dredging on one of the remaining maerl beds, north of Brodick Bay on the eastern shores of the Isle of Arran. Maerl is a fragile coral-like algae that can form a biodiverse crust on the seafloor, providing feeding and breeding grounds for juvenile fish.

Scallop dredging is the most destructive legal fishing method in Europe, using heavy metal rakes to scrape scallops off the seafloor. Working with a dedicated citizen science diver and members of the Community of Arran Seabed Trust, we secured video footage of a previously healthy seabed severely impacted by scallop dredging. Shockingly this was in a place that the Government itself had already committed to protect - three years earlier Scottish Ministers had responded to a public outcry about damage to a seabed reef In Loch Carron and pledged to limit the impact of bottom-trawling and dredging on seabed habitats across Scotland’s entire inshore zone.

Yet again, since that promise seven years ago, the Scottish Government has failed to implement that wider environmental protection in the Clyde and elsewhere.

The crux of the issue lies in political failure to deliver a vision for the Clyde which sees recovery for its environment and many hard-pressed communities. And yet while the Scottish Government continues to break its promises to reduce unsustainable practices, many within the industry are actually crying out for support and better regulation.

READ MORE:

The Future of Clyde Fishing – find all articles in series here

Future of the Clyde: Can seawilding save our seas?

Like many others, we have been so frustrated by the steady degradation of Scotland’s seabed, that we took the Scottish Government to courts, successfully challenging Scottish Ministers’ decision to license scallop dredging without considering its wider legal duty to protect marine habitats. We presented evidence of ongoing harm to the seafloor around our coasts. The Scottish Government appealed, but failed, and Scotland’s highest civil court thoroughly rebuked the Scottish Ministers’ position, affirming the Government’s duty to act in accordance with the National Marine Plan. But even now, Ministers are still licensing and authorising seabed damage to continue.

Today, only 5% of Scotland’s inshore waters are safeguarded from fishing methods that drag fishing gear across the seafloor, leaving the remaining large parts of our seas exposed to continued degradation. Last year’s stooshie around “highly protected marine areas” (HPMAs) faced a predictable backlash from rural communities and small-scale fishing interests who found themselves caught in the crossfire of clumsy proposals which sought to ban everyone, rather than just restricting commercial activities that cause significant harm.

Political attention must now refocus on the more pressing need to restore our marine environment and inshore fisheries by finally putting sensible inshore limits on the most impactful methods of fishing. It’s time for Scotland’s seas to be managed for the benefit of all and for the resilience of the communities that rely on them.

Hugh Raven is Chair of Open Seas