On the 8th of December COAST members attended a national Seminar, on the proposed Coastal and Marine National Parks, held at a conference suite at Hampden Park. It was interesting to find out how Scottish Natural Heritage is going about choosing an area to recommend to the Minister. We also participated in the workshops throughout the day & strongly put our main point that without sustainable fishing methods it would be a waste of time.
If you would like to check on SNH’s progress go to web site http://www.snh.org.uk/strategy/CMNP/sr-adnp01.asp
Have your say on the message board.
Just before Christmas we posted our 2006 calendar to all 129 MSPs, along with a letter asking for support in pushing SEERAD into making decisions that will protect biodiversity & move towards a more sustainable fishing industry.
2005 has been another frustrating year, with the exception of forcing Scottish Water to move the sewerage pipe out of Lamlash Bay. It can be best summed up in the press release we issued in early December:-
ISLAND COMMUNITY DENIED JUSTICE
More than 40 years after Neil McLean & the Arran Angling Association asked for a marine protected area in Lamlash Bay to protect fish & shellfish nursery areas from damaging bottom trawling and dredging, the Scottish Executive Environment & Rural Affairs Dept. (SEERAD) is still ignoring the demands of the islanders. It is now 2 years since The Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST) met with SEERAD, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) & the Scallop Dredgers representative on 12th December 2003 & nearly a year since they received COAST’s latest proposal of a No Take Zone within a Marine Protected Area. Despite numerous letters asking for a response from SEERAD on the proposal and on the Millport Marine research station’s report into the Lamlash Maerl beds, the Inshore Fisheries Dept. of SEERAD ignores all correspondence.
In the last year, COAST have had formal & informal meetings with Allan Wilson, local MSP, Ross Finnie, Minister for Environment & Rural Affairs & Jack McConnell, First Minister. In all these meetings COAST has asked for meaningful progress on their proposals.
Only last month Campbell Martin, MSP in a written question to Ross Finnie asked whether he was prepared to use No Take Zones. The minister’s answer was “where species are highly mobile and migrate freely through the zone, NTZs offer little or no protection”. An answer that is scientifically 10 years out of date. It also shows the complete lack of knowledge of the Clyde fishery, where all highly mobile species have been wiped out due to over fishing. The only species left to the mobile fishing sector are Prawns (scampi) & Scallops. Go and ask a fisherman in the Clyde what they have been landing for the last 2 years. Both types of fishing by mobile gear for these species dredge heavy machinery along the seabed, destroying the remaining fragile ecosystems, which may be the last chance of re-establishing the whitefish & herring fisheries for which the Clyde was so famous only 20 years ago.
The perception that SEERAD is looking after the marine environment could not be further from the truth. It has been proven through their actions that the department is only interested in what can be extracted from the seas around Scotland as quickly as possible, while paying lip service to conservation through endless consultations and committees. So far there has not been one concrete action to protect marine biodiversity & move towards sustainable fisheries in the Clyde. The cost effectiveness of this approach to the Scottish tax payer remains to be seen and future generations will pay the price of inaction.
The latest proposal is for a marine national park somewhere in the Scottish seas and possibly in the Clyde. We do not feel that stock conservation, marine biodiversity or our children will benefit from such empty labelling unless serious conservation measures are included.
Our First Minister said, on forming the last government that communities must have a greater say in what happens around them. COAST is outraged at being continually ignored by his officials and the lack of meaningful discussion,
COAST has tried very hard over the last 4 years to go down the democratic route and negotiate a positive outcome. However it seems in reality that there is no place at the negotiating table for communities. SEERAD officials have a naïve faith that those fishermen’s organisations, which presided over the collapse of the Clyde white fish & herring stock, are the same ones that now need to be at the centre of future government policy. It is a triumph of hope over experience. This close relationship is part of the problem not the solution. If a planning committee included all the major house builders, people would rightly be asking questions about conflicts of interest.
At the end of 2005 the current position can best be summed up in the words of COAST’s Vice-Chairman Howard Wood “There is a serious legal principle at stake here. Justice delayed is justice denied. 2005 has been characterised by a series of broken promises from SEERAD, agreed meetings have not taken place and our correspondence goes unanswered. Our proposals are not complex. They are professionally presented, are in line with government policy and supported by some of the world’s leading scientific experts. There is something seriously wrong with SEERAD if they can’t even adjudicate an uncontroversial proposal like ours.”
Male cuckoo Wrasse photo Sean Ferris
Return to Coast Home