Fisheries chief hits out at poll-SCOT

A recent poll published by Our Seas, which claims fishing is causing undue damage to our seas, has been slammed by the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation chief executive.

Responding to the poll, Elspeth Macdonald said: “Yet again, Our Seas has shown that it prefers misleading people about the state of Scotland’s seas and attacking fishermen and coastal communities to making a meaningful contribution to the discussion about HPMAs.

“The idea that fishermen do not care about the marine environment is disgraceful – without healthy seas and fish stocks the mostly family-owned businesses that comprise our industry would be out of work.

“Trawling and dredging does not take place everywhere. Dredging only takes place about 16 per cent of inshore waters, where seabed and conditions are suitable and it’s already the case that trawling is not permitted in more than a third of Scottish waters to protect particularly sensitive seabed habitats and features, not the five per cent implied by Our Seas.

SFF chief executive, Elspeth Macdonald.

“We have an extensive network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) where evidence-based conservation measures co-exist with sustainable harvesting. That is the right approach, not the proposed HPMAs which are driven by politics rather than ecology.

“In the SFF’s own polling, 78 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement ‘Governments should ensure that fishing communities are not squeezed out of our increasingly crowded seas’, while just four per cent disagreed.”