Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have come under some heavy fire from some fishing representatives for potentially “devastating” socio-economic impacts, but we contend MPAs will help to recover our seas and boost the resilience of coastal communities in Scotland. In this blog, we explain why a lot of people around rural Scotland, including many progressive Scottish fishermen, agree: by looking after our marine environment, MPAs can be part of a rural and coastal revival.
It’s now not helpful pretending otherwise: MPAs have become a wee bit divisive. We’ve charted here, here, here and here the various twists and turns of developing a network of Scottish MPAs. But if you don’t have time to read, here’s a quick re-cap: these MPAs are ‘in the water’ (ie they were designated in 2014) but there is still no comprehensive fisheries management (except for emergency measures in South Arran and Wester Ross), which means that our fishing fleets continue to catch fish within these parts of our inshore waters just like before – using a variety of methods … [Continue Reading]