SCALLOP WARS IN THE WILD WEST
A brutal conflict pitting creelers and divers against the inshore dredging fleet has led to a landmark court case, with the Scottish Government in the dock over the three-mile fishing limit, reports Kevin McKenna
Sparks continue to fly among creelers, divers and the inshore fleet as they butt heads over the three-mile fishing limit
When Maggie Sinclair begins to describe the night of the Loch Fyne incident her voice falls away to a whisper and you edge closer to hear. Maggie, ebullient and vivacious in the Glasgow style, runs a handsome Bed and Breakfast on a bewitching stretch of Scotland’s West Coast. It backs on to Scotland’s longest sea loch, a study in harmony and tranquillity. To spend some time in this place is to have a weight lifted from your shoulders and you are compelled to rest. Yet, on that clear evening ten years ago, Maggie wondered if she and her family might be forced to flee this idyll.
Her husband, Alistair, owns and operates a small fishing vessel and casts creel baskets down the middle of the loch, seeking a modest overnight catch of scallops and langoustines. This has led to his fishing gear being destroyed by some of the scallop dredgers who have sought, over the years, to annexe Loch Fyne. Sinclair, a 66-year-old veteran of Glasgow’s hardest housing estates, refuses to yield to what he believes is gangsterism. It soon became clear to him and Maggie though, there were some who felt he needed taught a lesson. Maggie insists on telling the tale. ‘I’ve remembered more of the detail than you,’ she chides her husband of 40 years, ‘probably because I was more scared than you.’ ‘Alistair had picked up some chatter on his radio set among trawler skippers further down the loch,’ she tells me. ‘There could be no doubting their intent. The words “we’re going to wipe him out” could clearly be heard. We assumed they just meant taking out his fishing gear but there was something more chilling, it seemed, than merely towing his creels.
‘And so we contacted the police, who were initially quite dismissive. However, another policeman we know was in the village on other business and we managed
to reach him. Alistair said to him: “You’d better do something about this because if you don’t, I’m going out there myself and I’ll protect my gear by whatever means necessary”.’
The couple’s fears quickly became apparent. Within minutes the shadowy outlines of seven trawlers had appeared on the loch, as if in formation. The police officer, sensing a serious incident, immediately called it in. Soon, a police helicopter was on the scene; its beam bouncing across the waters and picking out the registration numbers of this maleficent seven.
‘You ought to have heard the chatter that was coming from these boats when they knew they’d been foiled,’ says Maggie. ‘Alistair was getting accused of being a major drug dealer, for how else could he have afforded to get a helicopter involved. Predictably, they were calling him a grass, which in some of these parts can be like the mark of Cain.’
As you hear the tale unfold you think that this could have been the opening credits of a high seas re-make of Peaky Blinders. Sinclair has fished these waters for almost four decades and points to many similar incidents. He provides compelling video footage of £10,000 worth of his gear being towed away at speed by a trawler. On another tape he is clearly being threatened in the crudest terms by a trawler skipper unaccustomed to a mere creeler daring to challenge him. He estimates that he’s lost more than £200,000 of fishing gear and catch over these years, all of it uninsurable. At the height of the campaign against him, he was losing gear virtually every day; yet only once – in Dunoon in May 2008, when two dredgers fell out with each other and one gave evidence in court – was anyone ever held accountable. Even then, the Campbeltown skipper in question was only fined £400 for wrecking his creels, and Sinclair never saw a penny of that.
Yet he refuses to take his medicine and leave quietly.
AT STAKE here is a multi-million-pound industry that’s a major driver of Scotland’s fragile coastal economy. Sinclair’s decades-long struggle with the trawlers and dredgers typifies the essential nature of a long and hostile stand-off between competing interests. He is currently the president of the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation (SCFF), a post he has used to take the fight for the rights of his members to the front lawn of the Scottish Government.
On one side are the small creel fishers, scallop divers and a host of environmental groups who want to see the re-imposition of a three-mile limit on Scotland’s inshore. This would act as a barrier to dredging and trawling and permit dwindling fishing stocks to recover, whilst also allowing the seabed and its rare and ancient eco-systems, such as maerl beds and kelp forests, to heal.
These places have endured many years of violation by dredgers
Sinclair estimates that he’s lost more than £200,000 of fishing gear and catch over the years
who, despite deploying increasingly sophisticated machinery and techniques, essentially use a crude combine harvester on the sea-floor to dredge scallops from their habitats. This comes at grievous cost to the surrounding marine environment and all organic life which stands in their path. Footage of the practice reveals the startling reality of this mechanised evisceration of the marine environment.
The numbers are revealing. Inshore static fisheries account for approximately 85% of the Scottish fleet by boat numbers and 70% by direct employment, yet only 20% of the fleet revenue and 8% of prawns harvested. They have almost no fish by-catch while discard survival is around 95% because static vessels return undersized animals live to the water and return berried (spawning) fish. It’s the gold standard in environmental and healthy fishing.
This though, tells only part of the story. The Scottish dredging fleet is so rapacious that it has been banned from areas in England and Wales, and into this ferment can be added evidence of modern slavery on some trawlers and a depressing trail of divided communities. In cities tribal tensions can be concealed in its sprawling housing schemes, but in the fishing villages of the West Coast, when tensions spill over there are no hiding places and no comfort in numbers. Everyone knows your business and where you live.
In the middle is the Scottish Government who, through Marine Scotland, already operate a number of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)
to limit the predations of Scotland’s mobile fishing sector (trawlers and dredgers). They are not convinced of the argument for re-imposing the threemile limit and broadly align with the major fishing associations. The SCFF and its allies say that many of the MPAs are so rarely patrolled and so poorly managed that they suffer frequent illegal encroachments by trawlers and dredgers.
SO, LET’S talk about the three-mile limit. This has assumed an almost spiritual significance for the scallop divers, creelers and environmental groups, who believe that it holds the key to creating a healthy and sustainable marine environment in Scotland’s most enchanting and once productive waters.
This boundary existed for around 100 years before the limit was lifted in 1984. The SCFF and its allies claim that since its removal there has been an apocalyptic reduction in the remaining demersal (bottom feeding) and finfish species, resulting in commercial extinction. The vast majority of those vessels comprising Scotland’s inshore fleet now only fish for nephrops (prawns and lobsters) and scallops.
Their efforts are directed towards the West Coast. The geography of the East Coast means that the best crab and lobster fisheries are usually more than three miles out, lessening the need for the limit. Even then, destruction of creels by the mobile fleet is such a regular occurrence that at least 100 tonnes of crabs and lobsters are lost every year from gear vandalism off the East Coast.
A graph of landings on the Firth of Clyde shows a profound decline in the cod, haddock, hake, plaice and whiting which once made these waters a Klondyke for the fishing fleet. Sinclair recalls with a degree of sorrow the sea-angling opportunities and associated tourism which once thrived in this area. ‘The fishing on the
Clyde then was immense,’ he says. ‘But after the three-mile limit was lifted it took them less than twenty years to destroy it.
‘The benefits of recreational sea-angling for working-class Glaswegians were immense and they weren’t just economic, but societal too. The shipyards, steelworks and coal mines were all still going then and sea angling kept many out of the pubs at the weekend. Children also got an opportunity to learn how to fish, and when you catch your first fish you’re embarking on a journey that lasts a lifetime.’
Sinclair believes it’s possible to improve the health of the inshore eco-system and fishing industry within a short time frame and with no damage to the economy. Indeed, given the time and space to recover, which the three-mile limit would bring, there is the potential to double the number of fishermen operating on Scotland’s inshore; double the number of vessels and double the revenues generated. ‘It’s a no-brainer,’ he says. ‘Not only do you reap these economic benefits but you also reduce disturbance of the seabed and its environment and there would be a reduction in the by-catch and discard ratios to virtually zero.’
The Clyde Fishermen’s Association (CFA), whose 50-60 boats make it one of the UK’s main inshore fisheries organisations, takes a substantially different view. Elaine Whyte, its executive
The three-mile limit has assumed an almost spiritual significance for scallop divers, creelers and environmentalists
secretary, is an eloquent and passionate defender of their position. Her members include creelers who she claims prefer local solutions to disputes. She hails from several generations of fishing stock herself and knows the terrain.
‘In 2008 when the No Take Zone in Arran was established we supported it, even though fishermen all over Scotland thought it was madness,’ she says. ‘Our members have always supported the Marine Protected Areas and the thinking behind it, but we would also caution against overly-ambitious MPAs that close off too many areas as this amounts almost to a privatisation of the fisheries.
‘We always go with the science provided by Marine Scotland rather than academics who might have their own bias. And if we’re talking about declines on the Clyde then we can show this started well before 1984.’
OF ALL the euphemisms favoured by political and civic Scotland the phrase ‘Gear Conflict’ is perhaps the most absurdly misleading. It suggests a situation where a trawler’s progress inadvertently tows a creeler’s gear. In reality, there is no ‘conflict’ whatsoever: how could there be where a plastic buoy
If we’re talking about declines on the Clyde, we can show that this started before 1984
and some creel baskets are caught up in the folds of a large, heavy vessel? In these ‘conflicts’ there can only be one winner.
Alistair Philp is a full-time creel fisherman who works primarily in the Inner Sound area between Skye and the Scottish mainland. His family have fished this area for three generations, among them several uncles who operated trawlers and dredgers. He confesses to having once done so himself.
Philp is leading the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation in a ground-breaking legal action against the Scottish Government, challenging its decision not to operate a pilot in the Inner Sound so it could be protected from the mobile fleet. ‘We had thought the process would be governed by evidence and science, but in the end it all came down to a simplistic polling of responses,’ he says.
‘You simply can’t defend the historical process of emptying out the seas and the 98% decline in demersal fish landing, yet our government hasn’t even reached the stage of considering this seriously. The trawlers are also in a state of blanket denial about what’s staring them in the eye. I don’t know a fisherman on the West Coast who hasn’t lost gear to trawlers. Many also
feel they’ve been targeted, myself included. I know that they’re actively targeting our gear. The tales of it happening are too many and detailed for this not to be the case.’
What Philp describes would be considered tantamount to piracy in any other realm: the occupation and takedown by one sector of another by means of strength and unregulated opportunity. ‘The way to avoid this is to have creel only designations. When we were told these would be unmanageable we suggested the Inner Sound pilot to show them we could. And then they’re opposed that too.’
AT THE end of June on the sunlit waters of the Firth of Clyde a lone fishermen is escaping lockdown by casting and collecting creels for langoustine and crab, and dodging the whiplash of the ‘scalders’, the stingers of jellyfish that creep around his vessel. Ian Cusick is fishing the waters around the Lamlash Bay No Take Zone, designated in 2008 after a lengthy campaign which now prohibits the dredging and intensive bottomtrawling that had previously scavenged and ploughed the seabed.
Soon, he’s chatting to Howard Wood, who draws alongside to tell him about his own scallop catch the day before. Fishermen using the same equipment have had these exchanges in this place for many hundreds of years. That they are doing so again epitomises the astounding success of the No Take Zone. Cusick tells of some rare crab species he’s caught recently and which are now being examined by local researchers funded by COAST (Community of Arran Seabed Trust), the community group which fought for this unique zone in Scottish waters.
Wood was awarded an OBE in 2015 for services to the marine environment. In the same year he was the European recipient of the Goldman Prize, often referred to as ‘The Green Nobel’. Along with it came an award of $175k, most of which Wood ploughed into the refurbishment of a seafront conversion for COAST’s new headquarters.
Both awards are important. They stand as a rebuke to the Scottish Government, Marine Scotland and the major Scottish fishing associations, none of whose arguments for rejecting the three-mile limit seem to include any awareness of the seabed environment, bio-diversity and the recovery of species almost extinct in places once teeming with them.
‘It was a life-changing moment for me,’ said Wood. ‘And not simply for being the recipient of the $175k, but for what I learnt both from the other recipients, the Goldman staff and the people and organisations it introduces you to. It took me a while to understand but the award is not just for past achievement but for future potential.’
The potential for Scotland of establishing more No Take Zones and re-introducing the three-mile limit on the West Coast is indisputable. Scallops within the NTZ have increased significantly both in size and abundance since the protections were established. ‘In the UK only a limited amount of work has been undertaken on the recovery of eco-systems inside MPAs,’ says Wood. ‘All our research and monitoring has shown how areas with proper protection and better management can restore stocks which have been preyed upon without restriction and restore balance to our eco-system.’
The Scottish Government though, refuses to consider re-introducing the three-mile limit. ‘Scotland’s inshore fisheries are one of our most valuable assets,’ says Fergus Ewing, the Fisheries
Secretary. ‘They contribute significantly to the economic and social fabric of our coastal communities which is why we are enabling responsible fishing through a modernisation programme which includes rolling out Remote Electronic Monitoring to Scotland’s scallop fishing fleet to help improve fisheries management and safeguard Marine Protected Areas.
‘Fishing is highly competitive with intense competition for space in certain areas, but despite that conflict is rare, with the vast majority of fishers working well together. To be clear, we have no plans to introduce a three-mile limit and ban trawling and dredging from our inshore waters.
‘There are a range of measures already in place to protect fish stocks and the marine environment, including Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), controls on fishing gear and catch limits. Just because one group is calling for such a measure does not mean there is a legitimate expectation that we will introduce it.’
Wood, though, says the Scottish Government is merely fiddling around the edges of the question. ‘All the science and research provides a huge body of evidence that a transition to lower impact fishing is good for environment and jobs in the long-term. I simply can’t understand why they are refusing to consider broader limits on dredging and trawling.
‘In 2018 they also committed to implementing measures arising from the Priority Marine Features to protect seabed habitats. In 2017 they also said they would commit to limiting the impact of dredge and bottom trawl. None of this has happened and you’re left with the impression that the health of Scotland’s marine environment matters much more overseas than it does to our own government. It’s a wholesale neglect of their responsibility and a failure of their duty of care on behalf of the people of Scotland who are the historic owners of these waters.
‘I’d also like to know why Scottish scallop dredgers are still rated critical on the seafood slavery index and why our government has failed OSPAR (Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic) and its sustainable development goal. Has the Scottish Government taken a step back from its international commitments without telling the rest of us and while it’s telling the Scottish people that it wants to be the most sustainable nation on earth?’
ON LOCH FYNE, Alistair Sinclair is coming to the end of another 14-hour day. He’ll hang his scallops on his water-poles and the following Monday they will be picked up by lorries which will take them to Eyemouth where they’re packed for Europe. Typically, he’ll have between 800 and 1,000 creels at any one time. It sounds a lot but, as Sinclair says ‘it’s like shoelaces on a fitba’ pitch’.
‘In Sweden government-commissioned research reported on the impact of creel fishing on the sea floor and its cost in terms of fuel,’ says Sinclair. ‘A creel on the sea floor catches prawns from within 1.8 square metres per kilo. To achieve that one kilo a trawler must affect up to 33,000 square metres. Someone’s doing it right.’ In this battle for the integrity and health of Scotland’s coast and the environment that lies beneath too much has been concealed from a wider population who know little of what’s at stake.
It’s between one side who want to talk of the here and now and are happy to let tomorrow take care of itself. On the other side are those who want to preserve fishing as a way of life, providing sustainable income for the next generation by protecting what we have now. They want to allow it some long overdue time to breathe freely once more; to replenish; to heal.
There are similarities with the energy debate in the US. The Trumpian view that regards everything that moves or grows as fair game for the human apex predators is in the ascendancy. Scotland has always insisted it’s better than that. Time perhaps to prove it.
The science says a transition to lower impact fishing is good for jobs and the environment