enefits culture

pport n t es to pro de en ron ental ser ces th ro nds

The new European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) grant information only went live on the Sco sh government website on :anuary 18, yet there are already 100 businesses registered.

With 243.1 million allocated to the h there is plenty of reason for interest in this programme.

While in the previous European Fisheries Fund (EFF) scheme there was a Common nterest allocation, one criterion of which was providing environmental benefits, this time there is a specific category of A uaculture providing environmental services .

dhe guidance notes do not give a huge amount of information as to what is covered in this, but to me this says shellfish culture and shellfish restoration.

A great deal of work has been done on the benefits of restoration of native species of shellfish in the hS and they have a great deal of information on the benefits that can accrue.

dhese include measurable improvements in certain fish populations, increased recruitment of shellfish, and improved water uality, but there are other benefits that cannot be so easily measured.

A uaculture structures and shellfish reefs can provide habitat for uvenile stages of very many species, yet while fish populations actually associated with the reef throughout their life cycle can be uantified, it is more di cult to measure the degree of shelter provided for transient juvenile stages.

dhe ecosystem services that shellfish provide are not, however, solely dependent on native species or on shellfish growing in their natural se ng.

dhe environmental benefits of shellfish can be provided e ually well for the most part by farmed shellfish.

dhey can reduce nutrient load by feeding on the plankton stimulated by extraneous nutrients which is, of course, the idea behind multi-trophic a uaculture.

But could there be other benefits that may be particular to the Sco sh situation Alex Adrian of the Crown Estate has advocated the use of shellfish farms as biosecurity barriers for salmon farms, but could there be other benefits besides ust using mopping up nutrients and providing a security barrier

Mussels have been shown to ingest very young stages of sea lice (Bouchard, Deborah A Bricknell, an Malloy, Sally and Pietrak, Michael, ngestion of epeophtheirus salmonis by the blue mussel Mytilus edulis (2010).

n the hS, the Eational Kceanic and Atmospheric Administration (EKAA) has ust announced a 9 million programme for community based habitat restoration to focus on pro ects that improve protected species recovery and support sustainable fisheries.

dhey do have the benefit there that the aims are made so much more explicit because they have already got the results to show what can be achieved. dhere have however been successes from the last round of