Islanders and scientists hail pioneering no-catch zone after a huge recovery in coastal waters
Contested documentary warns of an ocean apocalypse as depleted seas recover in island’s pioneering no-fishing zone
Seaspiracy’s warning that commercial over-fishing will empty the world’s oceans within decades has sparked concern and calls for action around the world.
As the world wakes up to the peril at sea a small, marine conservation organisation on the Isle of Arran is showing what can be done with correct management and protection of our waters.
Scotland’s first and only permanent full No Take Zone (NTZ) – areas where all fishing is banned – was established by the Scottish Government in 2008 after years of campaigning by the Community of Arran Seabed Trust.
Today, the recovery of the sea surrounding the island – where some species’ population has risen by 400% – shows, according to supporters, how the world’s oceans, if protected, can recover from over-fishing, trawling and the collapse of reefs.
The trust was created in 1995 by two scuba divers, Howard Wood and Don Macneish, who witnessed first-hand the destruction of the Firth of Clyde fisheries, which once had been abundant in herring, cod, turbot and haddock.
Until the 1980s, local communities were able to fish sustainably, thanks to long-standing laws banning practices that towed destructive fishing apparatus along the seabed.
“Growing international demand for seafood and sustained lobbying by powerful commercial fishing interests in the 1980s led the British Government to repeal various seabed protection measures,” said Jenny Stark of the trust.
“Coupled with technological advances in fishing, the new industry-friendly policies opened up the Firth of Clyde to the more destructive fishing practices. Fisheries quickly collapsed, and the industry moved on to exploit what little remained of marine resources in the area: scallops and prawns. The commercial fishing industry began ploughing through the seabed with scallop dredges, repeatedly passing over the same area to maximise their catch. They damaged the seafloor and maimed coral and kelp forests – vital nursery grounds for fish and shellfish – crippling the habitat necessary for a healthy marine ecosystem.”
Stark said a study by York University showed numbers of some species had increased by nearly 400% in the NTZ sitting within a 175-squaremile Marine Protected Area in Lamlash Bay. This was established in 2014, with fisheries management measures – promoting sustainable fishing – implemented two years later.
She said: “There are nearly four times more king scallops in the NTZ since research began in 2010, and legal-sized lobster numbers are four times higher in the NTZ than adjacent areas.”
But what is it like beneath the surface in areas around the rest of Scotland?
“In short, Scotland’s seas are in a dire state,” said Stark.
“Native oyster reefs around Scotland are now completely extinct and whitefish and herring stocks have crashed to commercial extinction.
“According to the Scottish Marine Assessment 2020, 11 ‘key’ fish stocks were assessed in 2018 – of these, five are overfished and, in every region studied, losses of biogenic reef were reported.
“Argyll lost 53% of its flame shell reefs. The Clyde lost 9% as well as 10% of its maerl beds in the past decade. The Outer
Hebrides lost 27% of their seagrass and 58 hectares of serpulid reefs have gone, about 50% of their total range. “There are a huge range of pressures on our seas – climate change, pollution, overfishing – but one of the fundamental problems is chronic damage to the seabed.”
Callum Roberts, a marine conservationist at Exeter University, has equated scallop dredging to “cutting down a rainforest to catch a parrot”. Roberts is featured in Seaspiracy, and the film claims that bottom trawlers wipe out
3.9 billion acres of the seabed per year, and an area the combined size of 15 countries including huge masses like Australia, Greenland and Mexico has already been destroyed. The film also makes the claim that, at current fishing rates, our seas will essentially be empty by 2048. Yet this assertion and others presented have been criticised by some marine biologists, who have said the documentary is a simplistic portrayal of a complex industry and poses a misrepresentation of facts.
Professor Paul G Fernandes, chair in fisheries science at Aberdeen University, said: “The film expresses some valid concerns in relation to fisheries in developing countries, shark finning, and human rights abuses; but it is way off the mark in its evaluation of the activity in developed countries where drastic improvements have been made in the 21st Century. “Not acknowledging the huge efforts that have gone into making fishing sustainable in the north Atlantic and north Pacific is disingenuous at best, if not downright devious.”
Meanwhile, the Arran trust, working with Fauna and Flora International, has assisted another 15 community groups around the coast of Scotland to improve the protection of their own local waters.
MSP Kenneth Gibson said: “The community on Arran should be very proud of their achievements over the last decade to promote marine conservation.
“The study by the University of York proves the potential of effective marine management and I will be pressing the Scottish Government to seriously consider the creation of more NTZS as part of their marine management plans.”