The Scottish government has been facing mounting pressure to ditch its controversial proposals to restrict fishing and other human activity in \u201chighly protected marine areas\u201d (HPMAs). The British government already designated three such sites in England earlier this year, in a move which has been welcomed by some conservationists, but has also been met with\u00a0significant pushback from members of the fishing industry\u00a0who say it will wreck their livelihoods and destroy coastal communities.<\/p>\n
The policy is a key part of the Bute House agreement, which brought the Scottish Greens into government with the SNP in 2021, and committed to designate at least 10% of Scotland\u2019s seas as HPMAs by 2026.<\/p>\n
And despite all of the criticism that has been levelled at the Scottish government, it has stood firm on its position, insisting that HPMAs will help alleviate the impact of climate change and biodiversity loss.<\/p>\n
Some 37% of Scotland\u2019s seas are already designated as marine protected areas. But these have been criticised for not going far enough to protect marine life and habitats. Hence the drive to create HPMAs. Highly protected marine areas are a bit like a control sites in a science experiment, Dr Sian Rees says. All damaging human activity is removed from HPMAs, meaning that researchers can monitor the areas closely and see how nature recovers when it is left completely undisturbed.<\/p>\n
But any policy that potentially restricts or bans fishing is going to be a hard sell: \u201cFrom the fishers\u2019 perspective, fishing is more than a job, it\u2019s a way of life. That is a common expression in fishing communities,\u201d says Dr Sara Coulthard. \u201c[This policy] is asking people to make considerable changes to their lives, and it won\u2019t just affect those who are actively fishing but it will also impact their families and the whole wider network of people involved in fishing.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is becoming increasingly evident that the only way to move this discussion on without alienating a significant group of people is to invest resources \u201cin enabling fishers to become co-designers in a meaningful engagement process,\u201d Coulthard says. \u201cFishing communities have to be seen as part of the solution, rather than as part of the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
The one clear, positive part of all of this is that \u2013 ultimately \u2013 the government, the fisheries and the conservation groups all want the same thing: a sustainable fishery and healthy oceans. For that to happen there needs to be a realistic understanding and acceptance of the fact that fishing will have to be restricted in some areas, at least for a certain period of time. A strong engagement process could make it a lot easier for fishers to accept this. \u201cThey might not always agree with it, but they might be able to live with it as long as they can feel that they\u2019ve been involved in a fair and transparent process,\u201d Coulthard says. \u201cThat will go a long way to getting the buy-in that\u2019s needed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":4,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[177],"tags":[9191],"region":[1916],"source":[424],"country":[2031],"state":[],"city":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/103054"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/newss"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/103054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103055,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/103054\/revisions\/103055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103054"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=103054"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=103054"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=103054"},{"taxonomy":"state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/state?post=103054"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=103054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}