A group of Scottish fishermen wants Holyrood to reinstate and expand on a 19th-century law by banning trawling as far as 12 miles from the shore.<\/p>\n
Led by a Kyle of Lochalsh campaigner, the plan in front of MSPs would take the country back to 1889 when the government first set up a limit around the mainland.<\/p>\n
The original three-mile law was scrapped in the 1980s, which the Scottish Creel Fishermen\u2019s Federation says has contributed to the \u201ccomplete collapse\u201d of fish stocks along Scotland\u2019s coasts.<\/p>\n
The federation now wants the Scottish Government to reinstate a variation on the law that was first introduced when Queen Victoria was still on the throne.<\/p>\n
And on the east coast, they would like it to go even further \u2013 possibly as far as 12 miles.<\/p>\n
The Scottish Fishermen\u2019s Federation said there is \u201cno evidence\u201d reinstating the three-mile limit around Scotland\u2019s coastline \u201cwould improve sustainability or raise earnings\u201d.<\/p>\n
Elspeth Macdonald, from the federation, said: \u201cAll fishing methods, mobile and static, have an impact on the environment in some way, just as navigation, tourism, offshore energy generation or even just weather do.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Scottish Fishermen\u2019s Federation has been working collaboratively with Marine Scotland in the designation and management of marine protected areas and if areas or features in inshore areas are found to need extra protection, there are well-established systems in place for their inclusion in the existing management frameworks, based on objective scientific evidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe federation therefore believes there is no basis in the evidence for the sustainability claims.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added she wants \u201cgreater dialogue\u201d to better understand inshore fisheries, and said there is \u201cno evidence\u201d creel fishing would become more economically viable than trawling if the three-mile limit was introduced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":1,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[177],"tags":[2321],"region":[1916],"source":[8943],"country":[2031],"state":[],"city":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/96813"}],"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\/96813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96814,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/96813\/revisions\/96814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96813"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=96813"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=96813"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=96813"},{"taxonomy":"state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/state?post=96813"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=96813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}