Ministers face legal action over ‘unlawful right to trawl’

FISHERMEN have accused ministers of acting unlawfully in a legal challenge over the “right to trawl” in Scotland’s inshore waters.

The Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation (SCFF) has lodged a petition for a judicial review which is expected to have a marked bearing on fishing rights across Scotland.

The SNP Government is being accused of acting unlawfully by listening to the industrial trawling sector and ending a proposed pilot no-trawl scheme in the Inner Sound off the Isle of Skye which it is claimed could have brought greater benefits to the economy and the Scottish marine environment.

The pilot was designed to test the environmental and economic benefits of creating “trawl free” potting zones in the inshore.

Those behind the case being heard at the Court of Session say the decision to end the pilot was done without a proper legal basis and that they will challenge the “right to trawl” that has existed since the early 1980s.

Before the enactment of the Inshore Fishing (Scotland) Act in 1984, there was, since 1889, a ban of bottom trawling within three

miles of the coast providing “coastal fringe of largely undisturbed marine life”.

The prohibition was removed largely because trawling had led to an increased depletion of off-shore stocks and the mobile fishing sector – large trawlers operating in the area – wished to move inshore.

The SCFF says since the ban there has been a significant and growing body of evidence showing that the decision to open up the inshore to trawling has been disastrous, both environmentally and economically.

Robert Younger, solicitor with environmental rights organisation Fish Legal, which is involved in the case said: “Unfortunately, many people don’t realise that the introduction of ‘freedom to trawl’ principle to the inshore in the 1980s has destroyed much of Scotland’s rich inshore marine ecology, which also forms productive basis of many of our inshore fisheries.

“There is increasing evidence showing the huge costs in terms of lost employment opportunities and lost revenue of that policy.

“This case is about forcing the Scottish Government to address that evidence and manage the inshore for the people of Scotland, rather than for their friends in the trawl sector.”

Fish Legal said it is backing the case because of its “importance to coastal communities, artisanal fisheries recreational sea anglers and the people of Scotland”.

At the centre of the case is the Skye pilot, that came amidst mounting evidence that the use of trawled fishing gear caused widespread ecological damage including significant declines in the diversity and size of commercial fish species.

The Inner Sound proposal was rejected by Marine Scotland in February this year.

The case is being brought on the basis that the Scottish Government rejected the pilot because of objections from the mobile fishing communities, instead of applying their own published consideration.

The SCFF believes that the decision to reject the pilot was unlawful because the Scottish Government did not properly assess the proposal – including the wider issues of inshore fisheries management.

Dr Thomas Appleby, an environmental lawyer at the University of West England, Bristol said: “This vital case questions the basis of government decisionmaking on access to the UK’S fishery which, with all we know about biodiversity loss, food security and climate change, we should be managing as sensitively as possible.

“In continuing to allow damaging gears in the Inner Sound, the Scottish Government is running away from the problem and failing to listen to voices around the country who are calling for proper management.”

Elsewhere in the UK, other smallscale fishing communities are also taking a stand against industrial, often foreign-owned, trawlers in UK waters, following recent confirmation by the House of Lords that the public, not businesses or industry, own the right to fish in UK waters.

Alistair Sinclair, national co-ordinator of SCFF, said: “In a single generation, since the removal of the inshore three-mile limit in 1985, our inshore ecology and productivity have been destroyed.

“However, if Marine Scotland is willing to change, the restriction of trawled gears in the inshore will not only reverse decades of degradation and destruction but will actually create significant economic benefits: it is a win-win.”

The SCFF has raised wider concerns that this case follows a pattern that suggests that the mobile fishing sector wields too much influence with Marine Scotland and that the management of Scottish fisheries appears more aligned with the interests of the industrial trawlers than with the public interest.

The Scottish Government was approached for comment.