TUNE in at 8:30 tonight to BBC-1’s Panorama when reporter Richard Bilton gets his teeth into the background behind the parlous state of fishing in the Clyde estuary. He talks to Professor Callum Roberts, co-author of the recent damning scientific report on over-fishing, as well as Howard Wood chairman of COAST, the Community of Arran Seabed Trust, another outspoken critic of government marine policies.
Wood asks: “Just when is the present Cabinet Secretary going to start managing the Clyde for all its inhabitants and not just for the short term profits of a tiny minority?”
COAST’s website delivers a broad spread of reports and opinion on the decline of Clyde fishing. It says: “For over seven years the Clyde has seen virtually no commercial white fish landings. Sea anglers have struggled to catch a fish at all. The commercial mobile fishermen left in the Clyde rely on dragging and dredging the seabed for the last remaining invertebrates.
Read their call to environment minister Richard Lochhead, seeking a timetable for action.
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Unfortunately the Firth of Clyde isn’t the only inshore water that has been devastated in this fashion. Many years ago, the Sound of Dornie, off the Coiagh peninsula, supported a thriving local community fishing for scallops and the pra’n. Large Common skate were even once commonplace in the waters around the Summer Isles. Then the dredgers came.
Sign the 3 mile petition. And give your support to projects such as the Lamlash Bay ‘No Take’ group.