Campaigner and author Charles Clover gave a damning assessment of the failure of Scottish and UK governments to protect our seas in an interview for today's Herald magazine. Two things they should be doing, but are not, he said, are “keeping catches down to maximum sustainable yield and protecting their marine protected areas”. This is despite the UK Fisheries Act - which the Scottish Government agreed with - requiring them to restore stocks to healthy levels." “Fishing isn’t banned in marine protected areas – it's just trawling which is a massively over-capitalised thing, making peanuts on very low margins most of the time. And by the way they’re called marine protected areas because the public think they are protected, but they aren’t.”A core mission of Clover’s Blue Marine Foundation is campaigning for marine protected areas, and their goal is for at least 30 percent of the world’s ocean to be protected by 2030.

Source: The Herald August 13, 2022 23:06 UTC