 Rwy'r gweithio, everyone, and welcome to the 27th meeting of the rural affairs, islands and natural environment committee in 2022. Before we begin, can I ask all those member present using electronic devices to please switch them to silent? Our first item of business this morning is around table session on inshore fisheries. As you will have seen from the brief circulated for this meeting, we intend to cover four broad themes i gael eich 30 gyfasig mewn gwirionedd i gyd. Daeth eich hwn arrych ddaethuit o'i 11 o'u. Rydyn ni ddim yn gwneud yn gweld i gael eich hynny, ond felly mae'n digwydd y tîm ar ddiwedd. A bod, fyddai'r cysylltu yn eich ddweud, maen nhw'n gael i'r ddweud o'i ein hyn sy'n ddaeth i gael i gael i'r ddweud ac iauf i gael. Ond, wrth i ddatryd, dweud i'r etymau i hynny'n ni'n chweithio i ddweud i chael i'r teimlwch Dyne wnaeth ymateb yw merynhaf byddai o'r prydd. Felly, i chi gydag fywyd bod eich gwaith a'i'r gwneud i chi'n teimlo i gyda bryd hon i'w prydd. Mae'r agorod rwy'n ei wneud, a fe gynllun o'r rai ffordd o'r dweud i'i ein rhydd ymlaen i chi'n eu cyfrifoedd a'i fawr sy'n ddweud. Felly, rwy'n fawr i chi e'n fawr i'r prydd i chi'n ddweud i chi'n ddweud i chi'n I know. You don't need to operate the mics, thank you. I'm Lucy Kay. I'm the Marine Protected Area project officer with the community of our and seabed trust. I'm here representing the coastal communities network. Beatrice Wishart, MSP for Shetland and deputy convener of this committee. Good morning, Shirley-Keith from the Shetland Fishermen's Association. Good morning, Jim Fairlie, MSP for Pescher, Southam Cunorshire. Good morning, Charles Miller, Executive Director for the Sustainable Inshawe Fisheries Trust. Good morning, Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxbury and Berwickshire. Good morning, Jenny Mitchell, MSP for Ireland Island Viewt. Good morning, Alistair Barley-Filt, Scottish Crew Fishermen's Federation. Good morning, Hannah Fennell, Head of Orkney Fisheries Association and Vice-President to the Scottish Fishermen's Federation. Good morning, Phil Taylor, Open Seas. Good morning, I'm Miss Eddys and I represent the North East region. Good morning, I'm Eileen White and I work with the Clyde Fishermen's Association and I'm here in the capacity of the communities inshore fisheries lines. Good morning, Cardin Adam, MSP for Bamsur and Bucking Coast. Good morning, I'm Simon MacDonald, Chairman of West Coast Regional Inshore Fisheries Group. I'm Alistair Allen, MSP for The Helen and the New. Good morning, Callum Duncan. I'm Heady Conservation Scotland for the Marine Conservation Society. Good morning, I'm Ariane Burgess, MSP for The Helen and the New. You're all most welcome and we'll get straight into it. The first theme is to explore fishing industry pressures and ask Alistair to kick off. Thank you very much, convener. I hesitate to list the pressures that the fishing industry may feel under, but some of those are the result of the deliberate policy around Brexit, but I'm quite sure that we've brought to us recently, or those of us who represent fishing constituencies are well aware of, around fuel costs and labour shortages, issues around visas. Rather than put any more words in your mouth, I wonder if people want to say something about the kinds of pressures that exist in the time that we're living through on the fishing industry. Just before we get someone to answer that, my sincere apologies, despite the fact that you're right in front of me, Fiona, I failed to bring you in to introduce yourself, my apologies. Would you like to introduce yourself? No, I can't read when of open conservation. Okay, thank you. Anybody like to kick off on Alistair's question? I think that the fisheries are facing increased pressures from many areas. Their list is very lengthy, whether that be from new developments coming into the waters, whether it be from lack of signs to back up arguments that come from ENGOs. I think that the regulatory authorities are also causing pressures, and it's something that we need to tackle. I think that the Scottish Government needs to be very clear on the resources that it can deliver and be very transparent on that, because if we can't be able to fight our case of why we are a sustainable fisheries, then we are going to always be under attack and our transparency of delivery, under the pressures that the Scottish Government currently has with the increased workload that you have to deliver for us to be at the end of being open to criticism through lack of signs, for example, is going to continue. Okay, thank you. We're starting to move on to the science theme a little bit later. Simon. Yes, I see the two major factors affecting the fishing industry just now as being spatial squeeze as probably number one, but almost first equal has got to be the issue over the visa situation for crew. We're having more and more offshore renewable projects going on with very great lack of consultation with the industry. The valuable fishing ground is being taken up with the farms without consulting the fishermen, and the fishermen would be quite willing to say, well, there's a better space over here, which is fine because it's not fishable, or it's not affecting spawning grounds, because there are cases of projects and developments being put where there's important haddock spawning grounds. That, to my mind, is a major, major issue with a long-term effect. Okay, Elaine White. I think the main issue facing fishing, particularly intro fishing, is nuance, because I think it's a lack of understanding. I think I seen a campaign just the other week that said we should be buying industrial fishing and that includes all fishing that's mobile, and I think that there has to be an understanding that potentially a Chinese industrial fishing boat is not similar to a 10-metre trawler. I had a quick look over some of the briefings as well. I noticed in the spice briefing it said that some of the mobile boats could go offshore. Well, some of the mobile boats that we represent are under 10 metres, are quite small, 14 potentially, so that option to go offshore is not really the case. It's not as simple as one-on-one. We represent all types of boats, and I'd notice as well in the stats that it said from 2017 to 2000. In 21, we'd lost 12 over 10 mobile fishing boats. We haven't. We've lost about 48 by our manners, but when you look at how the licences go, even more if you take that spell a bit higher. Skilled workers, I also noticed that it said that it costs a few thousand pounds to bring people in. There was an example from a Welsh fisherman who tried to bring some skilled workers in and it cost him over £40,000 and took over five months to get any labour. Those are issues where depopulation and local labour are a major issue. It's understanding the nuance that the figures might not be quite what you think they are. I also think that there's a real issue of communication between people and hyperboil in a sense. We need to sit down and talk about things because I think that when we're talking about 95 per cent of an area is fished and when you look at it, it's maybe 13 per cent, maybe even less than that, it's possible for fishing. It's the nuance that we need to get down to and I think that's what we're here to discuss today. Thank you. I think that Elaine's right. There's a lot of issues facing the inshore. We've got these economic issues, social issues and issues with our management as well. I think that a lot of the issues facing the inshore might not be specific to just fishing, labour, the cost of fuel, things like that, but because often inshore works in these remote areas, these are acute pressures, inshore also struggles because these are small businesses that we're talking about. One or two individuals are sole traders or their partnerships. They don't have a lot of resources to fall back on. Over the years, this lack of resilience has really created the industry and I think that what exacerbates it further is the current management system that we have for inshore fishing. It doesn't allow for much flexibility. For example, in Orkney, our fishers really struggle because we are essentially a mono fisher. We can only fish a crab and lobster. So when Covid happened and when pigs affected the markets, we couldn't pivot to anything else and that's just because of how the management structure works and that exacerbates the pressures that we already face. Okay. I'm going to bring in Rachel Hamilton. It was just a supplemental to Simon's point there about spatial planning. The briefing says that obviously there was some sort of report done which stated that by 2050 the pressures could be almost half in terms of reducing the ability to fish. I wanted to ask you, do you believe that if you've seen it, that that spatial plan was sufficient? Do you think that that was meaningful? What more would you like to see in terms of the pressures that you're facing? I think it's very important that the fishing industry has actually brought in a statutory consultee on the applications for renewable energy projects because, as I said earlier, the fishermen know the ground, they know where the spawning areas are, they know the traditional and valuable fishing grounds and it's almost at the stage now where we're getting a lot of information from people saying, well, we've got HPMAs, we've got MFAs, we've got renewable sites, which once they're there, they're there forever more. So should we not be looking at having protected fishing areas where there's historical valuable fishing grounds? Phil. Thanks very much. I would say on that report, there's fundamental errors with that report. It makes assumptions that are frankly not correct. There will be no fishing in 80% of marine protected areas, that's something that isn't on the table as far as I'm aware in those negotiations. I think the highest scenario presumes a 50 metre, sorry, a 0.5 nautical mile buffer around all cabling and sadly, as we've seen in Shetland recently, that's not the case. So there's fundamental errors with that, but I think that the premise of it is really important. There's a need to ensure that our seas are properly spatially managed. Of course that's something that this Parliament asked of the Scottish Government through the Marine Scotland Act to develop a national marine plan. One was developed, one was published, through public consultation, through engagement with ourselves as stakeholders in this room. In 2015, if you look at the fisheries chapter of that, frankly most of it's being actively opposed. So it says, there's a commitment to ensure that the landings obligation is complied with. The committee will be aware that that's something that I and my organisation have been concerned to Scottish Government's future catching policy is actively trying to undo. So what I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that I agree that there is a need for a, I agree with the premise of that report, that there's a better need for fishing, and fishing needs to be an integral part of that. We need to have those discussions, including many of the things that Simon said that I agree with are protecting spawning grounds, identifying areas that should be prioritised for fish catching. What we've turned go fish zones in the past, these are good things, and hopefully something that we can make progress on in discussions like that. Yes, thank you. That report was published by Scottish Women's Federation and the report ran through a number of different scenarios, the 50 per cent was the worst case scenario, but I do agree with you fellow, I think, the reason we've published that report is because no-one else was looking into the cumulative impact assessments of all these different industries, and in the absence of government stepping forward and doing that work and researching it, industry had to fill that gap, so there is a lot more work to be done and we'd love to see it done and we'd love to see the Scottish Government make scenarios presented in that report, and I think taking little snippets out of it, maybe taking it out of context, but what it did point out was that the special squeeze from everything from MPAs, HPMAs, offshore wind, cabling, et cetera, et cetera, the pressure on fishing, which is a sustainable food source when managed properly and which many of our grounds are actually managed sustainably, is ultimately people who will have to eat something else, which will have a higher carbon output, so it goes against the grain to push fishermen off the grounds where they can fish productively and not only do fishermen know where they fish, also the Scottish Government does, and there's plenty of data that shows where the productive fishing grounds are and it's very irresponsible to give an options for development to wind farm developers in those areas and also in nursery grounds and spawning areas as well if you fish will be affected by noise by electromagnetic fields from cabling that are all associated with this. The stage that we are now at with all of this proliferation of offshore wind is very, very concerning to fishery, it's actually very irresponsible the route that the Government is currently going on this and it seems to be that fishermen do not have a voice, we are dismissed we are met with disdain by developers who have been given those options to build a wind farm they meet us and go hold on a minute why have I been given this area if you fish here surely that should have been protected and we are left organisations that are very, very busy on their resource to fight fisherman's case when it should have been that the Scottish Government protected fishing in the first place that needs to be addressed and fixed before damage is done irreparably to fishing the and also taken all the socioeconomic benefits that come from fishing into the rural areas of Scotland not only disdainable element of that but you can't ignore if you get if you damage fishing or if you damage rural communities which are very vulnerable to trying to find something else to do OK, thanks. Lucy? I think a point that I would like to raise from the coastal communities network is in terms of spatial measures we are really concerned about some of the narrative around marine protected areas and that they are to all intents and purposes just about biodiversity and are also being presented as a detriment to fisheries and sustainable use of natural resources marine biodiversity underpins ecosystem function which underpins fisheries and many of the habitats within marine protected areas they provide an essential role in the life cycle of different fish and shellfish species from a larval stages through to nursery and feeding areas so we feel it's very short-sighted that marine protected areas are not seen for what they are which is essentially a spatial management tool that can help us actually deal with issues facing the state of Scotland's inshore waters many fisheries can take place within marine protected areas and actually benefit from that because the areas can be more productive if seabeds recover and people feel that their fisheries are protected so we would like to just raise that concern with the committee OK, thank you I'm going to bring in one or two more stakeholders and then move back to members Alistair Begir Pardin, sorry I'd like to say that we concur with most of the people that have brought up spatial squeeze as one of the biggest issues facing the industry but I'd like to point out what that actually means because it's a euphemism for consolidating effort into ever decreasing space driving fisheries towards unsustainability and we're creating gear conflict by squeezing more and more effort into an ever decreasing space and one of the key issues here is that we don't have inshore fisheries management plans which in my mind is quite shocking we don't have individual species management plans for most of our shellfish stocks and we don't have area based management plans for our regions or even more localised fisheries like sea locks even the client doesn't have a fisheries management plan and if we had a fisheries management plan and we looked to try and optimise the socio-economic and environmental performance of our fisheries we would be able to get a steer for where we should be heading and how we should mitigate any given spatial pressure but without those fisheries management plans we're kind of just fumbling about in the dark and everybody's fighting over the remaining space so I would say development of area based fisheries management plans has got to be one of the key priorities in inshore fisheries management for inshore communities it's particularly prominent we don't only have the renewables to think about we have aquaculture, navy we have cables there's various protection designations as well and I don't know many fishermen who don't think sensible, evidenced and monitored protection is a good idea for where it's required I think the issue that we have and I've said it in my evidence is that for the last NPAs we haven't had that monitoring programme that we said we would have and I think that's important because you may be closing off an area and not doing too much good it might be the area next to it that is more sensible to close but without that baseline monitoring we might have issues and just to go back on the narrative or the message about NPAs etc we see the narratives that's coming out of Lindisfarne right now where we've displaced not only mobile fishermen but scallop fishermen certainly in the Clyde but in comparison to the North Sea that's mentioned five times we have some areas that are getting a lot of pressure and we need to look at what's happening here and what people understand NPAs etc to be because if you're understanding them as a tool just to manage fisheries rather than actually a tool to manage a specialist feature and be monitored to make sure it's doing that job then you may be not quite understanding why we need them and I think that's the issue I'm going to ask the committee members to ask their questions I've got three committee members so maybe if we ask them all together the stakeholders can address them all together if you like Jenny, Arianna and Allister please Thank you convener and bless you Dr Allan I'd like to return to points that I think Simon, Elaine and Hannah raised about lack of employees lack of available workers in the fishing industry and if you could perhaps expand a bit more on the points that you made around visas and such like Allister Thank you convener excuse me my sneezes are a source of renewable energy Elaine White mentioned there briefly we touched on the issue of visas and I was just curious to know whether you are anyone else I wanted to say a little bit more about that given the workforce pressures that fishing faces and the difficulties that there must be associated with what I know from my constituency experience not easily being able to obtain visas for people from outside the EU in particular absolutely we are facing no pressures with workforce and I think that there's issues of depopulation it becomes even more prevalent certainly in our Gailers where it's 16% depopulation just the same in the western Isles which we are also representing today we have very similar issues I think I have no members who have taken about 8 months to go through this process and they still don't have any workers and as I said the Welsh example of actually successfully getting there cost over £40,000 £20,000 alone in lawyers fees I think what we need is a fair system and I appreciate that the Scottish Government forwarded a rural pilot which was very much appreciated however obviously it's a UK Government devolved issue and we're really struggling to get a change in any kind of policy we've seen areas that have had all of their workers sent home and also Brexit obviously meant that a lot of our eastern European skippers were sent home as well so that caused further destabilisation so we are all about training domestic people where they are available and we do that but there has to be a recognition if you have a business cutting here but you had no hairdresser for 8 months how would you survive and we need to start understanding it in those terms it's a safety issue too Jim, would you like to come in on that topic? Briefly Elaine, you just mentioned £20,000 in lawyers fees can you explain that please? Because it's a very complicated process in terms of the application process that actually you do it and to ask very specific questions about your business it's very complicated it might be something that big large hotel chains can do with an HR department but if you're operating a free man fishing boat it's a very difficult thing to do you have to outsource it to someone who can do the job so you need lawyers to meet your applications for your visas? Basically and it's so time consuming as well that you need someone on it all the time Phil, were you once to come in on visas or was that a different topic? It was a different topic, I can't come in on visas Can I ask Hanna to come in because I think you'd have a comment on this topic then I'll bring Phil and Arianna Thank you It was just a couple of other points to supplement to Elaine's about workers so the fishing industry it's not just the workers at sea that we're struggling with but it's the onshore processing side of things as well and I think a lot of that was to do with Brexit and the loss of EU labour in Auckland our craft factory which supplies to marks, expenses and waiters on the workers obviously but it's really struggling to actually meet its demands and we've got real concerns about its future because of that on the boat side of things I think one big issue is that we do struggle to attract domestic crew for the inshore and I think a part of that is because people are uncertain about what the future for the inshore is we have people that want to go to sea we see people going into agriculture and on pilot boats we see people working in these maritime industries but they're not entering the fishing industry because they don't see what the future is there's so much uncertainty right now that they're not wanting to enter it and that's a huge concern as well we also have concerns about the foreign crew and the visas I think we've all seen the reports in the news about bad working conditions I want to say that the industry strongly condemns any of that behaviour and we really want to have a system that works for the workers and I think the issue there as well is that the skilled worker visa is so hard to get our fishermen in Orkney have been using the same foreign crew for over seven years now they work with them really well if we could get them on a skilled visa we would have done so already we really value them and the only reason they're still on these unsuitable visas is because we just cannot do it I'll bring in Lucy and then Alistair I just wanted to talk more about resilience there's an issue facing the industry I don't know if that's appropriate now on workers specifically we'll bring in Alistair I think it should be worth noting that in the smallest boats there's very little reliance on foreign labour most of the smallest boats are one or two man boats so obviously the owners are normally natives and then they only have to find one crew and although the working conditions may be worse in the sense that there tends to be no toilets or showers in the smallest boats the ability to return home most nights to your home port and be home for your tea and also to be in a more sustainable and reliable an industry that looks like it's got a bit of a future tends to be more attractive to bring people in so I think if we're going to discuss the labour issues in the fishing industry we should understand that it's not equal spectrum and that the smallest and more usually the static gear boats don't tend to use foreign labour OK, you can bring Sheila in then Lucy I have great sympathy for colleagues all around Scotland who face this issue of getting foreign labour in and visas in Shetland we have a completely different situation 100% of our inshore fishermen are resident in the islands but it's something that we can't get complacent about because we are finding that a concern with implementation of government policy attacks from ANGOs which are not scientifically based they're making statements about fishermen that are just blatantly not true but the public tend to believe it the issue of special squeeze REM which tax and traces fishermen like criminals a fear of non-compliance for filling out complicated paperwork all comes together to disincentivise the local people to join fishing boats because it makes them very uncomfortable to, while they're shopping have members of the public attacking them going what do you think you're doing when actually in Shetland we have the most sustainable inshore fisheries backed by science which if we get the opportunity later but in Shetland it's a different scenario but we can't afford complacency we need to be doing things in schools to encourage people to make sure that this is but also government policy can't undermine what we try to do within our local communities okay, Lucy thanks very much just from the net we wanted to make a point about the fact that dynchill fish is a dependent on a very small number of target species at the moment so there are sort of species of fish and shell fish that used to exist that used to be exploited and support businesses that now no longer exist and there's been a consequent loss of jobs and the value of those fisheries as a result of that so we're particularly concerned about this because we feel that this doesn't give a strong basis for developing sustainable marine based activities related to fisheries and we feel that this is one of the issues that we'd like to see being addressed okay, I'm going to bring in Arrianne and then Karen actually, the issue of Labour was covered I was curious about local Labour that's been covered, thank you I was just going to come in the Labour aspect as well in regards to the visas if there was any preemption that this was going to be an issue and was there any any help or support offered in regards to that and is there anything at the moment Is that for local crew or for the foreign crew? For foreign crew It's been an issue since I started working for the fishing industry in 2016 so it's been a long standing issue I think it's been exasperated in recent years or really come to the fore because of the current UK Government's stance on immigration which I think might have exacerbated it but we've been fighting to make the skilled work of visa system workable for fishing vessels for a number of years now so in Auckland and in Shetland Alistair Carmichael and Neil McArthur have been really supportive in helping us and I'm sure Elaine as well can speak a bit more because she's been working really hard on behalf of Cifa for taking this issue forward Elaine? Happy to pick up on that, yeah I mean we've been working with Devra as well and I think that there's a real role there to try and get something that's workable for the home office policy and it's how we link those things up in terms of support for obviously the Scottish Government are looking at resettlement schemes and they're looking they look to the rural pilot so that is support but in terms of how it's practically trickling down in time I mean it's very concerning the number of boats and I think what I should point out is that this is a regional thing as Sheila pointed out it's maybe not an issue so much in Shetland at the moment but certainly it's not an issue in areas and we really have to address that because we're regionally imbalanced Okay, just to conclude this theme, I'm going to bring in Jim in the Enmer series Three of the members Hannah, Alasdair and I think Sheila have all talked about the desire to be a fisherman or wanting to go into the industry because of the prospects, long-term prospects and all the rest of it my understanding is that I know nothing about fishing to the level that you guys clearly do my understanding is that fisherfolk go out on boats and get a share of the catch and if it's a high value catch then they all do very well out of it and all my communication with fishermen has always been that it's a good viable way to make a living so why is there people in our country who are saying that fishing is not for me is it because of the is it because there is no money in it is it because you don't see a future and I think that's really important getting down into that Let's start with Sheila Alasdair I think there's a risk of lack of science the back evidence that you are running a sustainable fishery to avoid people demonising fishermen as being greedy people there's lack of quota in some areas although it's also infrastructure quota, fishing effort itself does not solve issues we developed this paper in Shetland Rebuilding Scottish Insure Fisheries which shows that it's not just fishing effort it's fish buyers it's infrastructure everything else that comes with that having fish a fisherman can land a fisherman appear but if there's nobody to buy it or nobody to transport it you don't have a so it's some rural areas if that's been lost we'll have somebody that wants to go and catch fish in that area but because of the lack of infrastructure to back it up that's been lost over time all that needs to be rebuilt again in some rural areas other people speak as to why but sometimes it is because of the science that backs up sustainability Alasdair to say much of fishing is not sustainable the Scottish Government's own research claims that so I think a lot of people know that particular areas of the fishing industry are sustainable and don't have a long term future so you would be mad or desperate to go there I think a lot of it isn't profitable and many sectors of the fishing industry are becoming less profitable with the price of fuel at the moment I think a latest sea fish report showed that much of the insure mobile gear sector was not profitable if the price of fuel stays the way it is and the income isn't reliable and in this day and age people need a reliable income more so than they did historically and the money's just not in it when I was 16, 17, 18 years old we could easily earn £100 a day, £600 a week that was a good chunk of money 30 odd years ago we're still earning similar wages now and if that's not a consistent income it can be very hard to make a living at the fishing industry you've got to be keen, passionate or desperate if you want to be a fisherman in this day and age and then you've got to choose very carefully what sector you go into you've got to try and find one with a future and at the moment there's not very many sectors of the fishing industry looking like they have a tenable well in the insure sector looking like they have a tenable future apart from maybe some of the static gear sector I'm going to bring in Elaine and then Hannah and Phil but just conscious of the time we're running over already he submitted through the trust a vision for what the Clyde fish looks like and we really have to start doing that regionally I think because every area is slightly different but in terms of demonisation, yes that is a thing but even a point a practical point, I had a young fisherman who went to the bank and he said he would like to get a loan for a slightly bigger boat he's under 10 and they said but what about the closures that you have what about these MPs so I think the perception that's coming through to the public is that this is something that's wrong and you don't have that in a country like Norway and I think she was right if we had sustainable science that was neutral which is the key point it has to be neutral we could actually say to people here's a key path of progression can I ask you, what do you mean neutral who's producing science that isn't neutral personally I think anything should go through the Government I think that personally because it's an honest broker or should be an honest broker because I think we can all go away and without having the Government's approval of that or involvement of that in some way we can have people making all sorts of claims that are quite cherry picked and that is a massive issue it's a massive issue who is producing science that is... we'll pick these up in other themes fill briefly in Hannah please then Jim was asking about opportunity it's worth noting that the Government already has duties within the UK Fisheries Act to distribute opportunity in ways that deliver best social economic and environmental outcomes now the current rules for distributing quota are really the only ones that exist in that way and as Hannah's already said those can sometimes lead inshaw fisheries to be without the mechanism the legal requirement for a mechanism to be there to create those opportunities and to address some of these economic social issues issues of resilience that Lucy mentioned but also environmental ones which are my core interests are there but are not being delivered I would ask that the committee scrutinise that but more intensely Hannah I just want to say that getting people into the fishing industry is actually fairly easy because as I say people do want to go to sea and work at sea it's keeping them in the industry and that can be for a number of things for the lack of opportunity so it's not just getting people in the door that's the challenge it's retaining them and that's due to a number of factors that I think have already been highlighted by people here ok thank you Mercedes is just a brief question to round us up it's not brief so ok fire away with your question and then we'll decide whether we'll get tempted just following on from the discussion about the development of a skilled species surrounding that and then thinking about comments about local workforce challenges I was wondering if there's potential to develop a skills pathway for aspiring fishers in Scotland for local workforce and what would be required to do that and whether there's been any engagement with any of your organisations from government to develop that kind of vocational pathway it's quite a that's a big question and I'm not being patronised but it's a very, very good question can we perhaps pick it up at the end to give everybody a chance to think about it we'll move on to the next theme and if we've got scope at the end we'll pick it up if you don't mind I'm going to move on to Beatrice on the theme of science thanks convener and it's already been touched on in numerous answers the issue about scientific evidence so I'd like to explore the issues of evidence data and monitoring in insure fisheries and whether there's enough whether you think there could be more done and how to build on the comments that Elaine has made about neutral science how you can ensure that there's trust in the evidence that's underpinning insure fisheries as well I wonder if there might be an opportunity to ask Sheila to explain what the Shetland Shelfish Management Organisation Shetland seems to have developed a system which is the apple of the eye of many but doesn't mean to say that it isn't under attack by many too our Shelfish programme provides stock assessment and carries out applied research to the UHI Shetland I should say assists in supporting the SSMO in their decision making to do comprehensive monitoring evaluation of the stocks since 2000 so we have a baseline data a baseline data that was developed in 2000 which has been added to with a data set since 2000 so we have over 20 years of data to ensure that we can the Shelfish caught within the areas around Shetland is sustainable and that comes from informing data stock assessments information from fisheries log books biological data collected by observers from commercial fishing boats sampling at processing factories and at the vivier operators at the point of sale through targeted survey work using research vessels all of that comes at a major cost a major cost currently to the Shetland islands not supported through Shetland science needs funding which is year on year data it needs to be transparent it needs to be clear that that data can be built on year after year now this is the difficulty so we also run an inshore survey on fin fish which again is funded by people in Shetland we cannot get external funding very easily for this type of research because it is year on year it's not innovative it's not interesting to funding streams the current Scottish Fisheries Fund which I never get that kind of right because I still think it's EMFF but it doesn't help science in this things to support sustainability for evidence sustainability for inshore fishermen now Shetland because of its symbionic relationship with whitefish and the plagic and the importance of the SFA exist but it wasn't for the other fleets that we represent all family owned fleets that are still very vital to our rural islands we need support with science all of that in Shetland is at the risk of being lost because of funding being pulled from the support of that through type budgets within local councils etc Alistair Not only we don't have inshore stock assessments for most of the mainland I know Shetland has been working very hard on theirs and that allows them to facilitate a far higher degree of sustainable fishes management than we're working on in the mainland in the absence of the science we should really be using the precautionary principle and introducing some sort of effort controls but we don't really have effort controls there's no limit on the amount of trolling that can take place in a given area or the amount of keeling that can take place in a given area so that's about as far from the precautionary principle as we could imagine because it really ignores it so for example when ICD says you should close certain spawning grounds for herring or avoidance of cod the government aren't doing that because it may have negative impacts on the fishing industry now that's fair enough to a point but really we have to then have a plan on how we are going to get to implementing that scientific advice with a sense of urgency so I think these two issues lack of access to stock assessments in shore advice that we have including implementing the precautionary principle are all really big problems for inshore fisheries management Hanna? I agree with what's been said in terms that there's a huge paucity of data for inshore stocks and that just is really damaging to people's perception of how we're managing our fisheries and it's not giving anyone confidence that what we're doing is the correct thing I think that there is huge potential for inshore fleets to be able to help collect science just because they're out there every day and they're seeing these things in Orkney by trialling this device that attaches to a fishing pot and it collects environmental data so it's salinity, temperature, turbidity so it's not just information about fish or shellfish species that we can collect we can also collect environmental data that's going to be really important when we look at climate change and the impacts so the importance of data isn't just for management and how we manage now our industries and our communities so it's something that I really think needs to be a priority, I think that the inshore data has been overlooked for too long Okay, thanks Callum Just to quickly endorse what was said before in the previous session about the need for spatial management I've become at this committee in this Parliament of predecessors for a long time tournament, they need to integrate fisheries management into spatial management and you end up with this sort of false dichotomy between the jobs and conservation because you don't have that integration and you don't have the recognition of ecosystem service benefits from protection and a lot of that is a product of the system that comes into item 4 I just wanted to get that on the record in terms of science absolutely endorsed the need for good science there's a lot of good science already out there and the Scottish re-assessment 2020 is a pretty good integration of the science that's available which paints a pretty stark picture and I think that has to be recognised and injected in the conversation here because you're talking about huge concerns about the condition of the seabed huge concerns with seabed seabird numbers and so on so for us the health of the ecosystem is the foundation upon which sustainable fishing has to be built so there is there is science there already let's use it go back to the agency point for me as well because I've sat in meetings where I've seen fishermen talking about things that are really important to them why are we not talking about feeding why are we not talking about things that we're seeing that we're seeing increasing spurdog increasing spreadation through now that we're starting to get science from my assist but for many years I've watched these men almost be ignored and I think the agency of voice is something that carries from fishing from science right through to actually whether they get a berth at a local marina I see the agency reducing which is very worrying we talked about precautionary and best available science I think we have to understand that best available science might be something that's 25 years old using old technology and we're going to start making designations on for instance a bird sighting 30 years ago by a citizen I think for fishing now that we're in troubled waters I think we have to try and get as much accurate data as we can for me the Norwegian system is very inspiring it's government working with scientists and working with fishermen in a reference fleet style it's certainly lower cost than going out and building new boats we should be able to develop that trust and I think trust is another thing that's very important because I think fishermen I know being involved with the Clyde trials etc we need to build that trust because fishermen are worried that if they try and do sustainable projects that that information may be used in a way that that's not intended to be as Sheila said and as Hannah said we need just baseline science it doesn't have to be innovative all the time it just has to tell us what's actually happening I think climate change, citizen science and polarisation different stakeholders views is very important and just to go back on Jim's point about the funding what do I mean by funding what do I mean by neutral I think right now there's funding for science coming from NatureScot coming from Marine Scotland coming from a host of different trusts with different interests and I think this is the connectivity between all of these is not always obvious you can be double I mean I find out about a herring project which is happening on the west coast of Scotland which not one fisherman that I'm aware of knows about so these types of things we need to start getting some kind of connectivity and bringing them together I think that's vital we've got lots of people indicated to come in can I also add to the mix you talked about trust and you know the committee here looked at the cod box fiasco I think is probably what we could describe it as and then we've heard the issues with herring and total allowable catch and so on is there a lack of trust in the policies being brought forward right now or policies being developed which don't take science into consideration to me personally I would say yes I think that we have tried to be as sustainable as we possibly can I think everybody in Sifa wants to be sustainable and work with government but I think if we're making decisions that are very heavily based on lobbying whether it's by the fishing industry or by any NGO group or anything I think we need to step back from that emotive discussion and we need to actually look at trying to get the evidence better and what I'm concerned about is the number of resources that are spent on things like FOIs and spent on trying to almost a gotcha culture when actually that money could be spent and let's try to get some baseline science so we can all agree as sensible Simon has got a long way to catch up a lot of the scientific information acquired is considerably out of date and this is causing big question marks right the way through the marine industries in themselves be it fishing, aquaculture, renewables, cables whatever is overtaking the ability of science to to keep pace with it and a classic instance of that is with the cables being laid from the offshore renewable developments to the mainland and it's been shown that there's been deformities in the crustacean, lobster and prawns et cetera it's also seems to be interfering with the migratory path of crab and recently as well just about a week ago it was showing deformities in juvenile paddock so this has all been installed without the science to see where the problems may be so the whole industries are all ahead of the science aspect now and the science comes down to resources that I appreciate at the end of the day and the lack of resources it's going to be very difficult for the science to catch up and keep a pace with the way things are developing now it's very concerning because this we're talking about the future future generations to come we're going to suffer because of what is being done now or what is not being done now because of lack of time and resources thank you, and Arrianne's going to come in with another question the other stakeholders indicated you might be wanting to cover in their responses Arrianne so I'm just like interested in hearing we need neutral science so how do we get that science do we need something like more, so somebody said the Scottish Government it should come through the Scottish Government it seems that to get that science you need to actually get out on the water I think there's a piece about the REM this kind of opportunity because the REM and the BMS could be away right somebody was talking about Hannah you were talking about in Orkney you were actually gathering data but it's about how do we get that science do we need vessels in all of the IFGs or something that are Scottish Government Marine Scotland vessels that are I think we've got 18 of those or something so we've actually got science happening on the ground being gathered and somehow how do we get to that point where we all agree about what we want gathered and looked at because it does seem like we're all in a bit of a mystery here and there's kind of concerns flying around that we're not actually basing our decisions on the right information I'm going to go to Lucy and then Hannah thank you yes I think as Calum said the state of the marine ecosystem is of fundamental importance to fisheries if it's not healthy then it's very difficult to see how we can achieve sustainable fisheries and I think it's really important that science is also looking at the ecosystem you know so fisheries management is not just about science around stocks and particular sectors it's about the interaction of fisheries with the environment and how the environment can or can't support fisheries now and into the future so it's really important that the breadth of science actually encompasses what would be required for an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management which is something that's required in the national marine plan but isn't actually currently being delivered Hannah I'm sorry so I just wanted to make some other points in terms of how can this be achieved some of the organisations and networks we're involved in marine spatial planning through each marine planning partnerships it's potential to realise better co-ordination and transparency of science around regional sea areas through effective regional marine planning this isn't currently delivered at the moment and I agree in that the approaches tend to be very piecemeal and they're a bit bitty but there is potential there if regional spatial planning was effectively supported and there was true co-ordination of science for regional sea areas that brought the interests together and I think it's also important that the committee understands that whilst we do have data gaps whilst there is a requirement for improved long-term monitoring we do have some very good evidence that just currently isn't being applied to fisheries management decision making and this is about the relative impacts of different types of fishing gear it's about how spatial management measures can actually help improve the condition of the environment to support fisheries I understand so that's an exciting opportunity that you're putting there the regional marine spatial planning and you're saying it needs to be supported can you be more specific what would we need to see in place to have that being supported we'll probably cover that in the next section if we can stick to the science right now but it will bring you back in for me to go to the sustainable fisheries management Hannah I think to answer your question I think there's two types of science that we really need I think the first one is that very unglamorous baseline data that at the moment we are really struggling to achieve just because there's no funding for it and all the funding we generally get comes through piecemeal projects which doesn't allow for the creation of long-term data sets and that's the baseline we need to be able to understand where we are and where we're going if then once we have that we'll be able to have specific projects that try and find out data about potentially maybe the impact of electromagnetic frequencies on Crab or about the specific impacts of MPAs but we really need to have that underlying baseline data first and I think that should be the number one priority in terms of how we collect it I think that the idea of regional data gathering would work I would say it would be more appropriate on the marine planning partnerships just because I feel that the marine planning partnerships are more for marine planning and not so much for data collection and I don't know if they'd have the resources to actually do any research but I think that idea of co-ordinating and making sure that there's communication between what we're doing between different areas can feed into an overarching database is really good I just want to point out that I think the universities we have in Scotland on helping supplement the data gaps so in Orkney we've got here at what university that's been doing a lot of work with us on our brown Crab stock around Orkney Shetland, Scotland, UHI which has been doing fantastic work in the Shetland stocks so I think there's a lot of resources and we don't need to just look at marine Scotland because I know they're impressed with resources but the universities as well we could use I also did want to come back and take this back a bit earlier to what we were just talking about general the lack of science and the impact on the fleet, the paucity of it so it's not just an abstract thing when we're saying about lack of data can make lead to poor management decisions but it has had a noticeable impact on the fleet so for example the good fish guide rated the west of Scotland brown crab as being avoid and that's because it said of lack of stock assessment data so it's having a huge impact now and it's not just a theoretical negative impact it's actually happening we've got about five contributions and again we're just very aware of the time Sheila and then Phil and then Alistair I think science is a tool I think fisheries management systems need to come first we can gather baseline but if you don't measure have somebody that is in control of asking the questions of what you want science to deliver you're producing data for data's sake and I think it's very important that fisheries are at the heart of that fisheries management model for it to be successful and that doesn't come from an empty, that comes from why we have created success in Scotland there are excellent people within Scotland within our own resources of like said and things that have to be done through universities they should be pulled up on and we should be looking at centres of excellence for fisheries throughout Scotland and making use of that REM doesn't provide science, it provides data unless that data is assessed it just produces figures and information and we have situations at the moment where you have offshore wind is being developed on spawning stock grounds that was assessed in 2008 and that's totally irresponsible as well going back to offshore wind to have another dig about that but I think science if it's produced with a bias isn't independent science as Elaine has also said it depends who's asking the question and that's where there has to be some kind of form of the baseline and creation of year after year so Yorker created the same way as Isis does and at the moment in if you were to take how Isis creates their scientific model which has seemed to be the best available science that we have at the moment if you take Shetland there's four Isis squares that covers the mainland of Shetland at the moment what is seen as appropriate science the baseline for offshore fisheries applying the same system to that that would equate to 48 toes we need granular science for inshore 48 toes of inshore science is not enough that's why we have an inshore survey in Shetland that is shown we now see that that science coming through into adult mature fisher now appearing on the grounds 50 toes that are assessed on an annual basis I just want to counter the view that we need government arbitrated science that's really a problematic idea I think that obviously the committee needs to be considering science as it's published and the transparency point around how that's created it's really important, agreed clearly peer review publication is gold standard in that regard and I welcome the view from Sheila and Hannah that stuff coming from highlands and islands and area of war that's not arbitrated by government is also really valuable in this we've got to move away from that idea because our hoose convention is counter to freedom of speech frankly but of course when it comes to government making decisions themselves they do have scientists and they do consult their in-house scientists Marine Scotland Science, Scottish Natural Heritage now NatureScot, JNCC the advice that those organizations give to the managers in this area is frequently ignored Marine protected areas the committee will be aware of the story we published recently of scan up dredge damage within the small ours marine protected area an area which was proposed for protection based on credible science that was brought to the table by NatureScot in 2014 that data is ignored in the consequent time damages occurred, we've lost a habitat is probably not going to come back in our lifetimes really problematic issue with ignorance of the scientific evidence that was put forward to the decision makers at that point it comes back to the point that I made earlier that it would be great if we could scrutinize that some more similar point I wanted to make about REM, really welcome what she was saying there about REM being a great source of data but it needs analysed and that data needs turned into something useful we have seen in Marine Scotland Science's own reports that a reference fleet applying that only to a reference fleet isn't useful the reference fleet behaves differently than the rest of the fleet that's a report regarding COD by catching that instance so we need that data being collected across the fleet and that can then start to address some of the issues that are being raised about the fleet observing things on the grounds which aren't filtering into decision making and will hopefully mean that we can all have a more transparent better understanding of the situation through that data thank you Phil actually covered a couple of things I wanted to mention, I concur with everything he said there I think there's always going to be a need for science and we do need more science, I don't refute that at all but the science will always be behind the curve but I think the most important thing is that we must act on the science that we do have and we're regularly ignoring the science that we do have whether it's about marine protected areas, spatial management economic benefits of certain fisheries management regimes and so on so for example we know that there are catch trophic declines in our priority marine features and our inshore fish landings but yet we haven't got a management plan to address either of those two concerns I mean that's just ignoring plain facts and yes there's science lacking on the detail of these priority marine features but the science that we do have shows that every single priority marine feature is declining and some of them quite a frightening race but we have no plans to address this, I think there's a consultation plan soon but that's not urgent enough so yes we need more science but we need to act on the science we have for example the Scottish Government has economic reports that they commission themselves and ones that we've supplied through the Scottish Cule Fishmen's Federation that show the introduction of spatial management will increase jobs in fishing while also attaining conservation gains but yet the Scottish Government have ignored this and I've heard a couple of people mention Norway and how productive Norway's inshore fishing is and how we should be looking at that model will Norway introduce a 12 mile limit effectively on almost all demersal towed gear in their inshore as a result they have a thriving inshore fishing industry and a thriving inshore ecosystem those are simple scientific facts and we're just ignoring them and yet we're arguing over whether or not we have enough detail at a granular level and I appreciate we do need detail at a granular level but we need to start thinking about just basic common sense fisheries management we have to stop ignoring the scientific facts about introducing spatial management and protecting what's left of our priority marine features so I'm going to bring in Charles Callum and then Elaine and Sheila Thank you Actually I concur with both what Phil said and what Bally said there I mean, so it's sort of slightly the point that I was going to make I've been made that we cannot rely just entirely on what comes out of marine Scotland science there is a great deal of excellent work being done by the independent universities and also we should look at this issue around the disconnect between marine scotland policy and marine scotland science there is good information that doesn't appear to be used and that is a really critical issue otherwise I essentially reiterate what they've said Thank you, I appreciate that Callum Absolutely, pure reviewed science is pure reviewed science and just to follow up some of the points that were made, marine scotland science study showed that less than 0.6% of the historically trolled area was actually protected within the marine protected area network so that's just a figure that should be in front of mind for the committee there's been a greater than 90% decline in living seabed habitats again documented in scotland's marine assessment 2020 50% decline in seabeds so the science that's in front of us now is painting a picture of heavy and troubling decline in marine space there's always room for more science and more data of course there is particularly in relation to stock assessments and I concur with the point that was made earlier on that and also to clear an interest our organisation does a good fish guide and we think about this really carefully and look at this really carefully so we also understand that there's data there that if there's data collected we'd like to see that in the public rail to see informed decision making not least to address many of the false dichotomies that I'm talking about I think working as a UK organisation with UK colleagues they also look across the UK and believe it or not with the national marine plan interactive and scotland's marine assessment there's a lot of data there that's being presented and is available for us to inform sustainable ecosystem based decision making that isn't available in the layered context that it is in Scotland so there's a sense of let's actually work back on what Charles says let's use the data there and let's use it in a productive way and lastly just to echo the importance of data through REM with cameras it's something again I've brought to predecessor committees the importance of that we're sensitive to the fact that these are people's workplaces but REM with cameras is in workplaces routinely in the ways of doing it which respect people's respect and people's place where they're living when they see so just to bring the committees awareness to a report that we did with WWF and RSVB called Transparency so there's a report there looking at REM and the benefits of that and I think we want to make informed decision making and that's based on everybody having the same set of information in front of them to do ecosystem based management with the grain of the ecosystem to be protecting nursery areas and productive areas for fish and shellfish it's just common sense Elaine and then Sheila Just to pick up on the point that Bally made about Norway having a 12 nautical mile limit I can test the fact that I was in Norway and I hit some shrimps from an inshore fishery and I'm happy to send on governmental advice that that's not really the case there's different types of fisheries within those areas and maybe trolling isn't quite as prevalent but it does happen there it just happens in certain areas I've hit the shrimps but in terms of science I think we talk a lot about things like landings there's no landings in certain areas and it goes back to Sheila's point about infrastructure markets nobody is going to land a box of fish if they have no quota for it and they have no ice to store it and I had a fisherman who had spoke to me about going to herring and we know about the herring tack being cut because the science actually failed us that that's what happened and we were we're not going to catch fish that we can't actually get to a market why would we do that, we wouldn't do that and I think people need to understand that what you're seeing in the landings going down is a lot to do with quota and infrastructure and it's not always to do with science or the fact that the fish aren't there I think, just for reference and I said I think that Marine Scotland should be more involved in science I think that we do need an honest broker and I think I talked about Norway where it's between government, scientists, fishermen and I guess interested parties as well but we do need that honest broker I'm not suggesting that government do all the science I'm suggesting that they have an overview of what we use and what we don't use in a sensible way that we used earlier this year we had closures based on a discussion paper which actually ended up impacting crew fishermen the most because of noise and technically if we'd have taken that paper to its word we would have closed every single boat that was making a noise in that area so we have to discussion points are very helpful and peer reviews are very helpful but we have to have some kind of sense about how we interpret that I also think it's really important to look at practical fishing methods science will work to set stations and that is correct to do that it will have a methodology and it will work to set stations 100% agree with that however when you talk about fishermen they will maybe go out for a certain species in a certain area at a certain time of day they will not go fishing for herring during the day and we have to understand if we're sending out government boats that are going out during the day and they're very big and they can't go inshore we might not find a true picture of just what the fishing is so you need to have a combination of that practical fishing science as well as the scientific methodology and it's that combination that will give us the answers to what we really need to know thank you I'll just ask Geline do you believe that Marine Scotland have the resource to be able to improve their data collection and the scientific evidence that everyone around the table is craving for really not at the moment and I think if you look at areas where they're doing well she'll have talked about how they cost them a great deal and they're quite you have to have fishing boats that are quite healthy to be able to even contribute to that economically and in working partnership with others to get that I don't think they have but I think there's a way around about it and I keep saying let's look at the Norwegian model why are we not looking at reference plates why are we not trying to bring the fishermen in to give us more reflexive data I mean they can close a fjord within two weeks for two weeks while the spawn is happening and then open it back up again there's not three month closures in the same way why because they have reflexive data which is being fed in all the time at a far lower cost than potentially some of these big surveys would be so there's ways to think around it but we're not doing that at the moment I didn't think the statement would ever come out my mouth today but I agree with you at fullside about peer review for science we have success peer review for science this crosses the boundaries of inshore fisheries into all fisheries we have within the Scottish waters we need peer reviewed science currently we have science from ISIS which is the best available science we do not know whether it's good or bad because it has never peer reviewed reference fleets act differently to the comment that was made reference fleets act differently commercial fishing boats we currently have surveys undertaken by vessels that are far from replicating what commercial fishermen do there's problems with that and when you have it people rely on their livelihoods from science which is flawed to begin with because they can't capture fish the same way as a commercial fishing vessel is you're never going to replicate what actually is happening on fishing grounds this conversation has gone on for years and years and years it's time to step up and get these things right peer reviews science being gathered vessels that behave in a way that commercial fishing fleets do the Shetland Fishermen's Association has been working hard to try and press that fishermen want to get involved in data collection let's work in partnership the resources in Marine Scotland are tightly squeeze this year we've been trying to do a survey with white fish vessels it has been knocked back at every turn and we are yet to understand why inshore fishermen we can gather data using vessels there are protocols that can set up that year after year fishermen can gather these data who knows where spawning grounds are fishermen not scientists all the year round fishermen are the best knowledge keepers of what's happening on fishing grounds good or bad they don't want to our fishermen in Shetland and fishermen all around the world do not want to fish when they see that there's stocks under pressure they are responsible they are fishing over grounds year after year after year especially in Shetland people are fishing responsible because the students of the sea at this point in time for the next generation of their families and people in their community yet to come don't treat them like their criminals they are custodians and they need to be responsible fishermen with science to back that up so let them work in partnership when Marine Scotland is squeezed it's open just push it it's there I'm going to bring in just to bring this to an end Lucy and then Phil thank you as has been acknowledged we've obviously got information and data gaps fishermen, coastal communities and the wider marine community all have a really key role to help play in actually collecting and providing data to inform decision making so whilst we would agree that peer reviewed papers are the gold standard we shouldn't ignore the data that is collected through citizens science through individuals who are out and about in the marine environment it's contributed a huge amount to the knowledge for Scotland's seas across the board Marine Scotland doesn't have the resources to tightly manage every single piece of information that's coming into the system and I think it would be a detriment to management of fisheries and the marine environment in Scotland if we are to ignore this data if there are issues around transparency of it then that needs to be addressed but I think we need to be open to the information that's coming from all sectors of people who are interested in the health of Scotland seas Phil I just wanted to say it's good to hear Sheila that we agree on something but also to extend that offer to as some members of the committee will know we run our research vessel over the summer and very keen to work with anybody in collecting data it might be called not neutral I don't really mind that we can deal with that at the time we worked with fishermen around the coast as we did that work and if there are questions that the committee or others feel need to be answered we have the skills and the experience to address those and I'm very keen to work with anyone to help do that thank you no sorry Jim we're going to have to move on we're nearly 20 minutes over time we're going to move on to the next team we're going to move on to the theme of sustainable fisheries management but in a way we've been touching in on that so Scotland's marine environment faces many pressures as we've been highlighting change in composition and distribution of species due to climate change declining sea bird populations and the recent bird flu crisis sea bed damage due to fishing pressures and so on and the areas that we're interested to talk about in this time frame is the issues around climate change and what's happening there future catching plan and remote electronic monitoring the proposal to bring forward highly protected marine areas fisheries management plans and I think importantly it's coming to light in some ways enforcement and the lack of resources for that so I'd like to address so the evidence shows that there's a need to restore the biodiversity in the conversation already and there's agreement there and we've also talked about the spatial squeeze and with the arrival on the horizon of this proposal from the Scottish Government in the Greens and the Bute House agreement around HPMAs I'd like to hear and I think maybe firstly from Bally around how would we manage that spatial squeeze if we do bring in HPMAs I know we have had conversations about that issue in the past so it would be good to hear your thoughts I think I was mentioned in the first session spatial squeeze is probably one of the biggest concerns that we all share it's certainly one of the main concerns that I think everybody across every sector of the fishing industry is very concerned about the highly protected marine areas in principle I think it's a very good idea to have reference areas and baselines for what unfished areas look like however we're talking about introducing them into the context of an already unfished area and there's a serious danger that the introduction of marine protected area management measures and highly protected marine areas will squeeze the fishing industry to the extent that they will compromise the areas that are not protected and they will also compromise the viability of the businesses that are trying to operate in those areas that are not protected and I think that that's a really big issue I think to exacerbate this problem is that we don't know where the spatial footprint of the fishing industry is the inshore under 12 metre fleet hasn't been fitted with vessel tracking systems despite the government's repeated promises to do this over the years I think that the last promise was that it would be fitted across the fleet by 2019 and we're now hearing that it will be consulted on by the end of this parliamentary term but if we don't understand the spatial footprint of the fishing industry where the various sectors and various gears are being operated how can we possibly pragmatically introduce marine protected area management measures in the highly protected marine areas and what we're displacing how much of a problem this is going to cause for local communities for example, locked orderd it's heavily populated with priority marine features if you look at a map of priority marine features in Scotland the highest concentration in locked orderd it's almost exclusively operated by Creel vessels now if you were just a desk job you might look and say well that's a really good place for a highly protected marine area we'll protect all these really sensitive features and I would advocate that they need protection but you could simultaneously be displacing some of the lowest impact fishes and some of our most fragile fishing communities so I think the introduction of highly protected marine areas has to be done really carefully and we're kind of putting the cart before the horse here if we don't have vessel tracking installed in the fleet first and also if we don't have fishes management plans on how to mitigate this displacement I would really emphasise that we need vessel tracking and fishes management plans before we introduce these things so that they don't have negative consequences I agree with Bally about that it's a huge concern about the impacts that these HMAs could have on the fishing industry and the socioeconomics of it as well I think the fishing industry we've mentioned climate change a few times we're in Auckland we're definitely seeing that we're seeing changes in how the species move and behave so making sure that we actually create resilient ecosystems that are healthy is a huge priority for us because it helps the ecosystem obviously but it also helps us survive but there's a lot of unknowns and yeah I would definitely echo Bally's thoughts on this okay, Bally fell thank you, yeah I'd just echo again the point that Bally's made there about fisheries management plans and hopefully further it a little the committee last year obviously considered the joint fisheries statement which was part of the UK Fisheries Act the requirement under that Marine Scotland had established that it would deliver fisheries management plans for some of these fisheries by 2022 there's no progress on that highly protected marine areas need to sit within a broader special plan and broader management plan for these fisheries it's really important, thank you okay I missed Charles Charles Nen thank you there's clearly a powerful need for them given the fact that the MPAs are not necessarily functioning as initially understood that they aren't giving the protection that a lot of people would expect of them but there is a very serious concern about the playoff between the conservation benefits and indeed fisheries benefits coming from HPMAs and also the existence of the fishing industry in terms of displacement and that's going to be a real challenge I think Phil touched on it there and I would absolutely emphasise it that in order for them to be successful they need to be put into the context of a wider management plan for fishing and it brings us back to where we were at the outset around the need for coherent, rational, evidence based national planning and the HPAs have to sit within that framework thank you I agree that HPAs need to be evidence based on what they're hoping to deliver and I say hoping because we have already discussed science the lack of science that is available for commercial fishermen who's going to gather this baseline data for all these HPAs areas 10% of Scottish waters and we're yet to understand if that's going to be 10% of inshore and 10% of offshore this is serious concerns the fishermen that inadvertently by closing you could just close off the most valuable fishing areas fishing has to be at the forefront of where these areas should be in terms of insurance sustainability we currently have massive areas being closed off to fishing through proposed areas for offshore wind now it's been questioned why can HPAs not include offshore wind because that's a commercial activity will you tell me offshore wind then has a negative impact on our environment it's competing policy within the marine Scotland here that are very crucial that you get this right everything needs to be because HPAs will be introduced when will they be unintroduced it's not clear it's not evidence based it's not based on conservation benefits it's a promise to the greens from the SNP Government admit it don't stop, reflect don't just fulfil a promise of impact of what you're going to do in the meantime and also look at the social economic measures of doing it the negative measures that you will incur by proposing HPAs in fishing grounds you will close off rural communities and I think I've said that too often why are we looking at policies that are closing off valuable vital jobs in rural areas can I just pick you up on that are you suggesting that the beauties agreement has taken us backwards again when we touched on the Clyde cod box and the precautionary principle came in there it would appear that it was all down to something in the beauties agreement that put us in that place is that what you're suggesting? I am suggesting that there's a conflict here there's areas closed because of noise and impact on fishing what do you think offshore wind does when you put them in nursery areas for fishing and spawning areas that's what you're proposing why in a tiny area of Clyde is that huge thing but the policy of the marine government is putting offshore wind farms in the middle of spawning in nursery grounds to me that is totally irresponsible when we're talking about the ecosystem I agree and I think most fishermen will agree to have any kind of future and going forward but I would stress that people are part of the ecosystem and what I'm seeing now is a reduction in the population in fishing villages the reduction in the boats I've already explained that the boats are going down far more than the stats and the spice report are saying because of practicalities we need to start to understand that I would go back to the MPAs and before implementing highly marine protected areas look at what's happening in Lindisfarm to the static gear fishermen and the mobile gear fishermen and let's see if we can benchmark before we do something that we maybe can't step back from and I think also again the Clyde we've got no take zones etc we've got the MPAs I keep going back to this a commitment was made in Parliament that we would have a five year monitoring plan in that we don't have it socio-economically or scientifically and I think we really need to get that and think about what else we do we might need them of course we might need them but it has to be evidence based and we've talked a lot about the national marine plan and the regional marine plan I think we need to be understanding what different policies mean and I think the problem is what an MPA means in paper can be read by different parties in different ways and we need to start understanding what legislation actually means because maybe you can fish sustainably in some MPAs maybe you can't but I think there's a lot of wishful thinking about we can't project what we want things to be in legislation it has to be legislation I'm going to bring in Karen here to add another question to the mix and then I'll bring in the stakeholders I've indicated thank you convener just trying to marry up a few things in my mind and I mean it's very clear that we've got some really strong advocates for the industry here and I really respect that and it's just trying to marry up how we're talking about a climate emergency that we're in at the moment now we're talking about two very important aspects to us as human beings and that is energy and food and one can't really come before the other we have to be looking at these in separate silos in terms of renewable energy in the first six months of this year Scotland generated enough renewable energy to power Scotland twice we're doing fantastic in that area things are great we've got the science going but we've still got the highest energy costs we're looking at food processors fish processors because of electricity costs so there's a lot of things going on here we need fish, it's good healthy food, it's sustainable for us so how do we ensure that there isn't always this clash between two very important aspects and I think it does come into the marine the planning obviously the science as well and it seems to be a whole scope here so what are the solutions just bring that all together we've got two in Scotland to talk about the Scottish Government but we're also restricted with a lot of what's going on in the UK Government I think we've got now a new minister she's a coffee as well so we have to have those conversations across Government and just across industry so I'm hearing all this I'm just really putting out a question what is the solution here Simon will bring you in right thank you I fully back what Sheila was saying there I questioned how they arrived at the figure of 10% on the waters to be taken it seems a very clinical number that's been plucked from the air say okay we'll take 10% of the ground and it doesn't seem to have the science backing to it at this stage, I may be wrong correct me if I am it will actually equate to more than 10% from the fisherman's eye because if you were to drain all the water out of the sea and look at the topography that's left not all that ground is fishable there's an awful lot of that ground that is not fishable and it's the same if you look out over the countryside and you look at a farm how much of that farmland is actually usable so that 10% that we're talking about will probably double up to about 20% so it's back to the old enemy spatial squeeze and this is a really really serious spatial squeeze and it brings into question with Karen food security and that's another byword of today as well and it's a fact more people are alive today than have ever died now that is a thought to leave and to ponder over but it is fact so these people need feeding and so it is very important that we have a low carbon production method i.e. fishing and we have sufficient quantities of a high high nutritional value of a food which is fish so I this 10% I think is a figure that would appear to have been plucked and I would like to ask the question of the government exactly how did they arrive at the 10% figure okay thanks Lucy thanks so much we really have to get serious about the degraded nature of Scotland seas you know it's in a really serious situation and this is not just about biodiversity it's also about climate change mitigation and the wellbeing of everybody who depends on the health of the seas and local communities you know within a network and wider we've seen the loss of habitats and marine life in our local areas and we've seen the associated loss of jobs and economies as a result of that you know the once abundant fish stocks now longer exist this isn't an opportunity to exist and it's alongside the degradation of marine habitats and species within the wider marine ecosystem and whilst I would acknowledge that MPAs are not selected under the current situation for fisheries purposes they fundamentally can help contribute to the recovery and sustainable management of our seas alongside other spatial measures and from the network we can see that highly protected marine areas have the potential to help contribute to recovery and protection and sustainable management but we do also share the concerns that if this is just taken forward as a single interest piece of work it will result in displacement and frustration and anger from many different stakeholders because we're not seeing it as a whole we're not looking at the carrying capacity of the system to actually support fisheries and other industries as a whole we have no spatial management and those are things that have to be addressed in fisheries management wider for the inshore seas I've got a question on just coming in on what you were saying Lucy I mean something that's emerging for me because we keep talking about fishers but it seems to me that there are more stakeholders in Scotland's inshore increasing community engagement and all that kind of thing and I just wonder who do you think so a few weeks ago some weeks ago we had Marine Scotland in the room and we were talking about HPMAs and there was a commitment for a co-design I can't remember the exact words and that the community would be involved and I just wonder what do we mean by the community and I'm just curious to hear who should be around the table in thinking about HPMAs around Scotland Lucy, if you want to kick off then I'll go to Alasdor It essentially needs to involve all those who have an interest in the health of our coasts and seas and the future use of them Fisheries are a public resource and as such they should actually be being managed in the public interest to exclude community voices and wider stakeholder interests from decision making is ignoring this pattern and it stops us from looking at Fisheries management from an ecosystem based point of view and talking about rational spatial management that integrates protected areas into such a programme Alasdor, then Phil I'd like to come back to the questions one was asked by the convener about agreement on a negative thing and the other one was how do we reconcile the conservation and the industrial aspects of the management of our seas and I think everything here relies on context if we're talking about this in the context of introducing extensive spatial management to our inshore and implementing a just transition to more sustainable fisheries in our inshore then I think these are positive things I think we can have a thriving inshore fishing industry that's compatible with conservation gains but if we're looking at this in the context of just removing 10% from the existing paradigm then it will be a negative thing and I think that's a really important point to make that we have to start thinking about whether or not we're talking about a transition for our inshore fishing industry here towards a more sustainable fishing industry and if we do this right we project that you could have more jobs in the inshore fishing industry with less catch we project that you could have conservation gains equivalent to the marine protected areas and far less environmental degradation if we just use the right gears and the right place at the right time and Phil and then Hannah Thank you, I think Lucy eloquently responded to the question who should be in that room so I won't answer that but I'd like to answer Karen's if I may I think it was a really important point you made about the balance between renewable energy and renewable food which is what seafood effectively is and we need to note that the current system is not helping us yield the most from that resource it is not renewable in that many fisheries are overfished and it is not increasing catches bucky in your own district I believe that the landings figures produced earlier this year showed a 40% decline from 2017 Malague over 60% so the current system is not helping us yield protein from the sea to recover which includes ending overfishing but also habitat protection which highly marine protected areas can provide support for as can proper management through a national marine plan we will have much larger resource I put into the briefing that the estimates are at the moment total catch of cod from the North Sea I can't remember the exact figure around 13,000 tonnes I think somewhere like that for all countries but if recovered could be a resource around 50,000 tonnes of sustainable protein coming out of that area this needs conservation action and I think that that's the problem at the moment the idea is if we establish highly protected marine areas or something like that we will reduce what we can take out of the sea actually if we continue as we are at the moment we will reduce what we can take out of the sea we need action to allow us to recover and then extract from the sea something more productive establish a more productive sea which we can extract more from thank you OK, we've got Hannah Sheila, Elaine Callum and then Charles, so Hannah please I was also going to answer Ms Adams question about the renewables and fishing I think renewables is obviously incredibly important for net zero and as a fishing industry I said before we're already being impacted by climate change so fully supportive of Scotland's journey to net zero I think our only concern is just it's not so much it's the scale of what's happening but it's also the pace of what's happening I think we've highlighted before about the issues of science and how there's not enough science and science is lacking behind it's the same when we're talking about renewables and their impacts on the fishing grounds and also things like the electromagnetic frequencies on brown crab behaviour and metabolism I think one of the solutions is smarter planning and the planning system at the moment I think it still works too much in silos and it doesn't have that holistic, comprehensive approach that we need which is one of the reasons SFF and NFFO published that paper which was because no one else was looking at the cumulative impacts I think it's also things like smart planning so it's looking at can we co-locate some of these things, can we co-locate in the future renewable offshore wind farms with say aquaculture I know that's something that is being potentially explored and also things looking at cables at the moment it will have several cables coming off of several different wind energy farms but is there not a way to just combine those cables and have it into one which would minimise the impact so there's things we can do on the planning side and then there's things we can do practically and it's all about trying to make it as smart as possible and I think a lot of that is having a dialogue between all the different stakeholders Thank you Eshila There's a lot of things to comment on I think there's a lot being said about the average state the state of our stocks there's actually a survey scientific research done based on IC's work in Shetland that actually shows that the total biomass of our fisheries is actually 80% higher than it was 20 years ago so there's a lot of misinformation going around the room now that might not be the case in all areas so we have to take generalised statements about regional differences and the complexities of each area within a region of Scotland which is very diverse it's the nuances of fisheries management within different areas that we need to look at there we can't base things on citizen science it needs to be on proper scientific data I totally agree what Cardin says we need green energy but we also need to balance that with what we need to eat and the low-carb and food choices is the best thing that people should be eating unless they have a higher impact on the environment there's things that we have come up with that could hope to mitigate the errors that have happened so far that we have things happening in areas where there's spurn in stocks where there's prolific fishing grounds we kind of have we feel as an industry very down about the fact that we've probably lost the fight of stopping these happening in our most prominent fishing grounds but we hope through the marine planning process and through the consenting process that fisheries will be able to fight their corner and be listened to in the socio-economic impacts this will have on fishing we already have depleted fleets in our rural areas we can't be at the cost of depleting them to produce green energy when you need both when you need to maximise the returns to island communities to rural areas from offshore wind through supply chains we question how much local economies will get from offshore wind we need to hold these people these companies who are based not in Britain these profits will go to other countries don't let the cost come to Scotland from profits go to other countries hold them to account of supply chain promises make sure that the benefits come from this to companies based in the UK not in the UK and Scotland especially in island and rural communities or else all you're doing is producing energy for other people for Scotland to export it for everybody else to get cheaper energy hold them to account for community benefit for cheaper energy to communities we have an interest in discussion with our local council yesterday they have a responsibility to ensure that there's jobs in the future for island based communities I get that but not at the cost of fishermen that were there in the past are there now and will be if you take it like a timeline fishing will always be there especially I would say in Scotland where we have the infrastructure the fish are there many of these areas are struggling today because the fish aren't there in our island community the one I represent we don't have that but we are also we produced a map of fishing effort for the NE1 area that showed that fishing effort was to the north of that area and to the south of that area wind farm developers what happened they produced a map where they would like to develop wind farms to the south to the north and in the middle of that area an organisation that is really interested in protecting fishing I question their motives of what they're trying to do again just to bring your attention we're running about 20 minutes over time are the stakeholders all happy that we continue and we'll probably have another 10 minutes in this topic then move on can everybody hang around for the next 20 minutes good Jenny I think you have a supplementary on that I'll bring in Elaine thank you more a supplementary on what Bally talked about and I'd just be interested to get other stakeholders' views as well that you mentioned just transition what does that look like and I suppose it brings in some of the points that Sheila's just made as well about the connectivity between the green renewables and I think the point that both Karen and Phil made about renewable food as well I think there's a few potential scenarios I think we have to start by recognising there's overcapacity and it's only going to get worse because of the spatial squeeze and then we have to figure out where is that overcapacity and how do we mitigate against it and I think decommissioning is one historic example of how we've dealt with overcapacity in the fishing industry transitioning some of the boats to more selective gear that offers higher employment is another option another option is zoning the inshore for the size of vessels so that the biggest vessels aren't squeezing the next size vessels down and so on all the way until you get to the tiniest vessels inshore those three options are variations of all of those three could be implemented most of them are going to cost money and almost every single one of them requires installing vessel tracking on the boats so we know where the spatial footprint of the industry is and introducing fisheries management plans so we can determine how we would like to do that I would like to comment on that and then I'll bring in Alayna I think just transition I think it's a really good phase and I think it means a lot of different things for everyone for me I think just transition when I talk about it in terms of what it means for the inshore I actually don't think it means anything specific to just fishing I think everything that I said he does have a point but I think it's also about fishing at things like in the community accommodation so we can attract labour to these places it's looking at childcare it's looking at the bigger picture because I think that is what's going to empower communities and the industries that work in these communities to do better and to have the investment but we really need that foundational support to go forwards but if we are talking about fishing I think there's other things we can do there's improving infrastructure there's helping in Orkney as well so we need to do different things and we're not just so reliant on these few species so there's a lot of different things but I think just transition I think it's moving a whole community towards that transition not just specific sectors Charlie, you got a comment on that I concur with what Hannah Rennart Valley have said but I think a really important component in this and it's something we've seen in other sectors in the agriculture sector as we speak it's going through this building a question of a transitional support mechanism and that is crucial and that has to be put in place so whilst, yes, it's what's going on onshore but it's also about funding mechanisms to support the industry to shift to lower impact fisheries and without that there's going to be a real problem and just I think a critically important thing is it's all very well for me to say it from an NGO perspective but the industry's role in that has to be absolutely central and kind of at the forefront of this and it's a really important point in the whole viability of just transition it does seem quite bizarre that there's a well-established just transition when it comes to agriculture and moving away from some traditional methods of farming but that doesn't exist in the fishing industry now Eileen, I think Eileen was next, thank you and just to go back to Arianne's question she'd asked about what kind of communities should be involved and I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a broad church of stakeholders you should that's absolutely correct everyone should have a voice pre Covid we used to have the inshore fisheries conference where anyone could come along anyone could come and make a comment we've also had lots of public consultations we had IFMAX and IFMAX which were attended by ENGOs as well so I feel that previously when we could all meet in person there was definitely things where people could connect there are no other stakeholders at IFGs but what I would stress is IFGs are the only area where all fishermen can come together to try and actually find out what kind of policies might work and that's not always the same so I think that's really important to have that feeding into IFMAX in a wider structure but yes I don't believe in exclusion you should have everybody there but it should be appropriate involvement you asked me what communities are well to me communities are also fishermen and the morale I see in fishermen at the moment is extremely concerning why you ask because their communities are crumbling in some areas inshore now I think Phil just mentioned that the landings are down yes the landings are down because we had Brexit, we had Covid and we've had a lot of different environmental policies that have impacted for instance we've had areas closed down for a long period of time that interferes with the market the landings are down and we've already talked about the fact about science that science is not reflective of what you land and I think Lucy had made the point that the fish stocks are all in decline well we actually just had a big discussion about that we don't know if they always are we know they're changing and we know that that might mean something for fishermen too so maybe they are going to diversify and we want to look at different things which they can look at and we're talking about Scotland being an inclusive place as well and what communities mean I think we're getting to critical mass now and I talked about agency before I'm going in first day to a meeting to say if I can make sure that three of my member boats still have a berth because they're being pushed out of their berthing there's small boats and it's mainly leisure craft and other types of craft that's there so fishermen are facing this everywhere because they don't have that agency to take things forward and if I go to St Andrew's we've got one of our colleagues there they've just had a seaweed farm placed in an area where they fish and there's been very little connection with the local fishermen likewise they had a net store which had always historically been there reduced because there was a very strong community group that didn't want there to be a fishing net store on a pier which would always have been a fishing pier and I think we need to understand that fishermen are feeling very down in the pecking order right now so absolutely everybody should have a say but let's make it an appropriate say and let's make sure it's at the right place and also let's try and use that nuanced data not saying that all the fish have disappeared just going back to that as well we talked about science and how communities can help our fishermen will tell you that the nets on the floor are finding the areas are eight degrees for cod at the moment roundabout where they're fishing the cod won't survive on that generally and so they're moving up does that mean that there's no fish? No because we're seeing spur dog and blue fin tuna coming into these areas so it's about that reflex of science and how communities can have a voice and how they might change and I would also have to stress that about just transition some people are saying that they want to move away from particular types of fishing I think fishing in moderation of all type if it's well managed is good if you have too much of anything you must understand if you whittle down the infrastructure to a point where there's no bots left you won't build that back up and I think in some areas that's where we are and we need to be mindful of that I completely agree with the need for just transition refer the committee to the shifting gears report that's in the spice briefing for this we're with partner organisations we're setting out recommendations towards climate smart fishing as climate action echo what Karen said about the climate emergency at sea that's an ocean emergency gave evidence to the net zero committee recommended in Scottish biodiversity strategy should be a nature emergency strategy and the committee agreed so we're in an ocean emergency here I completely agree the need for holistic spatial marine planning we're in this situation because it's taken too long to do it and now we're running out of time so we welcome the fact that national marine plan has been committed to being updated that could take five years we've got to turn this around by 2030 so I want to be a supportive voice for HBMAs I know everybody else is and it's a question of how they sit in the ideal process but the existing NPAs were really set up to protect the remnants and I know a lot of those remnants because I've dived them and citizen science divers those interesting enough including including Loch Torridan the question of the imperative to do this you know we've failed to meet good environmental status Scotland's main assessment couldn't be clearer the biggest area of concern is the condition of the seabed OSPAR commission talks about 86% of the assessed areas in the Great North Sea and the Celtic seas of physical disturbance from bottom fishing of which 58% is highly disturbed I think quite a good proxy for that in Scottish waters is the fan muscle aggregation in the Santa Cana it's the only place in the whole of Scotland you find these aggregations, they're highly fragile really large bivalve muscles and they're extremely fragile to mobile gear so that's why the only place you seem to get them in any numbers is where it's not possible for that gear to pass because I absolutely share everybody's view around this table to get sustainable fishing we want to keep the lights on around the community the marine conservation society is all for sustainable seafood we want people to eat sustainable seafood long into the future and just to answer the point about the percentages that comes from the United Nations it comes from the EU biodiversity strategy full disclosure here we've put that in our ocean recovery plan we say that at least 30% of our seas should be highly protected and at least a third of that should be fully protected and that's in line with best international science as modulated through the recommendations from the UN and the EU so we're all wanting the same thing we need to do it holistically and we need to do it together I can bring in Sheila and then Mercedes has got a question to close this topic I'm sorry, I don't agree with Callum when he said everybody's for HPMAs I think that's not true everybody's for sustainable fisheries HPMAs I didn't say everybody's for HPMAs but the end goal the end goal, yes of what you hope HPMAs may deliver we already we already probably have HPMAs because not all areas are fished only 15% of Scottish insure waters are fished only 4.7% of Shetland insure waters are fished for scallops it's the same grounds again and again and again it's not the insure waters all the time it's the same grounds that are reproducing fish all the time again, Shetland's situation is different to people around the room here fishermen are catching scallops, crabs mackerel, cod heron in insure waters year after year 98% of the cod under 10m quota is caught within Shetland waters there are fin fish under 10m quota issued by Marine Scotland every year I don't think all insure fisheries are taking advantage of that I would encourage them to take advantage of that to prove that the fish is still there where you can, where you have the infrastructure I realise it's not always possible but because of this relationship we have in Shetland we can do that we want to see other people succeeding it's a competitive market it's a good market there's a yeah I'll leave it at that thank you so we've heard about the importance of ecosystems which account for people as well as nature and we've heard about declining stocks and loss of vessels so given the impact that climate change is having on insure fisheries we hear from the panel perhaps Charles could kick us off any tangible things we can be doing to support and to promote low impact fishing methods to ensure that we have a just transition away from the high impact methods thank you a lot of that your question has been answered already in terms of gear change is important that does not mean getting rid of all far from it there's clearly a place for mobile gear but there is a question about how we look at this holistically how we make a plan how we identify which areas should be allocated to which uses and how the HPMAs are designed there's a playoff large HPMAs potentially maybe better for conservation purposes but worse for fisheries so it is this amalgam this need for this overarching holistic and inclusive planning that I think is really the sort of top level answer to your question at this stage Hannah and then Alistair I think the holistic planning is going to be really important I think also when we look at fisheries management we're going to need to make it more flexible we're seeing changes in the stock we're going to be seeing a lot more of them because of how the waters warm up and our management system speaking from an Auckland perspective just isn't up for fishing to be able to adapt to that I also think if we look at transitioning to just transition and low impact fishing there's been a lot of talk of electrification of fishing vessels which the industry in principle for me in short I think is generally very positive about but there's a long way to go the technology's not there it's not off the shelf but one big barrier for actually adopting that is how fishing boats are managed so at the moment you have it essentially split into under tens and over tens and that's created very something we call super under tens so they're very very powerful under ten boats that are essentially built like a box so they've got a huge engine but they're not very streamlined and that's because of how we manage the fisheries into that under ten category and that is something that will make electrification really hard so it's thinking about it's really really looking at the whole system of how we manage our fisheries and what we need to do to help create a positive change so I don't think there's any big answer about what we can do but there's going to be a lot of little small changes and those that are going to add up to make a huge change and to really help Alasdair apart from reiterating the words fisheries management plan area based fisheries management plan again you would ask well what would a fisheries management plan a move away from bottom-toed gear trolling and dredging in the inshore and a transition towards more static gear there would be far less sea bed disturbance far less fuel used far less bycatch far less carbon released from the sea bed the question then becomes well how do we do that and how do we facilitate that we have to create large extensive static gear only zones we have to introduce management for that static gear to ensure that it's sustainable from all sorts of perspective from a catch effort perspective from an entanglement perspective and so on and then we have to find mitigations for those mobile sector vessels who are going to bear the brunt of being squeezed out even further than the static gear guys and that's where the just transition really comes in and we have to look at finding some way to fund these guys to either purchase static gear vessels or adapt their vessels to static gear or take them out of the industry altogether and this sad reality here is if the industry is over capacity we either have to find some way to increase capacity which doesn't look like we're doing to decrease capacity and then we have to find out where we decrease capacity and who's going to bear the brunt of that I think we can increase employment in the fishing industry if we transition to static gears so there will be as many jobs if not more jobs as we go through this process but we just have to make sure that we protect those peoples lively who's invested in the trawl and dredge sectors who are going to bear the brunt of a transition towards lower impact fisheries because it's not really rocket science we just have to find out who the victims are going to be and make sure that they're not really victims find a way to mitigate the impacts on them very briefly Hannah I was just going to say I think that Valleys Point really shows the importance of local management and local just transition because in Auckland we essentially are just a static gear fishery most of our we've got 110 vessels most of them are static fishing gear and we feel like that's a huge barrier to our ability to transition because people they only fish static gear and they can only fish a few species and that's impacting us so I think that shows that there is no one size fits all solution I wish there was Okay, and Hannah Elaine, beg your pardon No problem at all Yes, just to pick up on your point my city should said about stocks disappearing and the position that we're in again I'll go back to the fact that some stocks might not be doing so well some stocks might be doing better finding that science again that might allow people to diversify that neutral science as I said maybe bluefin tuna is coming into the western isles maybe it's coming into west coast maybe that's something that we can look at the other thing I would say is obviously I looked at the paper submissions and a lot of people have suggested that this transition that's going to happen is going to happen through philanthropic grants I don't think that's likely I think we're talking about a commercial sector I think we're talking about family businesses and I have never really experienced many philanthropic grants going to commercial businesses and I think that's maybe people coming from a point of charity work or NGO work and assuming that it can be transferred it's very difficult to do I think what we also have to establish is that infrastructure is very much connected so I represent and I'm here from Sifa I represent mostly static boats in Sifa but a connection also mobile boats in this capacity they work together and we're not talking about big boats the bigger boats are maybe 14 metres this is what we're talking about and I think this false connection between one being against the other I don't see it personally in the members that I work with but I keep saying that too much of anyone thing can be a problem and we're seeing that the static gear fishermen are under a lot of pressure in America because of right whales to reduce the pop fishing because that's now an issue for them what you have to do is balance and I do think that there's a lot we can do Hannah talked about electrification we put the strategy in before about what we'd like to do that there's some people that are fitting converters on to their engines now but what we have to know in an ideal world you might think that if you can pull one piece of the knitting out the rest will remain okay and we'll be supplying a different market from the Creel sector etc so if you take one chain out of that you might see that the hauliers aren't working and that then starts to affect other sectors as well because they all use the same infrastructure so I think there has to be a real thinking about how you do that sensibly I hope that the strategy that we put forward for our region is helpful but I think it can apply to a lot of different regions and there will be nuances thank you thank you I'm not sure if it's Alastair or Bally so I apologise to go back to the point that you made you talked about overcapacity of trawlers in certain areas and yet we know that more than 100,000 jobs have been lost in the fishing industry in the last 30-40 years Sheila has been talking about losing infrastructure losing critical massive infrastructure so where is the overcapacity of trawlers coming from? it's proportional to the resource base and so for example there were 30,000 fishermen employed in Scotland in the herring fishing and there's just barely 100 now so much of the herring has gone from the west coast of Scotland it's commercially extinct but they're not in the quantities which would allow a viable herring fishing industry of any scale so the fact that there's 30,000 less herring fishermen doesn't mean that there's a proportionate increase in the amount of herring the fishermen have shrunk proportional to the availability of the resource the same is true in the nephrox trawl but there's also another element to this is that a lot of these boats have been lost due to the economic factors like the price of the settler shellfish for or the fuel costs and just because the vessels have disappeared doesn't mean to say that the resource has rebounded or is there I mean it's a bit like when you cut down a forest with 100 axemen and then now the forest is cut down you only need one axemen to maintain it that way because the fishing industry has shrunk the fish have rebounded hasn't happened yet we're just maintaining it at a very very low ebb I think Alain wants to come in Good yes I mean I think again we go back to the point about science we're not getting that reflexive science to show us what's actually there so it might be that there's a lot of herring in one particular area and there's not in another but we wouldn't know that but that also ties to the quota debate and the opportunity to fish because if you don't have any quota to fish a certain fish you won't fish it and some people are a lot of communities don't have the access to that anymore and that's because of management systems it may well change under the future fish's management but I'll give you an example one of our fishermen wanted to go to the herring fishery in Clyde and he would have said that there's plenty of herring there they're seeing big marks but if he wants to do that he'd have to get a haulage truck to take it up to Peterhead which would be over £2,000 a night to do that if we had local processing facilities they would be a market so it's all connected it's about the economic viability but we've established earlier on that the science isn't there to inform this so to say that the stocks are depleted they may well be but they may not be and that's why I certainly hear people saying all the time there's a lot of this out there but we can't do it thank you we're again further behind time but I'm just going to ask a very quick question and I'm not even going to give you the option to say yes or no I just want to put your hand up so we've heard lots about plans and things what's your opinion on whether we need an inshore fisheries bill hands up review would support the introduction of an inshore fisheries bill okay thank you we're going to move on to the final theme on inshore fisheries governance in parent Mercedes yes so debates I think it's fair to say over inshore fisheries management and conservation have become quite polarised so part of the purpose of today's round table was to bring different groups together and find some common ground which I think we have been able to do in some areas we've heard suggestions today that those with a stake in an area should be brought in as statutory consultees on marine planning applications so my question to the panel perhaps we could start with Bally is how can affected communities input their voice into inshore fisheries decision making that's a very interesting question I think we have to start by recognising that everybody is a stakeholder I see lots of debate on Twitter on this session about who genuine stakeholders are and I think the first and most fundamental thing is that the sea is one of the last great commons it is the common heritage of all mankind and locally it is the common heritage of the communities that are adjacent to it and therefore it is the inheritance of our children therefore everybody is a stakeholder and I think that's a fundamental point that has to be made right at the beginning and once we've recognised that everybody is a stakeholder then developing the forum that brings everybody and we have to debate inshore fisheries management are very exclusive and they are quite exclusive to the fishing industry and so therefore like the IFGs for example can only bring in non-commercial fishing interests by invitation and often we hear of applications from non-commercial fishing interests to participate and they're excluded and also the decision making processes that we have and the existing infrastructure like the IFGs are very opaque and we don't know if it's by voting by consensus but generally what happens is the IFG doesn't achieve much and then we ask Marine Scotland to interject and they refuse if it's not supported by the wider industrial fishing lobby and so I would say whatever the mechanism is it doesn't really matter so long as it brings in that wider stakeholder group and allows them to participate in the process Lucy I agree with what the points that Ballas made there essentially many community groups feel disenfranchised from the decision making processes we don't really have a mechanism by which we can actually really engage with the decision makers about decisions on fisheries management and you know this is at community level and sort of more widely with the regional seas so in terms of coming back to kind of like the idea of regional you know regional based management and spatial management it has to be centred around the resource and everybody who is a stakeholder should have a legitimate ability to comment on and input into that decision making but it's got to look at the fundamental resource that underpins fisheries it doesn't make sense to actually try and manage something that's extracting a biological resource without actually fundamentally looking at the resource and we have in the community's network we have some groups that are actively involved in restoring habitats so things like seagrass and native oyster and they're interested the community as a whole wants to see better protective recovery in a healthy marine system that actually supports marine based activities and enables community based enterprise and wellbeing and we would like to see proper engagement so if we had proper engagement we could have this discussion about where such restoration can actually support well managed sustainable fisheries as part of the range of activity that takes place in the inshore area so there's a lot of potential that could be realised by actually having wider stakeholder interests fundamentally involved in the discussions around what happens with the future of our seas but that process needs to be transparent it needs to be properly constituted and we would suggest that any kind of management structure needs to not just look at fisheries in isolation it needs to look at the wider environmental impacts and the requirements for protection and recovery in the regional area that then can support those fisheries Eileen To be honest I've outlined before we used to have inshore fisheries conferences who anyone could come along and they could contribute and that would go into the marine Scotland's policies as well they would take that into account we had FMAX, we have FMAX and they were open to ENGO stakeholders as well as fisheries stakeholders the IFG is the only forum where we can get together and try to find some kind of consensus so as Hannah's pointed out I think we need to resource them better but I do think we have to have a space where fishermen can decide when they take it into the wider policy forum there's consultation documents that go out in just about anything and a recent consultation I noticed in an FOI that somebody on Twitter had managed to get the consultation reviewed and it was extended so there were from a community group wider community group and I think that that is indicative that the voice is heard you've got every consultation you're taking this on board I think to be honest with you I counted up in my area alone the number of people who are probably not at the moment working with us in terms of fisheries management but are campaigning for certain things there's about upwards of 35 posts that are funded to the tune of 28,000 to about 50,000 pounds so that's 35 people plus just in our region where I operate who are lobbying for certain things in fisheries management there's me and a few other fishing rips so we don't have that resource we don't have that philanthropic resource to get our voice across in the same way I think there's definitely an imbalance and it's definitely good to have a forum like this but I don't think there isn't community involvement I don't think there isn't an opportunity for people to have that but I think post Covid we might want to think about how we bring those frameworks back in to make sure that everybody's happy Phil Thank you We're looking for places where we agree I agree with what Elaine just said on the need to reinstate IFMAC, FMAC groups like that which are an open place where everyone can discuss things My city is sorry, Ms Villa-Alba's question was about who should be included in these meetings my view is more people than are currently involved as I mentioned we had this research boat visited many ports, many communities around Scotland I did a mop-up meeting with the crew and the first thing they said as a take home message was there's a lot of people out there who don't feel that they have a say over their local waters and those people aren't on social media, those people aren't employed to be lobbyists and feel that there's a forum for them and when they try to raise things for example through the council I think Shetland is a great example where this isn't the case because Shetland fishermen work with the council they're a lot better I think but in many other cases so in many other cases I think that the council aren't able to engage in some of those discussions as well so my view is we need a broader engagement with these decision making processes and without wanting to talk about the RIFGs too much but my understanding from speaking with active fishermen is that many don't feel that that's a safe place where they can actually raise their opinions and have a fair discussion about their priorities personally so I don't feel that that is currently working in its current format thank you I wasn't sure if you wanted to maybe let Simon come back in on that or show him my point anyway from the IFGs we'll swap around a bit that's the same sensible right the IFGs the network taking areas throughout the Scotland my own area is the west coast and goes from Cape Roth in the north to the English border and the Solway Firth takes in the Firth of Clyde and all the Inner Hebrides as well accounts for actually about 62% of the entire coastline of the British Isles so a very large area the purpose of the IFGs is the preferred forum of Marine Scotland to work with the fishermen and bring the fishermen's issues to Marine Scotland and to any other organisation to try and get things done it's there, it's for the fishermen for every single fisherman that's at sea without the boats we have no industry we have to give a voice to that industry to where it needs to be heard so any fisherman can come to me on the west coast and say I have this problem and I will deal with it I've been covering area to area just recently of course we've had all the problems of lockdown with Covid and market collapses and Brexit and so on as well but the pandemic was a major one because everything stopped effectively the advantage of Covid is the advent of the online meetings such as zoom and teams and so on and that's helped to accelerate but there are times when you have to do face to face and Bally will tell you recently I was covering the north west because my area is all divided into subgroups because we've got different needs from one area to the next it's always very different to the north west so I inherited this job in January 2020 and the subgroups that existed then was Solway, Firth of Clyde, Isle of Mal and the north west which went re-infectively Cape Arden and Merchan Point right to Cape Roth and took in Sky and Rassie and the Someral as well far too large an area to be managed because there are different needs from Arden and Merchan to about Alornsea and Laughorn to from there further north to north of Llewctord and then from there up to to Cape Roth so dividing the north west into manageable subgroups where the fishermen can come to me and say right we have this issue here we'd like to have this resolved we'd like to develop our fishery this way and that's fine but I'm ready to do it the Clyde for example we've started a project there for creel management which will become a multifaceted project as well covering all different areas and will cover the mobile section as well as the static section because they have to be inclusive in this and originally the idea was it was going to have from Cape Roth down to north of Llewctord and then the next group from there down to Arden and Merchan but at the meeting in Kylwch Alsham valley was there and it became very clear that the area where valley operates which is from really north of Llewctord down to Alornsea and Nice Point and Skye had some very different issues just south of there and to the north of there I thought fine this necessitates having subgroup to cover that area it's for the fishermen and I want it to be led by the fishermen because it's their business it's their livelihood it's their children's livelihood in the future and I want that livelihood to go on I want to deal with all the issues with the spatial squeeze as best we can and let the fishermen have their voice and have their say so I'm here for Hanna Thanks I think I definitely echo a lot of people have said about transparency and the importance of how people use that to engage in the process I think also having trust and accountability is also incredibly important so having clear pathways of how we know when you put in your opinions or your thoughts whether you as an individual or as a group where they go to and what the process is and how they get incorporated and how they get weighed up against other experiences or other evidence I think that's very important and it's not always something that I think is clearly defined in our current processes I think one of the issues about community empowerment especially when we talk about the inshore is just the fact that it's such a huge topic I mean at the moment we've been speaking about inshore fisheries but we'll also be talking about conservation about agriculture, about sea birds so I think there's always going to be a huge problem in empowering people to have these conversations because with these conversations there's no start point and there's no end point either I think the IFGs are incredibly important to fishing and I think it's really important that we have that dedicated set of groups for fishers and I think that if they should be transparent but I think that having that dedicated space is really important and I think that if there is a need for that for other groups as well to have their own dedicated spaces that's something that should be looked at but I think that the IFGs should remain as they are for fishermen Okay, thanks I'm going to bring in Lucy and then Charles Thanks, I think it's perfect reasonable for the obviously there to be for a widowed fisherman to come together and actually talking with policy makers the issue comes where other stakeholders whose interests, legitimate interests and in many cases businesses are affected by decisions around fisheries management which sometimes can be poor decisions in other communities and as it stands there is no social licence in the current governance arrangements for fisheries management because it excludes the public from actually having a say in how that resource is used and allocated and there's an example from Aaron where we used to have a very prolific angling festival that was a big event on the island and bought a lot of revenue into the area and involved people involved in the recreational and commercial sea angling sector that stopped at the end of the 90s because there were no more fish for the anglers to catch and whilst it may be disputed as to the reasons for that the opening up of the inshore areas to trawl fisheries in the 1980s allowed impacts from the more impacting sectors of the fishing industry and this is documented in scientific evidence the relative impacts of different fishing fishing activities has affected the inshore areas and the communities are at the receiving end of that so it is imperative that people whose other livelihoods and interests are affected by these decisions have a say in what actually happens in their local marine and coastal areas HALT I think the interesting thing about the IFGs in a way is that they've kind of evolved they were initially established 15-20 years ago now to develop management plans and they have become less inclusive they have become much more of a forum for the fisheries and from that policy is produced general policy advice is produced and that's fine if that's what they have turned into okay so be it that's good it's good that the fishing industry can have that gathering but what is still needed is that wider forum where the different stakeholders in the inshore can come together and actually influence and that perhaps it's not a perfect model but it's interesting to see what happens south of the border of the inshore fishery conservation authorities the IFGs these regional groups which have bylaws powers they have constitutions they have multi-stakeholder participants implementing ecosystem-based management which takes fisheries out of the silo and manages it in a coherent way with the environmental interest taking into account along with all the others of the inshore so I think that the IFG is fine if they have become the kind of mechanism for the industry to talk together that's great but there needs to be something else which is wider we must finish at 11.30 so we've got Calum then Alistair Simon and then Sheila okay thank you I'm very sympathetic to what's been said about the importance of inclusivity so just for transparency we said that in our written response and we said that to the future fisheries management discussion response as well what we said was we support proposals for strengthening IFGs including extending to 12 nautical miles which would improve integration with regional marine planning provided their adequate resource and there is improved representation for all stakeholders so we do have that concern about to make sure that these processes are inclusive of other interests the other social and environmental interests and just echo what Charles said we highlighted in our response as well the value of the IFG in England and there was a study done that showed one study highlighted that there were 12 stakeholder groups where members of IFCA committees are boards compared with the IFGs and I know it's not like for like but that's the issue so what we need to have is inclusive effective transparent ensure fisheries management okay Alistair our experience of the IFGs has been very pure as a forum where a fisherman can come to chat I think it's an excellent forum but the management mechanism it's terrible for example the meeting Simon mentioned in my community a couple of weeks ago where we have over 100 vessels registered at the Portrait Fisheries Office only three people turned up for the IFG meeting and that's because there's a huge loss of faith and the IFG is a practical mechanism to progress fisheries management for example over 10 years ago the IFG drafted management plans right at the top of the management plans in Scotland was spatial management and effort controls now these management plans have never been progressed there is no spatial management being introduced and there have been no effort controls introduced so as such we've lost a huge opportunity that the management plans of the IFGs have not been implemented and there isn't a plan to implement them or a plan to develop the plan any further locally the IFGs are known as the place where fisheries management goes to die and Marine Scotland sends every initiative that we send them to the IFGs they say take it to the IFG and we take it to the IFG and if the IFG doesn't achieve consensus we've asked Marine Scotland regularly what do we do in the circumstances where the IFG doesn't achieve consensus and they say you can ask the IFG to recommend it back to us on several instances we've written to the IFG and asked them to recommend for example the herring spawning closure that we wanted north of Gaeloch because a new herring spawning ground had been identified it was on blue planet it was a big thing and one of our advice is that we should protect the spawning habitat of the herring where it's been identified and there was no consensus within the IFG ICs advice would say we'd close it to mobile gear but the mobile gear sector said we're only willing to agree if the static gear sector are also excluded which one is out with the scientific advice and two the local community are far more dependent on the static gear community than the mobile community who infrequently visit there because there was no consensus we asked Marine Scotland to make a determination and Marine Scotland have not done this at all out of many our local community overwhelmingly voted for an inshore fisheries pilot where we manage static gear and mobile gear separately and it had the support of 100% of the full-time fishers within our community that's over 35 boats fishing in the inner sound it wasn't supported by the half a dozen visiting trawlers and as such no progress has been made over the 10 years or so and the three iterations of that pilot so from our experience IFGs are non-functional and we have a mechanism to make sure the IFGs do their job and Marine Scotland aren't fulfilling that Okay, very briefly Simon Yes, thank you First we'll come to points made about the coastal communities as well having a voice through the IFG which were brought by Lucy and by Charles I am willing to listen to anybody and everybody that comes to me with an issue which affects fisheries I sit on the Clyde Marine planning partnership as well so we'd get a lot of that interaction and I take some of that interaction back where it's necessary to present to Marine Scotland as well with the case, I put a report out each time I have a meeting as such so I am willing to listen to any coastal community because I live in a coastal community myself so it's close to my heart so I'm there for that coming to to Bally's points as well Yes, I apologise for the fact that we couldn't get out and about and do anything because of Covid but since Covid and lockdown and everything has ended I have made the effort I've come out and about I wanted to have representative from Marine Scotland with me for it as well, to put the Marine Scotland perspective and so I had to wait until it was clear to do it so that was the earliest opportunity I had and I got to the meeting day before we'd had the meeting in Alipol there were about 25 people there some travelled quite a long way I got to Kyle and somebody had said oh, Bally is going to be here because he's going to represent all the fishers in the area so I thought fine, okay so that we talked to you I think the direction of our travel was well because you were obviously selected to represent the fishers as far as I was made aware so it was directed to you and I think we made it quite clear that our role was really quite a consultative role from the fishermen to take all the information to Marine Scotland as we also have to take that information from Marine Scotland back to the fishers as well and I will keep chipping away on the herring spawning bit there I have made numerous representations to Marine Scotland just on that point to try and get things expedited and get things moving I also have similar issues with the Solway with the cockles I've had projects knocking back and forward like a tennis bat The point that I was making about only three fishermen turned up, yet I agree I was representing the local community almost 100 per cent of whom I remember the Scottish Cure Fishermen's Federation and the Fishmen's Association or Clyde Fishermen's Association or Western Isles Fishermen's Association we were left, we could debate all day we could come up with a plan and then it would go back out and just be dingied by everybody else it was a bit of a waste of our time that was my point so it was in their area okay, Sheila it's full aside it seems like a long time ago at this discussion the regional marine plan in Shetland is leading the way in regional marine planning the document is currently with Marine Scotland it's been sitting there for a very long time waiting for ratification we'd like to get it back and get on with implementation of it but what it did include was proper discussion between all interested parties members of the community anybody interested in the parties was involved in that marine planning but what it did also include was that anybody involved set out clearly the criteria of why they wanted to be involved in the management process in terms of who they represented their aims and objectives, their governance and transparency to regard and funding etc and I think that that is imperative when community groups people who say they have a social interest are involved in fisheries management they must be clear and transparent about what their aims and objectives are the inference around the room seems to be that the other interested parties need to be involved to secure healthy ecosystems and healthy stocks fishermen want that, it's the very thing that they want to give the inference that fishermen without including these groups that won't be an achievable aim it's quite catastrophic to think that that is true what we are finding is that the tie-up of marine resources in Marine Scotland and in associations through FOI requests judicial reviews and all of this is stopping progress in shore fisheries we currently have the RFIG system it's not just ENGs etc are kept out of the discussions to be honest we have no representation of fin fish catchers in Shetland on any RFIG something that I've brought to Jim Watson's point he said that associations will not be on RFIGs full stop he's looking at it but not at the moment that's quite that means that basically fishermen have no say RFIGs currently well when we wrote this document the budget for RFIGs was £200,000 IFGIS is £9 million so you can't compare apples and pears when you compare RFG and IFGIS it's two different things but what it does point out that if you're going to properly manage inshore fisheries it needs resources you need to manage the expectation of what the government is promising for inshore fisheries and other people that are in the room today or else we'll just pick holes in each other and never get anything achieved in the light of decline in resources I think that is probably a closing point manage expectation thank you very much for all spending that extra 35 minutes we could probably be here all day and all week it certainly gave us plenty food for thought so thank you particularly those who have travelled some distance to be here with us today we will reflect on the discussions today and no doubt we'll return to some of the topics that have been raised and issues that have been raised at future meetings so thank you very much and nice to spend this meeting for 15 minutes they had pastries welcome back our final item of business today is consideration of a consent notification relating to the site to sanitary condition amendment number 3 regulation 2022 and I refer members to paper 2 do any members have any comments on the notification mercy days thanks convener the reclassification of blueberry rust from the list of quarantine pests the list of regulated non quarantine pests suggests to me that controls on this pest have been ineffective as it's moved from a pest which is largely absent from a territory to one which is already present in a territory with measures in place to minimise its spread so I'd be interested to know to receive any data on the rising prevalence of this pest and any analysis of what has led to its spread and also to hear what steps the relevant ministers and governments are taking to control and eradicate it okay, thank you what I suggest is if members are content to to agree to this notification we can also write to ask for some more information on the topic that you raised okay, are members content thank you that concludes our business today thank you and we'll formally close this meeting