The new Marine Acts have created legal obligations for the UK and devolved governments to introduce Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in UK waters.
A new UK-wide fishing industry body, the MPA Fishing Coalition, has been formed to help ensure that the interests of commercial fishermen are fully taken into account during the consultation and designation process [...]

Radical approach by scientists to work alongside fishing fleet brings unprecedented results
An innovative partnership between scientists and the Devon beam trawler fleet aimed at helping to protect fish stocks, has led to skippers reducing the amount of juvenile fish discarded overboard by 57%.
This unprecedented success has been achieved, using modified nets as part of a [...]

A memorandum submitted by The Highlands and Islands Fishermen’s Association to a Westminster Select Committee in 1999
It is our Association’s view that no finite resource can ever get too much research into its capability and productive capacity within it’s sustainable limitations. Money however, is not inexhaustible, and there is a [...]

The impartiality/neutrality of the RAC Chairmen needs to be improved, along with the structural balance between the industry and NGOs, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) points out in a recent report on the functioning of the European Union’s seven Regional Advisory Councils (RACs).
WWF took a closer look at how well the RACs are [...]

Talks between the European Union and Norway on quotas and total allowable catches (TACs) for North Sea stocks such as cod and haddock have broken down without agreement over the right of the Norwegians to fish for mackerel in EU waters.
It is understood the talks will not now resume until the new year.
The failure [...]

West Coast prawn fishing boats are set for a much-needed boost after the European Commission accepted that they should be exempt from days at sea restrictions.
Working with fishermen, the Scottish government has been fighting to have West Coast vessels that catch very little or no cod exempt from EU restrictions. If approved at the December [...]

The AP has a vivid description of fishermen rallying in Massachusetts last week to protest the transition to new US fishing restrictions (to take effect next May).
The new regulations they are protesting are part of a last-ditch effort to overhaul the nation’s devastated fisheries following the strengthening of the US Fisheries Conservation and Management [...]

Irresponsible deep-sea bottom fishing in the north Atlantic is risking the extinction of fish species and putting vulnerable eco-systems in danger, marine experts said today.
Many of the deep-sea species targeted by the trawlers or picked up as a by-product of the main catch are already depleted, in some cases endangered, and some populations have [...]

Condensed from an article by Craig Robertson in the Dumfries Standard.
A NEW code of conduct has been launched to minimise gear conflicts between static and mobile fishing in Luce Bay and Wigtown Bay.
Many interested groups including members of the Galloway Static Gear Fishermen’s Association, scallop boat skippers who work in the area and local business [...]