Holyrood can’t manage a single fish
Jan 5th, 2010 | By editor | Category: Other OrganisationsAccording to the Atlantic Salmon campaigner Orri Vigfússon of the North Atlantic Salmon Fund.
Listeners to Radio Scotland’s New Year’s Newsweek programme heard the Fund Chairman Orri Vigfusson talk about the successes and failures of the fund’s work to restore the low stocks of wild salmon in rivers round the North Atlantic.
”How can you expect to manage Scotland when you cannot even manage one single fish ?” replied Mr Vigfusson when asked about his dealings with First Minister Alex Salmon and Fisheries Minister Richard Lochhead.
Mr. Vigfusson said he believed that conservation agreements with former commercial salmon fishermen had saved about 15 million salmon since the rescue operation began in 1989. These agreements in which the fishermen are paid to stop salmon fishing were introduced by NASF and its partners and now protect the shoals of fish that travel to the salmon’s main oceanic feeding grounds around Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands.
Similar agreements are also in force on salmon migration routes in the North Sea and in the waters off Newfoundland, Labrador, Wales, most of Ireland, France and SW England. The agreements are fully respected by the commercial fishermen and the terms have been adopted or confirmed by the respective governments.
Mr Vigfusson said that the remaining obstacles to the NASF goal of declaring the North Atlantic a sanctuary for wild salmon were proving difficult to remove, thanks to the entrenched attitudes of the Scottish and Norwegian governments whose attitudes are utterly out of balance with the rest of the Atlantic salmon countries as they continue to promote and operate coastal nets in violation of the international scientific advice.
In another statement which sea anglers can easily identify with, Mr. Vigfusson said “Sadly, the Scottish Government also ignored the need to protect sand eel stocks which formed the “bottom of the food chain creatures.” These little fish were a vital food source for the huge shoals of salmon smolts that leave the big east coast rivers of Scotland every spring.
Listen to the interview on NewsWeek Scotland with Derek Bateman at BBC iPlayer Console – Newsweek Scotland: 02/01/2010
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