Aberdeen Local Group

Fisheries

Since fishing happens out at sea, it is ‘out of sight, out of mind’ for many green groups, but it is a very important environmental issue for the North, both in terms of marine ecology and for sustainable jobs and communities.

AFoE has arranged and given talks on fishing in the past. We believe that local control of fishing resources is a priority, since distant, bureaucratic control and a free-for-all creates no incentives for individual fishermen to conserve stocks. We support the creation of no-go areas because research seems to show that allowing some areas to recover completely increases stocks over a far wider area.  We also think that it is important to recognise that some kinds of fishing gear are more sustainable than others and develop ways of encouraging the better ones.

We are a non party political organisation and share the fishing communities concerns when their livelihoods become a political football. Less obviously those financial institutions which loaned ever larger sums of money in the past are not blame free. The banks have ensured that they are the first to receive any available decommissioning money irrespective of the needs of the community or the results of their financial decisions on the fish stocks.

On this small island what is missing is a way to harvest effectively and without permanent damage from the largest area of food production that we have access to. A permaculture of the sea is vital for the human communities around our coast. Many have mountains at their back with little chance to develop other than by utilising the nearby marine resources.

FoES is calling on the fish farming industry and government to support:

• organic fish farming and small-scale Scottish enterprise
• diversification into other finfish and shellfish species
• a reduction in stocking densities and the use of chemicals
• an increase in fallowing periods and separation distances between neighbouring farms
• a move to land-based containment in tanks rather than open sea cages
• waste water treatment and effluent control
• Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment
• a moratorium on the expansion of intensive salmon farming operations

• QUALITY CONTROL
  Factory farming could soon enter a new era of mass production. More than one company is planning to "clone" chickens on a massive scale. Once a chicken with desirable traits has been bred or genetically engineered, tens of thousands of eggs, which will hatch into identical copies, could roll off the production lines every hour. Andrea Graves investigates technology which could mean that tomorrow's chicken farms will be full of birds that all grow at the same rate, have the same amount of meat and taste the same.
  Source NS Aug 01