Dear Supporters,
Friends of the Sound of Jura is one of more than sixty organisations that have joined the Our Seas Coalition.
Our Seas believes that Scotland’s coastal waters are among the country’s most precious assets, and worth protecting. Our waters are extremely productive, rich in biodiversity and they can support many jobs in coastal communities if they are managed sustainably.
​
Some fishing methods damage life on the seabed, destroying nurseries for commercial fish, such as maerl beds, and harming rare seabed animals. The Scottish Government has identified 11 of these Priority Marine Features (PMF) species and habitats that are most at risk from bottom-contacting fishing (scallop dredging and prawn trawling).
In 2017, a scallop dredger devastated a bed of rare flameshells in Loch Carron.
​
Despite this being one of the best examples of this PMF, the flameshell bed was not legally protected. After a public outcry, the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for the Environment set up an emergency Marine Protected Area, within which it is hoped that the flameshells will gradually recover. She also promised to review the protection given to PMFs from scallop dredging and prawn trawling. This review was launched in 2018 but nothing has come of it so far and the Government’s ambition to protect these PMFs seems to have dwindled almost to nothing. The only tangible action is that trials have started of tracking devices on the smaller scallop dredgers, which would show where the boats are, without being admissible as evidence in court, if the boats are fishing illegally in protected areas.
​
We fear that these devices will be used to claim that PMFs can now be avoided very precisely, so the few areas where this type of fishing is not allowed, such as parts of the Loch Sunart to the Sound of Jura Marine Protected Area, might be opened up to dredging, with just small exclusions around the known PMF locations. Records of PMFs are far from complete and the unknown ones will be at risk.
Although the Government has designated 20% of our seas as Marine Protected Areas, boats using bottom-contacting methods are allowed to continued scraping 95% of Scotland’s seabed, and some boats illegally fish the remaining 5%, where they are banned. Marine Scotland Compliance seems unable to enforce the law.
​
The Scottish Government has control over the management of our inshore area within 12 nautical miles. Its agency, Marine Scotland, is obliged to follow Scotland’s National Marine Plan (NMP) and the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010, which require it to put fisheries on a sustainable footing. The National Performance Framework also commits the Scottish Government,
​
“by 2020 [to] effectively regulate harvesting and end over-fishing … and unregulated fishing and destructive fishing practices and implement science-based plans, in order to restore fish stocks in the shortest time feasible, at least to levels that can produce sustainable yield as determined by their biological characteristics”.
​
The Government has also committed to promote local, small-scale and sustainable fisheries, robust measures to protect vulnerable stocks, and “mechanisms for managing conflicts between fishermen” (Policy FISHERIES 1), so as to manage fisheries in the long-term public interest. Its marine planners must also identify marine carbon sinks and seek to avoid the “Colocaton of damaging activity”. Dredging disturbs the ability of seabed sediments to store carbon.
​
None of these obligations are being met by our Government. In fact, the Scottish Government has failed to meet 11 of the 15 indicators it uses to measure Good Environmental Status, allowing our marine environment to decline.
​
The longer Ministers stall, the more seabed habitats we lose and the harder it becomes for them and the species that rely on them to recover.
​
Our seas are a public asset and potential resource; they must be managed in a way that restores lost marine life and degraded fish stocks, and recovers the marine environment, so it can provide for us all into the future. To restore public confidence, Ministers must be guided by science and policy. We need urgent action to stop further destruction and improve the resilience of our seas.
​
So, what can be done to preserve what’s left and allow recovery?
​
The degradation can still be reversed. If we protect the seabed it will recover. If we take action, environmental and economic benefits will flow.
​
This European Environment Agency report, Marine Messages, states it clearly:
​
"Solutions for halting the loss of marine biodiversity and starting to restore ecosystem resilience, while allowing for the sustainable use of Europe's seas, are obvious and available. They just need to be implemented.”
​
But that is not happening in Scotland.
​
In the absence of any progress to protect and restore Scotland’s seabed habitats and animals, and with the laws on illegal fishing going unenforced, Our Seas calls on First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government to implement their own policies and stop the chronic destruction of our seabed.
​
Reinstating a coastal limit on bottom-trawl and dredge fishing seems to be the only way for this to be enforceable, so Our Seas calls for the Scottish Government to act urgently on this.
​
Our Seas is campaigning to Bring Back the Fish - Bring Back Scotland's #InshoreLimit
Please help this to happen by signing and sharing the Our Seas petition here
Please join us in supporting this petition:-
https://ourseasscotland.eaction.org.uk/bring-back-the-fish
Friends of the Sound of Jura have recently added their name to support a Global Call for the United Nations Human Rights Council to recognise without delay the human right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
In this time of climate emergency and COVID-19 crisis, we have come together as civil society organizations, social movements, local communities, and Indigenous Peoples to address the attached letter, calling on the United Nations Human Rights Council to recognize without delay the human right to a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. We respectfully ask you to join with us, support this call, and share it with other organizations that might be interested in joining this call.
Details can be found on the following link:
bit.ly/Right2Environment_SignOn
Friends of the Sound of Jura
www.friendsofthesoundofjura.org.uk
Community Group Member of
The Coastal Communities Network, Scotland
Friends of the Sound of Jura is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation: SC049740
​
​
Dear Supporters,
Friends of the Sound of Jura is one of more than sixty organisations that have joined the Our Seas Coalition.
Our Seas believes that Scotland’s coastal waters are among the country’s most precious assets, and worth protecting. Our waters are extremely productive, rich in biodiversity and they can support many jobs in coastal communities if they are managed sustainably.
​
Some fishing methods damage life on the seabed, destroying nurseries for commercial fish, such as maerl beds, and harming rare seabed animals. The Scottish Government has identified 11 of these Priority Marine Features (PMF) species and habitats that are most at risk from bottom-contacting fishing (scallop dredging and prawn trawling).
In 2017, a scallop dredger devastated a bed of rare flameshells in Loch Carron.
​
Despite this being one of the best examples of this PMF, the flameshell bed was not legally protected. After a public outcry, the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for the Environment set up an emergency Marine Protected Area, within which it is hoped that the flameshells will gradually recover. She also promised to review the protection given to PMFs from scallop dredging and prawn trawling. This review was launched in 2018 but nothing has come of it so far and the Government’s ambition to protect these PMFs seems to have dwindled almost to nothing. The only tangible action is that trials have started of tracking devices on the smaller scallop dredgers, which would show where the boats are, without being admissible as evidence in court, if the boats are fishing illegally in protected areas.
​
We fear that these devices will be used to claim that PMFs can now be avoided very precisely, so the few areas where this type of fishing is not allowed, such as parts of the Loch Sunart to the Sound of Jura Marine Protected Area, might be opened up to dredging, with just small exclusions around the known PMF locations. Records of PMFs are far from complete and the unknown ones will be at risk.
Although the Government has designated 20% of our seas as Marine Protected Areas, boats using bottom-contacting methods are allowed to continued scraping 95% of Scotland’s seabed, and some boats illegally fish the remaining 5%, where they are banned. Marine Scotland Compliance seems unable to enforce the law.
​
The Scottish Government has control over the management of our inshore area within 12 nautical miles. Its agency, Marine Scotland, is obliged to follow Scotland’s National Marine Plan (NMP) and the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010, which require it to put fisheries on a sustainable footing. The National Performance Framework also commits the Scottish Government,
​
“by 2020 [to] effectively regulate harvesting and end over-fishing … and unregulated fishing and destructive fishing practices and implement science-based plans, in order to restore fish stocks in the shortest time feasible, at least to levels that can produce sustainable yield as determined by their biological characteristics”.
​
The Government has also committed to promote local, small-scale and sustainable fisheries, robust measures to protect vulnerable stocks, and “mechanisms for managing conflicts between fishermen” (Policy FISHERIES 1), so as to manage fisheries in the long-term public interest. Its marine planners must also identify marine carbon sinks and seek to avoid the “Colocaton of damaging activity”. Dredging disturbs the ability of seabed sediments to store carbon.
​
None of these obligations are being met by our Government. In fact, the Scottish Government has failed to meet 11 of the 15 indicators it uses to measure Good Environmental Status, allowing our marine environment to decline.
​
The longer Ministers stall, the more seabed habitats we lose and the harder it becomes for them and the species that rely on them to recover.
​
Our seas are a public asset and potential resource; they must be managed in a way that restores lost marine life and degraded fish stocks, and recovers the marine environment, so it can provide for us all into the future. To restore public confidence, Ministers must be guided by science and policy. We need urgent action to stop further destruction and improve the resilience of our seas.
​
So, what can be done to preserve what’s left and allow recovery?
​
The degradation can still be reversed. If we protect the seabed it will recover. If we take action, environmental and economic benefits will flow.
​
This European Environment Agency report, Marine Messages, states it clearly:
​
"Solutions for halting the loss of marine biodiversity and starting to restore ecosystem resilience, while allowing for the sustainable use of Europe's seas, are obvious and available. They just need to be implemented.”
​
But that is not happening in Scotland.
​
In the absence of any progress to protect and restore Scotland’s seabed habitats and animals, and with the laws on illegal fishing going unenforced, Our Seas calls on First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government to implement their own policies and stop the chronic destruction of our seabed.
​
Reinstating a coastal limit on bottom-trawl and dredge fishing seems to be the only way for this to be enforceable, so Our Seas calls for the Scottish Government to act urgently on this.
​
Our Seas is campaigning to Bring Back the Fish - Bring Back Scotland's #InshoreLimit
Please help this to happen by signing and sharing the Our Seas petition here
Please join us in supporting this petition:-
https://ourseasscotland.eaction.org.uk/bring-back-the-fish
Friends of the Sound of Jura have recently added their name to support a Global Call for the United Nations Human Rights Council to recognise without delay the human right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
In this time of climate emergency and COVID-19 crisis, we have come together as civil society organizations, social movements, local communities, and Indigenous Peoples to address the attached letter, calling on the United Nations Human Rights Council to recognize without delay the human right to a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. We respectfully ask you to join with us, support this call, and share it with other organizations that might be interested in joining this call.
Details can be found on the following link:
bit.ly/Right2Environment_SignOn
Friends of the Sound of Jura
www.friendsofthesoundofjura.org.uk
Community Group Member of
The Coastal Communities Network, Scotland
Friends of the Sound of Jura is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation: SC049740
​
​
Media coverage May 2018
Home > General media coverage > Media coverage May 2018
BBC Radio 4, 1 May 2018
The Life Scientific with Callum Roberts, available on "listen again".
BBC News website 3 May 2018
Scottish salmon farmers hit back at claims they are damaging the environment
Herald Scotland 3 May 2018
Salmon farmers hit back at critical report on their industry
Oban Times, 3 May 2018
Here’s a report in the Oban Times about the recent call for an immediate moratorium on any new salmon farms or the expansion of existing ones. Twenty seven organisations including Friends of the Sound of Jura are backing this call. Read the full text below.
​Fishery trusts and boards in Lochaber have backed a fresh demand for an immediate moratorium on any new open-cage marine salmon farms or any expansion of existing sites.
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Both Lochaber District Salmon Fishery Board (LDSFB) and the Lochaber Fisheries Trust (LFT) joined 25 other environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to back the call for a moratorium from Salmon and Trout Conservation Scotland (S&TC Scotland).
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S&TC Scotland says that until current failings in the regulation of the salmon farming industry and the environmental problems caused – as identified by the Scottish Parliament’s Environment Climate Change and Land Reform (ECCLR) Committee – are resolved, there must be an immediate moratorium on any new marine open-cage fish farms or any expansion of existing fish farm sites.
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The call for an immediate moratorium has been backed by Angling Trust, Argyll District Salmon Fishery Board, Argyll Fisheries Trust, Atlantic Salmon Trust, Community of Arran Seabed Trust, Fauna & Flora International, Fish Legal, Friends of Loch Etive, Friends of the Sound of Jura, Lochaber District Salmon Fishery Board (LDSFB), Lochaber Fisheries Trust (LFT), National Trust for Scotland, Orkney Trout Fishing Association, Outer Hebrides Fisheries Trust, S&TC Scotland, Scottish Anglers’ National Association, Salmon Aquaculture Reform Network Scotland, Save Seil Sound, Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation, Scottish Sea Angling Conservation Network, Sustainable Inshore Fisheries Trust, Scottish Salmon Think-Tank, Skye District Salmon Fishery Board, Skye & Lochalsh Environment Forum, Skye & Wester Ross Fisheries Trust, Wester Ross Area Salmon Fishery Board, and Whale and Dolphin Conservation.
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Andrew Graham-Stewart, director of S&TC Scotland, said: ‘The all-party ECCLR Committee of the Scottish Parliament unanimously agreed its report in March and concluded that the current consenting and regulatory framework for the salmon farming industry is inadequate to address the environmental issues. They were not convinced the sector is being regulated sufficiently, or regulated sufficiently effectively, and made it clear that this needs to be addressed urgently because further expansion must be on an environmentally sustainable basis.
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‘They also said that if the current issues are not addressed, this expansion will be unsustainable and may cause irrecoverable damage to the environment, concluding “the status quo is not an option”.’
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This week, Jon Gibb, clerk to the LDSFB, said: ‘The Lochaber DSFB is supportive of a moratorium on the further expansion of poorly located inshore fish farms close to the mouths of wild salmon and sea trout rivers.
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‘We would, however, like to see both a thriving farmed and wild fish sector in Scotland overseen by streamlined and robust regulatory regime that protects all aspects of the environment, including wild fish.
‘We feel that the future of Scottish salmon farming lies in offshore locations away from the paths of migrating salmon and foraging sea trout, or even in the closed containment seawater farms that are currently being trialled in Norway.
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‘A staged process of relocation of sensitive inshore sites should be undertaken as soon as possible.’
LFT director Diane Baum also voiced concerns, saying: ‘New farms and expansions of existing farms have recently been permitted in and around Lochaber and we are aware of many others at the planning stage.
‘There is a real risk that Lochaber will be full of farms that have been allowed under a consenting and regulatory framework that is inadequate to address environmental issues.’
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Last week, the Highland Council granted planning permission for two new salmon farms on Skye, and Guy Linley-Adams, solicitor for S&TC Scotland, said if planning departments do not believe that the firm conclusions of the ECCLR Committee’s report are sufficient to enable them to refuse such applications and so are carrying on with business as usual, then a moratorium is needed now.
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‘If we agree with the MSPs on the ECCLR Committee that further expansion must be sustainable and that, unless current issues are addressed, any expansion will be unsustainable and may cause irrecoverable damage, there can be no other logical conclusion,’ he added.
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Asked to comment, Marine Harvest business support manager Steve Bracken told the Lochaber Times: ‘The salmon industry will give evidence this week in the Scottish Parliament and we will then await the final outcome of the [Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee] inquiry later in July.’
Sunday Times, 6 May 2018
Fears voiced about "supersize salmon farms"
The Scotsman, 8 May 2018
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We welcome this opinion piece in today's Scotsman regarding the ongoing inquiry about the impact of aquaculture, where Rural Economy minister Fergus Ewing is due to give evidence tomorrow. At the same time, a petition with more than 41,000 signatures – calling for regular testing of waste water from salmon farms – is being presented.
The Scotsman says: 'Whatever the outcome, one thing seems clear – the fish-farming industry must clean up its act if Scotland is to keep its status and remain a global leader in the sector.'
Read more at: https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/ilona-amos-fish-farms-are-catching-other-fish-to-clean-their-salmon-1-4736105
Oban Times, 10 May 2018
Call for moratorium on new open cage salmon farms
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Local fishery trusts and boards are calling for an immediate moratorium on new open cage marine salmon farms or any expansion of existing sites.
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Save Seil Sound, Argyll District Salmon Fishery Board, Argyll Fisheries Trust, Friends of Loch Etive and Friends of the Sound of Jura have joined 22 other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to back the call by Salmon and Trout Conservation Scotland (S&TC Scotland).
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The move comes as the Scottish Parliament investigates the environmental impact of Atlantic salmon farming in Scotland. The Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform (ECCLR) Committee gathered evidence ahead of the current inquiry by the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee (RECC).
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Friends of the Sound of Jura was one of the organisations that gave evidence to the ECCLR last month, and in February the committee took evidence from the Dunbeg-based Scottish Association for Marine Science.
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Andrew Graham-Stewart, director of S&TC Scotland, said: ‘The all-party ECCLR Committee of the Scottish Parliament unanimously agreed its report in March and concluded the current consenting and regulatory framework for the salmon farming industry is inadequate to address environmental issues.
​
‘They were not convinced the sector is being regulated sufficiently, or regulated sufficiently effectively, and made it clear this needs to be addressed urgently because further expansion must be on an environmentally sustainable basis.
​
‘They also said if current issues are not addressed, this expansion will be unsustainable and may cause irrecoverable damage to the environment, concluding “the status quo is not an option”.’
​
Last week, the RECC heard evidence from representatives of the aquaculture industry. The following individuals were invited to give evidence: Scott Landsburgh, former chief executive, Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation; Ben Hadfield, managing director, Marine Harvest Scotland; Craig Anderson, chief executive, Scottish Salmon Company; Grant Cumming, managing director, Grieg Seafood Shetland, Grieg Seafood; and Stewart Graham, Group Managing Director, Gael Force Group.
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After the meeting the committee reviewed all the evidence it had heard on salmon farming in Scotland.
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Asked last week to comment on the call for the moratorium, Marine Harvest’s business support manager Steve Bracken said he would await the final outcome of the RECC inquiry in July.
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This comes as Argyll and Bute Council last week permitted an increase in biomass of farmed fish on two farms on Loch Fyne.
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Meanwhile, Dawnfresh has submitted a planning application to increase the number of pens at Airds Point on Loch Etive from 10 to 12 without increasing the current biomass. The revised application also allows for an upgrade to the cages, as well as installing new feeding equipment on each pen.
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Herald Scotland , 14 May 2018
Solutions to problems of salmon rearing?
BBC News website, 19 May 2018
UK salmon production down by 11% after difficult start to the year
BBC News website, 24 May 2018
Undercurrent News website, 24 May 2018
The National, 31 May 2018