Scotland

12 October, 2015

Author: David Bailey Senior Lecturer (Institute of Biodiversity Animal Health and Comparative Medicine), University of Glasgow

On September 28, The Conversation published an article: “Don’t fall for the deep-sea scaremongers – wild fishing is healthy and sustainable” by Magnus Johnson, a senior lecturer in Environmental Marine Biology at the University of Hull. The article criticised a paper by marine biologists at the University of Glasgow and Marine Science Scotland on the regulation of deep-sea fishing. The lead authors of the study, David Bailey and Francis Neat, respond here.

Continue reading Evidence Says It’s Time For A Depth Limit On Trawling

17 June, 2015

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has published the first comprehensive assessment of the state of health of fish in European Seas and concluded that two of the three deepwater fish species mainly targeted by French industrial bottom trawlers in UK waters, off Scotland, are threatened with extinction.

Continue reading Deep-sea fish caught by French trawlers off Scotland listed as ‘endangered’ by the IUCN

5 September, 2014

This is a crucial year for the protection of the deep sea: the European Commission has proposed a ban on deep-sea bottom trawling, a practice described by scientists as the most destructive in History: huge weighted nets scrape the seabed at up to 1800 meters of depth and devastate in seconds ecosystems that are thousands of years old, while catching vulnerable species, some of which are endangered, in the process.

Continue reading Help us protect the pyramids of… Great Britain!

14 July, 2014

On 2 July 2014, the French Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer) released data on the activities of French deep-sea bottom trawlers that non-government organizations (NGOs) have been demanding since national multi-stakeholder negotiations took place in 2009. With the launch of the reform of the European deep-sea fishing regulation in July 2012, these data became essential to inform the public debate on the implications of the phase-out of deep-sea bottom trawling proposed by the European Commission. 

Continue reading The publication of previously unreleased data reveals that the French government has hidden the truth about its deep-sea fishing activity