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Mr Finnie tries to ignore no-take zone


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JACK McConnell is fighting a private battle with his environment minister, Ross Finnie. The spat has been triggered by a plan put forward by the Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST) to ban fishing boats from dredging a 240 hectare area of the bay for a decade, allowing marine life, including cod and haddock, to flourish for generations to come.

 

However, despite meeting Mr Finnie a year ago and winning the support of the First Minister and cross-party MSPs, including the area's Labour MSP Allan Wilson, COAST claims the plan has been ignored by the Executive's environment and rural affairs department (SEERAD).

 

Members of COAST say Mr Finnie has being swayed by lobbyists for the Clyde fishing fleet.

 

Don MacNeish, a spokesman for COAST, said: "It is well within the remit of the Executive to establish a 'no-take zone' and we have got overwhelming community and political support for it. "Unfortunately it seems that someone in SEERAD doesn't want to see it happen. We're determined to be heard."

 

Murray Tosh, a Conservative list MSP for the west of Scotland, has been so frustrated in his attempts to discover why SEERAD will not give the go-ahead for a trial marine protection zone in Lamlash Bay that he was forced to table a parliamentary question asking why his letters on the scheme had received no reply. He said yesterday: "This is a very odd situation, because ordinarily MSPs can expect a ministerial reply in three to four weeks, but this has been five months.

 

"I must say that if it does not reflect well on me that I am not able to get my constituents an answer then it reflects shockingly on Ross Finnie that he has so far been unable to come up with one."

 

Howard Wood, another member of COAST, said: "If SEERAD is treating MSPs with such contempt that they are forced to ask that type of question in parliament, then what hope have we as a small island community?

 

"But we will not give up our community campaign just because we're being ignored by some unelected, faceless suits," he added.

 

Full story at http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=844162006

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You have to ask yourself why the commercial fishermen are so against establishing a no fishing area which is less than one square mile in area. Could it be because they fear that in ten years time when they spout their "trawling does no damage...blah....blah...lie...lie..." garbage, someone will produce a photograph of this protected area, full of abundant sea life, together with a nearby area looking like the typical scraped barren moonscape that is now the usual sea bed around this country?

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You have to ask yourself why the commercial fishermen are so against establishing a no fishing area which is less than one square mile in area. Could it be because they fear that in ten years time when they spout their "trawling does no damage...blah....blah...lie...lie..." garbage, someone will produce a photograph of this protected area, full of abundant sea life, together with a nearby area looking like the typical scraped barren moonscape that is now the usual sea bed around this country?

 

What pees me more than anything is that the only people objecting to this move are the scallop guys, statics are in full agreement, and even then Finnie hasn't even got the stomach to stand up and agree to closing such a small area. Perhaps you are right in your view of his motives - it's difficult to see what else they may be.

 

COAST managed one victory in getting Scottish Water not to build a sewage pipe right on top of perhaps the best maerl in the Clyde and right in the middle of Lamlash Bay.

 

They have a web site at http://www.arrancoast.co.uk/ and you can sign up as a 'friend' - costs nothing and will help them see they have broad support.

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