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It
was in part thanks to a Burra sand eel fishing boat that the Wick
registered 'Transcend'
(WK 167) was reprimanded for fishing with creels off Fair Isle at the
beginning of May without being licensed to do so by the Shetland Shellfish
Management Organisation (SSMO).
We
felt supported, here
on Fair Isle, by the actions of the Shetland fishermen and it is
comforting to have the Shetland Islands
Regulated Fishery Order and feel we now have hope of some control
over the use of the waters around the isle. However we were disappointed
that the Order does not yet appear to be policed, and that although we had
plenty of evidence of the boat fishing with creels, the SSMO were
reluctant to take action against the boat.
On
Fair Isle households and families enjoy the activity of going to sea in
yoals to fish for lobsters for home consumption and now again, with a license,
we hope again for commercial gain through sustainable management
practices. It is thus hard to witness Orkney boats of 50 feet or more
coming up to the isle during the summer months to set hundreds of creels
at a time, a capacity far out-stripping that of a yoal.
Fair
Isle has always been a community with strong economic, social and cultural
ties with the sea. The teaming waters, as in the rest of Shetland, would
have been fished over the centuries for subsistence and for trade, forming
the core of life's activities. As the twentieth century progressed the
fishing industry as a whole intensified rapidly. However the industry on
Fair Isle was unable to do so, in part because of the lack of a safe
harbour or the money to invest in an adequate boat or equipment. Therefore
the yoal and traditional forms of fishing have remained the primary means
of reaping the sea's resources.
Fishing,
using these methods, continued to be the mainstay of the economy for much
of the twentieth century. Fishermen turned from white fish to lobsters in
the 1960s, as did many of the Shetland fleet, as the market for salt fish
dried up and white fish became scarce in the waters around the isle. The
more modern, larger boats with sophisticated equipment were able to move
around the seas in search of fish, eclipsing the smaller yoals who had a
much smaller area in which to fish from.
In
more recent years the fishing of lobsters has no longer been able to
sustain an income on the isle: the introduction of licensing for selling
lobsters was prohibitive and numbers of lobsters caught by local yoals
have been declining rapidly, in part surely due to the larger creel boats
coming up from Orkney.
The
economy has now moved on, arid nobody on Fair Isle makes an income from
fishing the waters around the isle, although we do now have a splendid
safe harbour.
Many
of us still rely on the sea to provide us with a living - whether it is
through catering for visitors who come to enjoy the seabirds, marine
environment and maritime culture, or through its interpretation, with
projects such as the Fair Isle Marine Environment and Tourism Initiative
(FIMETI) or the seabird monitoring of the Fair Isle Bird Observatory.
This,
if you like, indirect reaping of the sea is now crucial to the isle, and
the regulation of the sand eel fishery, a sector of the fishing industry
which arguably led to breeding failures of some species of sea birds in
the late 1980s, is seen as a crucial factor in securing the tourist
industry on the isle, and all the secondary incomes which rely on it.
However,
in addition to maintaining these securities the community of Fair Isle
would still like to be able to go off in yoals to catch white fish and
lobsters for home consumption the
former now rare in Fair Isle waters, and stocks of the latter in a
precarious situation. We would like to be able to have a say and local
stake in the management of the seas around the isle, encompassing all
issues relating to the marine environment and including regaining and
maintaining sustainable fish stocks, so we would then be able to once
again catch our own fish supper.
In
so doing, we might be in danger of being seen to want everything for
ourselves, but this is far from the case. We see this as part of the wider
marine picture: encompassing pollution, birds, cetaceans and other sea
life as well as fish stocks. As discussed in last month's issue of this
paper on this page, fishing zones managed by local committees is a
possible solution to declining fish stocks, and we would like to see Fair
Isle involved: to have control over the waters around the isle and allow
fish stocks to recover, for commercial fishermen as well as for ourselves.
So John Goodlad, writing in last month's issue of this paper on this page,
echoed our sentiments when he wrote that, without effective fisheries
conservation, there cannot be a sustainable and profitable fishing
industry in the long term.'
It
is therefore fitting that he is working with us, on behalf of the Shetland
Fishermen's Association, and as a member of the Fair Isle Marine
Partnership, towards some form of sustainable management for the waters
around Fair Isle. Other members of the Fair Isle Marine Partnership are
the RSPB, National Trust for Scotland, Fair Isle Bird Observatory Trust
and SNH.
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Fair Isle, the small island half way
between Shetland and Orkney, depends heavily on the sea that surrounds it.
But for too long islanders had to watch helplessly how others reap the
resources of their coastal waters.
Emma Perring explains why local
management is vital to the survival of a fragile island community.
"The yoal and traditional forms of fishing have
remained the primary means of reaping the sea's resources."
"Many
of us still rely on the sea to provide us with a living - . . . . . . . .
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