The UK Government should face legal action over the catastrophic collapse of cod stocks in Scotland’s waters, according to campaigners.
Charles Clover, executive director of the Blue Marine Foundation, said the “mismanagement” in the west of Scotland was due to governmental failures.
He said the UK Government, responsible for setting catch limits for all British stocks, ignored scientific advice to halt the stock’s decline for more than a third of a century.
Clover said: “There has been real mismanagement here. If gas or oil or other assets had been given away without reward, there would be ministers in the dock.
“There are effectively no healthy stocks of British cod any more and that is because the situation has been mismanaged for so long. It is a governmental failure. They have consistently allocated more cod quotas than the scientific advice has recommended.”
The campaign’s petition to Westminster urges the Government to better manage cod populations around the British Isles and set sustainable catch limits which will allow stocks to recover.
Clover said: “Our petition calls for immediate action and has garnered more than 1,000 signatures in four days. Time is running out for British cod.
“The Government cannot feign surprise when presented with these irrefutable facts. For every decade the science has been ignored, the stock population has plummeted – and we are now at risk losing one of the nation’s most iconic fish from our waters..
“We urgently need a cod recovery plan that must first address unsustainable catches.”
Cod is also a vital commodity for fish and chip shops with many facing closure due to high tariffs on fish imports.
Andrew Crook, President of the National Federation of Fish Friers, said: “We are going to need to use more of the domestic catch so we need to fish in a controlled way so as not to damage the ecosystem.
“The UK should look to manage its stocks well like Norway, Iceland and Greenland whose cod fisheries are certified as sustainable.
“Improved management of our domestic cod stocks would help businesses like fish and chip shops that depend on cod to remain resilient to external market shocks.”
Activist Finlay Pringle, 14, backed the campaign. He said: “We must reduce over-fishing and create more No Take Zones in our seas to give marine species time and space to recover.
“It will be my generation that will suffer if we continue to allow ocean resources to be over-exploited.
“We are an ocean planet. We must act now.”
The Scottish Government said: “We take our responsibility to balance the competing pressures on the marine environment seriously and the Scottish Government’s management of its fisheries is well respected internationally.”
It added: “To enhance protection of the marine environment, earlier this year we published our draft future catching policy for consultation.
“This policy sets out a range of measures to ensure that fishing activity within Scottish waters is operating sustainably and responsibly.”
The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs did not respond to our request for comment.
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