Creeling and trawling for Nephrops are not simply alternative methods of harvesting Nephrops in inshore waters. Economically, they are quite separate activities which deliver fundamentally different economic outcomes. What they have in common is that, in Scotland’s inshore waters, they compete for access to the same stock of Nephrops.
Currently, in Scotland we have an economically absurd outcome whereby each tonne of Nephrops caught by trawls in areas fishable by creels is contributing to an unnecessary degradation of the Scottish marine environment and a significant reduction in Scottish output, income, employment and profits, particularly in remote/rural areas. This is a manifestation of ‘market failure’. Regrettably, Marine Scotland, which should be correcting the anomaly of excessive trawling effort, has adopted a laissez-faire approach. This is precisely the wrong response.
At the same time, whilst Marine Scotland eschews area management, across the inshore area, many mobile operators are imposing their own de facto area management with the primary purpose of benefitting themselves at the direct expense of creelers. Creelers have to comply with these creel limits otherwise they face the prospect of their creels being regularly towed away. This is a very costly and inconvenient sanction.
The combination of Marine Scotland “hands off” approach and de facto creel limits imposed by the trawl sector has resulted in trawlers managing to secure 87.7% of the Scottish Nephrops catch. This level of access to Nephrops stocks is certainly not warranted by the sector’s economic or environmental performance, or indeed any coherent performance indicator. Click here to read more.