Our Seas call on Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and the Scottish Government to follow their own policies and stop the chronic destruction of our seabed by urgently reinstating a coastal limit on bottom-trawl and dredge fishing. Sign the petition here.

Scottish coastal seas have been driven into decline due to decades of mismanagement. Destructive bottom towed fishing gear has had free access to over 95% of our inshore waters since the 1980’s, to the detriment of habitats, biodiversity, fisheries, and communities.

In 1889 a law was passed to protect fish stocks and small boats by banning trawling (except by sail) from within three nautical miles of the shore. Catastrophically the law was removed in 1984 against a backdrop of the industrialization of fishing technology, breaches of the Three Mile Limit, and declining offshore fish stocks.  Access to the inshore appeared to improve catches for a short while, but inevitably led to the rapid decline of fish stocks as seabed habitats – vital nurseries and shelter for many species – were destroyed.

See the trailer of their film The Limit below:

Our Seas are asking you to sign their petition to Bring Back the Fish and Bring Back Scotland’s Inshore Limit. You can sign the petition by clicking here.

For more information about the work of Our Seas visit their website by clicking here.

We’d like to say a big thank you to all of you who entered our competition to win an AP Diving 45M Ratcheted Pocket Reel from our good friends at AP Diving!

As usual, lots of you entered… but there can, of course, be only one winner!

And that winner is…

• Simon Nicholls from the UK.

Congratulations Simon – your prize will be on its way to you soon!

Not a winner this time? Don’t worry – there are plenty of other competitions running on Scubaverse.com right now. To see what other awesome prizes you could be in with a chance of winning, click here!