An unsatisfactory meeting

On August 2nd, the Clyde Inshore Fisheries Group (IFG) held a ‘consultation’ meeting in the Auchrannie Glencloy Suite to ‘discuss’ the draft Fisheries Management Plan drawn up by the IFG itself. The quotes indicate that neither consultation nor discussion was seriously on the menu. The meeting had not been advertised locally, and when the first people started to come in, only two rows of chairs had been set out. The room filled up, with people standing at the back, slightly outside the folding doors and finding it hard to hear because of the noise from the adjacent restaurant.

As insistent questions were put, Billy Sinclair abandoned the Power Point presentation and instead outlined the IFG’s basic demands, which were to expand fishing to include other species such as razor fish, and to limit land-based line fishery to almost zero. The detailed paper handed out made reference to biological concerns and stock sustainability, but questions on how this sustainability should be achieved and maintained were consistently side-lined. Mr Sinclair paced to and fro irritably, and it became more and more clear that the IFG regards Clyde waters as its own territory and wants no regulation. One questioner pointed out that fishermen would have no livelihood whatever if the commodity (ie. fish) on which their industry was based became extinct, but this, too, failed to be taken up as worth consideration.

People started to leave the meeting, and at the end, those remaining were in agreement that the underlying crisis that threatens to overwhelm marine life in Clyde waters was being completely ignored in favour of short-term interests.