Protect Scotland’s inshore seas

“I was fortunate to grow up in coastal Argyll, beside the Loch Sunart to Sound of Jura MPA. On occasion, we’d see trawling and dredging boats operating illegally, while just down the coast there would be regular incidents of mass salmon farm mortalities and escapes.

Aside from visits from the Hebridean and Whale Dolphin Trust, and an after school wildlife club run by volunteers, we learnt very little in school about the incredible marine world on our doorstep. Most of my friends left to the city with no knowledge of, or interest in, careers in the marine and coastal sector. 

We need the Government to step up on marine protection, and embed ocean literacy in schools throughout the country.“

“Although I grew up on an island, the ocean was always in the background until I started snorkelling and paid attention to all the life beneath the waves. Where I’m from we’re lucky to have marine protected areas with fisheries management measures in place to protect marine wildlife, this is not the case for many areas across Scotland. Continued delays from the government to deliver effective marine protection, leaves habitats and species at risk. Our generation will inherit the consequences of these delays. To ensure a positive future for our seas we need effective protection for the marine environment in place today.”

“I didn’t grow up on the coast. I grew up in a small village tucked into the edge of the Highlands, surrounded by mountains, vast floodplains, and the kind of rivers and burns that shape your childhood without notice. My summers were filled with chasing the burns downstream, wondering where they led to, filling my wellies with fresh mountain water as juvenile brown trout darted between the stones.

That source-to-sea connection is something we rarely talk about in Scotland. We are an island, yet we often behave as if the ocean is distant or belongs only to coastal communities. But every river, every burn, every drop of rain eventually reaches the sea. Whether we live inland or on the shoreline, we are part of the same system, and that system depends on a healthy ocean. MPAs are one of the few tools that protect this connection.

You don’t need to grow up on the coast to care about the sea. MPAs matter to me because they protect the whole story, from source to sea, for all of us.”

“Marine Protected Areas, to me, are a beacon of hope, but only if management is implemented and effectively enforced to actually provide protection to the species and habitats within them. They work! The incredible thing about the ocean is that it has an incredible capacity to recover, if it’s allowed to do so. And when we take action to let it do so, entire ecosystems can rebound with as much colour and life as they had before it was lost to damaging activities. We’ve seen it happen across the world, even in our home seas! So my question to the Government is this: what kind of seas do you want our young people to inherit? Because the decisions you make and the actions you do or do not take to protect the ocean will determine this. We are fighting for our seas and for our future. Are you listening?”

“Having grown up by the ocean, my passion for marine life and conservation has always been a part of who I am. This passion led to me studying Marine Biology, but I knew I always wanted to explore how change is actively brought forth, which is when I took interest in marine policy and environmental law. This interest in marine conservation through policy influenced both my undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations, in which the latter fully focused on MPA’s and how they can be used as policy tools to address international law concerns.

Had I not developed an interest in MPA’s, my own knowledge of their importance would not be where it is at now. We urgently need the Government to take action when it comes to ocean literacy, and marine protection and conservation.”