Skip to Content

Resource hub

JNCC and SNH Fisheries Management Guidance Documents 2014

Abstract

These fisheries guidance documents were produced to provide advice on the impact various fishing activities may have on MPA features in Scotland’s seas. The advice is organised by feature and gear type. Fishing gears are grouped to combine those with broadly similar impacts, but where there is likely to be variation within a group of features (e.g. for high- and low-energy sand habitats), this has been taken into account. Where possible the guidance has been based on evidence from peer-reviewed scientific journals. The fisheries guidance documents have been reviewed by representatives from the fishing sector and Marine Scotland Science.

Format of the guidance

The advice on fisheries management falls into three broad categories:

  • Gear/feature combinations that are unlikely to cause unacceptable impacts (except possibly at very high levels of effort) and so no additional management is likely to be required;
  • Gear/feature combinations that are likely to cause unacceptable impacts and for which no possible mitigation measures could be identified at this stage other than closure to that gear;
  • Gear/feature combinations that are likely to cause some degree of impacts but for which management may be possible to mitigate the effects (e.g. modification or restriction of certain gears, partial or temporary area closures, effort limitation).

In the last type of cases in particular, further site-specific evidence gathering and discussion with stakeholders will be required to determine the appropriate management measures.

How the guidance has been used

The fisheries management guidance has been used, along with the FEatures Activities Sensitivities Tool (FEAST), to inform the development of management options papers for each MPA. These papers can be viewed on the relevant MPA Site Information Centre webpages, available from the Nature Conservation MPAs webpage on JNCC's website.

A full list of references supporting the fisheries guidance is included with this list of documents.

Please be aware that these documents are due to be updated in the near future.

Resource type Publication

Topic category Oceans

Reference date 2014··

Lineage
These documents were produced by JNCC and SNH to provide advice on the impact that various fishing activities may have on MPA features in Scotland’s seas.

Responsible organisation
Communications, JNCC pointOfContact

Limitations on public access No limitations

Use constraints Available under the Open Government Licence 3.0

Metadata date 2020·04·27

Metadata point of contact
Communications, JNCC

Back to top