KYLEAKIN, Scotland — Bally Philp hauls up his baited traps from the waters off Scotland\u2019s Isle of Skye, checking each one methodically. Unlike most of Scotland\u2019s coastline, these waters are protected from industrial fishing methods that have devastated seabeds elsewhere. But Philp, who\u2019s fished for more than three decades, has watched conditions deteriorate nearly everywhere else along the coast.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe inshore archipelagos on the West Coast of Scotland used to be full of fish,\u201d Philp said. \u201cWe have no commercial quantities of fish left inshore at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
While 37% of Scotland\u2019s waters have been designated as marine protected areas, only a small fraction have management measures in place to enforce that protection, according to environmental groups. Bottom trawling and scallop dredging \u2014 methods that rake the seabed \u2014 are permitted in about 95%<\/a> of Scotland\u2019s coastal waters, including within designated protected areas, according to marine conservation groups.<\/p>\n Bottom trawls drag heavy nets across the seafloor, crushing marine habitats. The method causes extensive carbon pollution: it burns nearly three times<\/a> more fuel than other fishing methods, and the nets disturb seabed sediments, releasing stored carbon into the ocean. Bottom trawlers often discard a substantial portion of their catch back into the sea, and survival rates for discarded marine life are typically very low.<\/p>\n The problem isn’t just in Scotland. Across Europe and globally, bottom trawling within protected areas remains common and often unregulated, with industrial vessels operating in waters officially set aside for conservation. A 2024 report<\/a> from the Marine Conservation Society and Oceana found 90% of protected marine sites across seven European countries, including the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Spain, experienced bottom trawling between 2015 and 2023, with vessels logging 4.4 million bottom trawling hours in protected waters. <\/p>\n In 1984, a longstanding 3\u2011mile (4.8-kilometer) ban on bottom trawling around much of Scotland\u2019s coast was repealed. Fish landings in areas such as the Clyde plummeted, with catches of many species now only a tiny fraction of their historical levels.<\/p>\n Philp began his fishing career working on trawlers in the late 1980s. By then, fish had become bycatch \u2014 unwanted species caught accidentally that were often illegal to land under newly introduced quota systems. His job was to shovel them overboard, dead.<\/p>\n \u201cYou would see a stream of dead fish flowing off the back of the boat,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a heartbreaking thing to see.\u201d<\/p>\n He resolved instead to fish with baited traps \u2014 a method that causes minimal habitat damage and allows most unwanted catch to survive when returned to the sea.<\/p>\n But that choice has meant limiting himself to the shrinking number of areas where such fishing remains viable. Across much of the U.K., reefs have been heavily damaged or destroyed by scallop dredging. Loch Alsh, where Philp works, holds some of the most intact reefs remaining.<\/p>\n Philp, who comes from three generations of fishers, says he\u2019ll be the last in his family to make a living in this industry. He taught his two sons, now 20 and 30, how to fish, but he\u2019s discouraged them from making it a career.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re at the arse end of something that was once really good,\u201d Philp said. \u201cUnless we can turn that around, why would anyone want their kids to do this?\u201d<\/p>\n Philp isn\u2019t alone in struggling to sustain traditional fishing practices. Scallop diver Alasdair Hughson spends four days a week at sea, traveling far from home in Dingwall and his two children, because nearby coastal areas have been too degraded to support his work, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf there was no need to increase the size of vessels and move about and become more nomadic, we would have just stayed the way we were, because why wouldn\u2019t you?\u201d he said. <\/p>\n By the time he started diving, stocks had declined. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t regenerating because scallop dredging had altered the habitat to such an extent.\u201d<\/p>\n