Promoting sustainability: advancing fishery management for a healthier ocean

Sustainable fishing practices are crucial to the maintenance of fish stocks, the protection of habitats, and to the economies of coastal communities. Developing these practices to deliver long term sustainable fishery management depends on high quality scientific evidence.

Defining and demonstrating the limits of sustainable practice is vital; our research has fed into an exemplar project of how industry and academia can work in partnership to ensure the viability of fish stocks while benefitting inshore fisheries and the communities that they support.

Building understanding of crustacean fishery sustainability

Working in Orkney, where inshore fishing of shellfish species (edible crab, lobster and scallops) plays a hugely important role in the socio-economic stability of the islands, our research created a substantial base of scientific evidence for the Orkney fisheries, providing robust data in support of sustainable fishery development.

Expert data gathering and rigorous modelling development broadened understanding of the fishery dynamics that determine the limits of sustainability. Importantly, our evidence identified critical benchmarks that could be used to underpin sustainable exploitation of Orkney’s crustacean fisheries.

Orkney brown crab is of huge economic significance to the island. The value of the fish landed on Orkney is around £10 million, with brown crabs accounting for about half of that total. The island supplies around a quarter of Scotland’s total brown crab catch: its average annual landings of brown crab over the past 30 years have been more than 2,000 tonnes.

The modelling of a harvest control rule for this species using key insights on growth, maturity, and mortality – together with inferences on fishing mortality and size-selectivity from catch composition data – allowed risks regarding its sustainability to be examined and assessed. This data then underpinned a Fishery Improvement Project (FIP) for the Orkney creel fishery for brown crab.

Adding value and opening-up access to new markets

The innovative Orkney FIP was the first in the UK, and the first anywhere to use the Marine Stewardship Council’s benchmarking and monitoring tool. Heriot-Watt worked on the FIP with Orkney Fisheries Association (OFA) – a trade body representing fishermen and fisherwomen, Orkney Sustainable Fisheries (OSF) – an industry-led initiative, retail chain Marks & Spencer, environmental charity WWF-UK, Crown Estate Scotland – the public body that manages the seabed – and Orkney Islands Council.

Demonstrating sustainability has enabled the Orkney creel fishery to access markets that require sustainably badged seafood products. For example, it allowed Marks & Spencer to market Orkney brown crab as one of its flagship products. Overall, it has added in the region

of £1M to the value of the brown crab fishery by strengthening its position with retailers. Developing the domestic market for brown crab has also helped to insulate Orkney in part from the disruption to seafood exports caused by Brexit.

Scientific underpinning for Orkney’s industry-led initiatives has been widely considered as an exemplar for developments in inshore fishery sustainability.