Photographs from 'Shona McMillan People and Songs of the Sea' project highlighting the sad and challenging times of Scotland's fishing industry. Unable to make a living, with high fuel prices, an economic downturn and amidst strict and controversial government legislation - Scottish fishing boats are being sold off or decommissioned at a rate which will see them all but disappear from our harbours. Through European legislation, it looks like fishing in Scotland's waters will end up being left to foreign boats (who can receive subsidies from the governments of their origin). It is arguable as to whether the strict legislation applied in Scottish and UK waters is all for environmental reasons (instead of more political ones). For example - it is NOT an environmentally sustainable procedure to dump dead fish back in to the sea but if a fisherman exceeds his catching quota then that is what he is legally forced to do. Once caught in a net, fish dumped or 'discarded' back in to the sea will not live so WHY are fishermen forced to by law to comply with legislation which actually does more harm to the sea than good? Many fishermen are disgusted at the extent of fish they are forced to dump and believe that this could be more than 50% of what they catch. Before a net is pulled in a fisherman can not tell what the catch will be... Personally, Shona would rather an advance harbour landing quota was set for each boat and when that was reached, if exceeded, the additional fish would still be landed but sold off and the money put in to a mutual financial pot - the money from which could go towards fishermen, who nearing their quota limit, would then be subsidised NOT to go out to sea with the immediate risk of surpassing their landing quota. This would spread fishing across an entire year (not govern it by a quota of days so fishermen did not risk going out in bad weather to fish) giving fishermen the whole year to manage the landing of their agreed quota (and not polluting the sea with dead fish). I DO THINK the industry needs to be governed BUT the current legislation is not just lacking in sunstance but it is misinformed and detrimental to the industry and the environment. People outwith the industry may assume that the problems experienced in the industry are caused by over fishing but to assume this is not to see the bigger picture - the government legislation is NOT environmentally friendly. At a sickening rate, the fishing boats are disappearing from around Scotland's coast and with the boats goes the industry, the local economies and communities which have been built up through the fishing which has sustained them for hundreds of years. Suddenly all this is changing, almost overnight.
People who go to sea are most likely to follow their family tradition to work in the industry. Accordingly, when fisher folk are finally forced out of fishing - it is very unlikely that non fishing people will enter in to the industry (which needs young people to survive). Once the fishing skills are lost to the industry, the community is also lost. More needs to be done to to help these fishing communities with the extent of socio-economic problems they are currently experiencing in the rapid decline of the fishing and the demise of the community which once bound them together. For a young person to learn to fish, to purchase a boat and go to sea - the significant costs to enter the industry are greatly prohibitive. It is amidst such problems that legisaltion is required but WHAT is being done to help? And, can more be done?
Descended from a fishing family, Shona's photos and videos are part of her self-financed People and Songs of the Sea project, winner of the Livireland and Irish American News "Creative Project of the Decade" (2000-2010) and the compilation CD (available from [ Ссылка ] ) winner of "2010 Compendium Album of the Year." In 2009, Shona's photo exhibitions were visited by 12,000 people and she is now focussed on a body of work for exhibition in 2014, Homecoming II.
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