Environmentalists must not fall into the trap of making sweeping generalisations about fisheries and the marine environment, said Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, speaking after today’s (22 May) seminar at Fishing 2010 exhibition in Glasgow that featured a showing of the controversial fisheries film, End of the Line.
Among the panel in the lively debate afterwards in front of an audience of fishermen was its maker, the environmental author and journalist Charles Clover.
Mr Armstrong said: “Mr Clover did concede that Scottish fishermen have made huge progress in the North Sea and should be congratulated for their efforts. We obviously welcome that statement but the consensus amongst fishermen that I talked to immediately after the debate was that the film End of the Line was over-dramatised in a way that was obviously designed to appeal and seem plausible to the general public.
“The facts are that the Scottish fishing industry has worked, and is working hard to get its house in order and is committed to sustainability and best practice. There is a dangerous trend among many environmentalists to rely too much on hype, generalisation and over-simplification. It would be helpful to the many thousands of people employed in the fishing industry, and indeed the general public as a whole, if such environmentalists recognised the success stories that are happening in the fishing industry, including in Scotland.”
