I MUST disagree with Ian Stewart’s long letter (Bringing back the three-mile ‘no trawl’ limit would benefit all, June 21). He urges us to abandon science and to rely on that great indefinable nonsensical thing termed “common sense” to protect and manage our seas.
He alludes to the “three-mile trawl limit” as a panacea for all the ills of fishing. It so is not that! What it is, however, is the ultimate in unscientific blunt instruments. The three-mile limit is based on nothing more than the distance a cannon ball could be fired from land and whereby a nation might protect its maritime boundaries from incursion.
In my 10 years in fisheries management one thing is absolutely true, the vagaries of the Scottish coastline are many and there is no one size fits all. That is why the trumpeters for the “three-mile trawl ban” are so wrong.
READ MORE: Fish stocks can be restored by bringing back three-mile ‘no trawl’ limit
Painstaking research and science goes on unheard of and scantly funded, year in year out against the howls of the anti-fishing lobbyists, in order to craft a fisheries management system that works for all areas and all communities of fishermen in Scotland.
The aim is consensual collective working rather than punitive bans. Its by no mean easy, but if we are to espouse the success of the Norwegian fisheries management system then that is how the future has to be shaped, not the oversimplified if easy knee-jerk reactions promoted by often well-funded foreign anti-trawl lobbyists or those who fail to understand the enormous complexities of fish and fisheries management.
If you are to deprive someone the right to a livelihood then you need to back it up with unchallengeable scientific evidence.
I would think Mike Russell understands this well.
Fiona Matheson
Stromness, Orkney
CHARLIE Kerr’s letter of June 17 said “the Good Friday Agreement stipulates that there must be free movement of goods and people between Ireland and Northern Ireland.” I must point out that neither are true.
READ MORE: EU/UK talks drag on but the options for Northern Ireland have not changed
Free movement of people within the British Isles is determined by the Common Travel Area, which dates back to the Irish Free State in the 1920s. Free movement of goods was as part of the EU single market and is not mentioned in the Good Friday Agreement. The Good Friday Agreement talks only of cross-border cooperation and security “normalisation”. Lord Justice Bernard McCloskey in Belfast High Court dismissed claims that the Good Friday Agreement requires membership of the EU, EU customs union or EU single market.
Alan Day
Coagh, County Tyrone
ONCE again the article from Jim Osborne gives us a clear perspective of the real economic issues around investment and having our own currency and economic control in an independent Scotland (How we can keep control of our rich renewable resources, June 21).
Many of us have made the point that having our own currency would be important for an independent Scotland, but not many people have set down the connections and have illustrated the links in the way that Jim has done.
READ MORE: How Scotland can keep control over its rich renewable resources
I think Jim’s articles have been very helpful in showing many people not just that we need our own currency in the new Scotland but why we need it and how it can be used by the Government in conjunction with other important economic measures to turn our resource rich country into a wealthy country for the Scottish people.
Andy Anderson
Saltcoats
STV delivered good coverage of the Scotland v England game on Friday, just when I was expecting the usual “neutral” and “balanced” delivery. The next night it was business as usual with Anglocentric nonsense about how England always wanted to avoid winning the group so as to get an easier match in the next round.
Now that we have seen it is possible, I wonder why STV and BBC “Scotland” don’t provide Scottish commentary, build-up and post-match analysis every time. Alternatively they could continue providing their standard coverage and drop Scottish/Scotland from their names.
Ni Holmes
St Andrews
MY wife, Alison, fought cancer for almost two years before passing away on January 2021. I wrote the following lines, which may not be an argument for euthanasia but could be debated.
Better to say “goodbye” than “have another pill”,
Better to say “goodbye” than see her suffer still,
Better to say “goodbye”, goodbye to all that pain,
Better to say “goodbye” than watch her scream again.
So do not waken, Sweetheart, for another pain-filled day
I’ll hold your hand until the time your pain has gone away
Dream of when we both were young, sleep, sleep you’re pain-free now
And one last time I’ll lightly place a kiss upon your brow.
Jim McLean
London
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