the final race... This season is Scotland is celebrated worldwide
for her natural beauty. Her wild glens and moors. Her deep lochs,
her rugged mountains and It's hard to imagine man has made
any impact at all. But every square inch has been affected by centuries
of human activity. I'm going to look at how man made Scotland's
landscape, and how this history has shaped the present. This week, how
our hearts, not our heads, have ruled the least understood
landscape - the sea. Out of sight, Out of sight, out of mind. The sea
has always been a place of mystery, For most of our history, the world
beneath the waves was largely unknown. An alien landscape. We saw
the sea in simple terms, as an endless and plentiful resource that
But in the last few decades, we've started to look differently at the
sea and the creatures that live in and around it. Some of the very
animals that we once hunted to the verge of extinction are now
protected and transformed into But it's been a lottery. Human
sentiment has ruled, and still rules, this fragile marine
environment. And it's the fickle nature of public pity that has
decided their fate. While some species - usually ones with the
charm factor - have been pronounced untouchable, others have been
So how have we, an island nation, Man has lived by the sea for
thousands of years, but we didn't always exploit its vast resource of
I'm 25 miles north of the main island in the Orkneys, and I'm
heading over there, Papay Westray, to find out just why it was that we
I'm taking the plane for the short hop - a distance of just 1.7 miles.
The scheduled flight time, including taxiing, is two minutes.
This is the shortest commercial The earliest Neolithic inhabitants
arrived here 5,000 years ago. But it wasn't until much more recently
that we started to take big catches On the north west side of the
island, coastal erosion has revealed a midden - a huge pile of
discarded fish bones and limpet For the last ten years, Jen Harland
has been analysing tens of thousands of fish bones from around
Hi, Jen. So, this is where you have hidden yourself away I couldn't
find you! You're busy! Indeed. this is a rubbish dump of fish
debris, really? That's right, it's a fish midden, it's hundreds of
thousands of fish bones deposited here. So, if you get your eye in,
you can see there's four cod bones articulating from a cod tail,
something like that. I love how you just say, "It's from cod". I can
barely see that it's fish bones and you're saying "cod". They are
fairly distinct. You can normally tell the species easily. So what
time period are we talking about here? We're talking 12th and 13th
centuries for the main dense layers of decomposition here, and that's
fairly typical, we get fish middens of that date looking like this all
throughout Orkney and Shetland, and Why was it around this time there
was a sudden explosion in the exploitation of fish? There's a
large number of factors, but one of the main things is Christian
religion. Right! Seems odd. Christian fasting means you have to
eat fish, not just on Fridays, but on a lot of other days through the
year as well. If you can't eat beef or lamb, you're eating things like
fish. So it creates a huge demand all over Europe for fish. So that's
intriguing, as religion sweeps across the land, suddenly people
start eating fish in a big way. During the 13th century, there were
roughly 140 holy days per year, when the eating of meat was banned.
And that led to a huge demand for fish. But, back then, the seas were
full of fish - so easy to catch, Now, most people driving by don't
even give a second glance to this rather ordinary-looking pile of
stones. But although nobody really knows how old they are, they are
sure they were used to catch fish. There are hundreds of these simple
U and V shaped structures around Scotland's coastline. And they've
led experts to speculate that Scotland's waters were one of the
easiest places to catch fish in the The waters were so rich that shoals
were herded like sheep into these traps at high water. And when the
tide went out, the fish were trapped by either nets or wicker
It's hard for us to imagine what the waters around Scotland would
once have contained. So much has changed since back then, but the
variety of sea life around our shores was staggering. The list was
endless, and included some real surprises, like bluefin tuna that
once chased the herring. Swordfish, three species of shark, and even
grey whales. Scotland's seas were overflowing with life. And with
some of the largest seabird populations on the planet,
Scotland's waters were as rich in The reason why our marine habitat
was so rich is partly explained by geology. The British Isles sit at
the edge of a continental shelf which plummets from 250 metres to
This is one of the longest Every winter, storms mix nutrients
from the seabed, deep below, with surface waters. And in the spring,
sunlight causes an explosive growth in plankton, microscopic organisms
that drift with the currents. Scotland's seas are some of the
most fertile on earth. Twice a day, powerful tides sweep clockwise
around Scotland, carrying plankton- rich water into the sea lochs of
the west coast, and across the You know, a single bucket of
Scottish sea water might contain as much as four million tiny plants
and animals. The abundance of plankton made Scotland's waters
teem with life. These tiny, single- celled plants use the sun's energy
to grow. They are the smallest creatures in the sea, yet are the
basis for all other marine life Vast armadas of fish, including
sand eels, squid and herring, would feed on plankton, and in turn are
food for salmon, cod, puffin, seals, After the Middle Ages, the fishing
boats got bigger and faster. But it wasn't until the 19th century that
the demand for fish exploded. the yard! Come on, put your back in
it. Suddenly, the country needed cheap abundant food, and Scotland's
seas met the demand effortlessly. One of the most prolific species
was herring. Vast schools would reach the shores of Britain in a
series of waves. And as the herring chased the plankton, the fishermen
chased the herring. By 1850, there They started every season on the
west coast and finished on the east, as the herring fed off the flow of
plankton. My guide here on the Firth of Forth in this beautifully
restored 'Fifie' is historian Christopher Smout.
It seems to me that Scotland was blessed with the perfect physical
conditions for fish to flourish. It's certainly the case here on the
Firth of Forth, incredible numbers, the sheer abundance in the 19th
century was unbelievable. If you take, for example, the head of the
Forth, the sprats and the herring, they wanted to tell them apart, and
the fishermen said, "Well, it's easy - you just put your oar in the
shoal, and you tell from the resistance which is which, because
they swim in a slightly different way". So that sounds like there was
more fish than water. Almost, yes, more fish than water. That's
incredible. When they first discovered where the herring bred,
where they dropped their eggs off the Isle of May, they said they
were lying one tier upon another, on the bottom, over square miles,
and they found a shoal of whiting, small whiting, which stretched for
36 miles. Eight miles beyond the Isle of May to the Oxcars
lighthouse - that's further than we can see today, and they reckoned it
contained 230 million fish. Those figures are just astronomical.
That's what the natural abundance Herring was caught in drift nets
like these, which would hang from these floating boys, and the fish
would be caught in holes. It's a really simple but effective
technique that's been around since the 13th century. Thousands of
miles of drift nets were set every night among the North Sea herring
schools during the mid 19th century. But at around the same time, a new
method of fishing caught on - trawling. It caught fish of every
shape and size. Up until this point, fishing had been on a modest scale.
The trawlers used a net held open by a large beam that is dragged
along the seabed. Capable of catching up vastly more fish than
the boats they replaced, this new method was controversial from the
very beginning. Very soon after trawling became widespread, the
traditional drift net fishermen noticed that rich fishing grounds
were being cleaned out in just one Concerned about the impact of this
new method on the marine environment, and about their future
livelihoods, the anger of the drift net fishermen was soon at boiling
point. Forced by the growing number of complaints, the government of
the day appointed one of Britain's foremost professional scientists to
Thomas Henry Huxley was himself a bit of a catch. He was well
connected, rubbed shoulders with Charles Darwin, and was paid
handsomely for his work on the state of British fisheries.
Huxley's Commission toured Britain, taking evidence from hundreds of
witnesses. He was however, a landlubber, and rather than go to
sea to gather evidence, he heard the fishermen's accounts in town
The statements came thick and fast. It's incredible, all this testimony
from fishermen all around Britain. "We are all unanimous at this place
that fish is fast diminishing in the North Sea, and we believe it is
all to this reckless and destructive mode of beam trawling".
"I believe trawling to be one of the most destructive things that go
into the sea". "We cannot get anything on the
lines now". "We used to get things they called
coxcombs, and the trawlers have swept them all away, the same as
they have swept away all the best But the fishermen's concerns fell
on deaf ears. Huxley's commission coincided with the advent of steam
trawling. A technological marine Freed at last from the restriction
of the wind, steam-driven boats They trawled back and forth
relentlessly, bringing home bigger and bigger catches. It was fish
galore. At a time when the population of Victorian Britain was
growing fast, fish was cheap, nutritious and bountiful. Huxley
wasn't going to stand between the nation and one of its basic food
supplies. As a result, fish stocks But the complaints and protests
about the destructive nature of trawling didn't go away. Not only
were the traditional fishermen still concerned about over-fishing,
they also claimed that trawling destroyed the seabed. So did the
To find out what effect trawling has had on the seabed, I've come to
Scotland's west coast to meet Jason Hall Spencer. As well as being a
marine biologist, Jason is an experienced open water scuba diver.
Today we take underwater exploration for granted, but back
in Huxley's day, the seabed was $$WHITE150 years ago, what did
people know about what was down there? Very little, because they
couldn't see the seabed. There was no fishery science and people
hadn't invented the scuba gear that we're wearing. People hadn't seen
the seabed, so it was almost impossible to tell what was there -
it was like trying to see what's on the other side of the moon.
really, in terms of scientific data, I guess there wasn't any, really?
They'd started taking measurements of temperature and salinity, but
they didn't know what fish stocks were there. They assumed they were
almost inexhaustible, but you see nowadays that that is completely
During Huxley's investigations, one fisherman told how the awful signs
of destruction brought up on deck by the trawl was enough to make an
angel weep. I'm starting to understand what he meant. It's like
a barren desert. Tiny bits of life here and there, but... This just
shows what a century of fishing can do to seabed habitat types. What
you can see around us is very little that's old, and what's here,
many of the shells are broken... And there's none of the rich
variety of life. Organisms that are fragile and long-lived are smashed
up by the effects of the heavy gear that drags across the sea bed. It
Huxley just couldn't see this, because they weren't able to dive
to see with their own eyes what was on the seabed at that time. But now
we know without a shadow of a doubt that dragging heavy fishing gear
across the seabed causes long-term damage. So this is what trawling
Keen to show me what much of the seabed would have once looked like,
Jason led me to a small area that has escaped the ravages of
industrialised fishing. In the shallow waters of Loch Sween, where
trawlers have been unable to operate, a purple and pink carpet
Known as Scotland's coral, mearl is a calcified form of seaweed. After
the vast expanses of mud and gravel we had just seen, this is like
It is wonderful stuff. It's a fantastic, slow-growing organism.
So how slow growing are they? only grows 1mm per year. Very, very
slow-growing. That's quite slow! Absolutely stunning, I had no idea
- this is just a few metres off shore and look at it. Fantastic.
you just look at these lumps, carefully, you can see hundreds and
hundreds of species just living amongst the cracks. There's so much
life just within my hand here, probably 100 species all crawling
around. It's just pretty incredible. I'm so pleased there are some areas
like this left. You can see how fragile this stuff is. If you tow
through with fishing gear, it smashes it to pieces. Causes
thousands of years' worth of damage in one afternoon. These are the
sort of landscapes we need to It's incredible to think that much
of Scotland's seabed was once covered by that beautiful carpet of
mearl and coral, and that just over, I guess, a century of trawling has
decimated those habitats and with them the fish stocks that depended
on them. Huxley not only rejected the fishermen's concerns, he argued
that trawling helped the seabed. Just as the farmer's plough turns
the soil to bring nutrients to the surface, Huxley argued that the
trawl did exactly the same. Based on the Commission's recommendations,
the Sea Fisheries Act was passed and allowed trawling whenever,
wherever and however the fishermen pleased. Outside the fishing
communities, the commission and its findings went virtually unnoticed.
Our marine landscape remained out Meanwhile, above the surface,
Scotland's 11,000 mile coast line is as rich in seabirds as it once
was in fish. All of these birds depend on smaller creatures like
sand eels that feed off the plankton. So the same rich habitat
that sustained abundant fish stocks also supports some of the biggest
populations of seabirds on the planet. Today, Scotland's coasts
are home to over five million birds. That's nearly half of all the
seabirds in Europe. And the reason for this abundance above the waves
is that seabirds and their breeding sites are protected by law. So why
is this? The answer is to be found 110 miles west of the Scottish
mainland. The remote islands of St One day in July 1840, five men set
out from the main island on a fowling raid to the neighbouring
sea stacks. For St Kildans, seabirds were absolutely
fundamental for survival. The birds provided the islanders with food,
oil and feathers. But on this particular day, when they ventured
onto the sea stack, they encountered a strange-looking bird.
As they climbed up, they found lying asleep a great auk which they
caught and took back to their bothy. Flightless like the penguin, great
auks were good swimmers, but clumsy and slow on land, making them easy
prey for hunters. Huge numbers were killed in the North Atlantic for
their meat and, by the 19th century, the population had declined so
dramatically, that the great auk was a rare visitor to St Kilda. So
when the men took the auk to their bothy, it's very likely they had
never seen one before. They kept it alive for three days. Meanwhile, a
great storm reared up and, unable to get back to the main isle, they
hunkered down with their new-found friend. Then a thought crossed
their minds - perhaps this wasn't a bird at all, perhaps this was a
witch that could conjure up great They decided to kill the bird. The
loss of the last great auk in St Kilda was followed by the killing
of the world's last pair in Iceland four years later. Eventually, the
extinction of the great auk would have a fundamental effect on the
future of all seabirds. But at the time, nobody cared. In fact, nobody
Back on the mainland they weren't killing seabirds to eat, they were
shooting them for sport. In the late 19th century, cheap shotguns
created a revolution in the affordability of recreational
killing and ordinary tourists were able to take part in shooting trips
At the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth, even the Prince of Wales,
future Edward VII, took part. He went there in 1859 and it was
reported, "The Prince enjoyed some shooting and brought down a number
During the 1800s, 70% of the gannet population on the Bass Rock alone
was obliterated by hunting parties. And there looked as if there was no
But then one day, a chance discovery by a Cambridge University
don changed everything. Professor Alfred Newton received a box.
Inside, he found the bones of an extinct bird. It was a great auk.
It seems so obvious now, but it dawned on Newton that if the great
auk could be hunted to extinction, then the same could happen to every
living bird on the planet. He decided to act. Newton inspired a
new thinking of conservation. He was so appalled by what had
happened to the great auk he started a campaign to stop to the
killing of seabirds at nesting sites. He began by targeting ladies
who wore seagull feathers in their hats. The shooting of seabirds
wasn't just for pleasure, it was also big business. The populations
of great crested grebes and kittiwakes had been decimated for
their plumage. It was going to be a difficult campaign for Newton. One
determined academic versus the plume trade as well as unthinking
trigger happy sportsmen and members of the royal family. The odds
seemed stacked against him. But Newton's strategy cut across the
class divides. He appealed directly to the human heart. In a speech to
fellow scientists he warned, "Fair and innocent as the snowy plumes
may appear in a lady's hat, I must tell the wearer the truth: She
bears the murderer's brand on her forehead". Moved by the plight of
young birds left to starve in the nest after their parents had been
shot for their plumage, British women turned to fruit and flowers
rather than feathers. Newton had taken a must-have fashion accessory
and made it deeply unfashionable. Newton's campaign was a success.
His actions led in 1869 to the first ever Conservation Law, which
banned shooting during the breeding season. Newton's campaign also
paved the way for the founding of the Royal Society for the
Protection of Birds. These crucial first steps had moved the public to
change their attitudes to seabirds. The birds were far from saved, but
Today, when the idea of cruelty to animals is abhorrent, we accept
animal conservation as a fundamental part of everyday life.
The setting up of the RSPB was a major step forward for the
protection of birds, but for the seemingly abundant creatures that
lived under the waves, there was nothing. Here, the story continued
to be take, take, take. As the technology and efficiency of
finding and catching fish improved, come the 20th century virtually
every species became a target Growing up to 10 metres in length,
the basking shark is one of the wonders of the Scottish seas and
the second biggest fish in the world. The sharks feed on plankton
concentrations near the surface, filtering up to 1,800 tons of water
every hour though their cavernous Seen as a valuable resource, their
The waters around the tiny island of Soay off Skye became a killing
Now abandoned, this basking shark station was set up by a former
Special Forces officer just after the Second World War. This must
have been where the truly awful business happened of hacking up
those huge beasts with saws, axes and knives. It must have been a
These pickling tanks were used to store the shark's flesh before
export abroad, mainly to starving Germans in British-occupied Germany.
But it was the oil from the sharks' huge liver that was the main prize.
At a time when dairy products were strictly rationed, shark oil was an
essential ingredient for the butter substitute - margarine. It's just
so odd to think that all this carnage took place in such an
idyllic setting against the backdrop of the Cuillin Mountains.
It just seems so peaceful here. Before the butchering could begin,
you needed to find your shark. For that you required a sturdy boat, a
The basking shark was a tricky target. The harpooner and helmsman
needed to keep the boat close to it. The gun was positioned on the bow,
where they could get a really good shot. They designed harpoons like
this with retractable barbs. Basically, once that went in, there
The man behind this enterprise was a surprising figure, known today
more for animal conservation and otters than shark hunting. Gavin
Grandson of the Duke of Northumberland and brought up on
the hills of South West Scotland, Maxwell spent much of his youth
stalking wild game and was an expert shot. At sea, he proved to
be as successful a fisherman as he was a hunter of game. He and his
crew killed hundreds of sharks. But he was a poor businessman. Maxwell
never turned a profit and the ill- fated endeavour lasted just three
seasons. The only good thing to come out of the venture was his
first book, which became a critically acclaimed hit. There are
moments in the book where you glimpse Maxwell the conservationist
rather than Maxwell the hunter. Like this quote, where he's talking
about the ethics of their killing methods. "All this harpooning has
its unpleasant side, no matter how much it may be forgotten in the
excitement of the moment. If a warm-blooded animal were concerned,
and more especially if it were a warm-blooded land animal, 99 people
out of 100 would hold it to be unthinkable cruelty". He recognised
that these animals endured a slow and cruel death. Maxwell's
experiences changed him forever. A few years later, he embarked on a
project of a different kind. Drawn more and more to the seductive
beauty of the landscape and wildlife, Maxwell stayed on
Scotland's west coast, but his interests turned from hunting to
In 1960, Maxwell published Ring of Bright Water, an autobiographical
account about how he raised a wild otter. He shared his food, home and
even his bed with the otter, which he called Mij. Their adventures
together touched the hearts of readers and the book became a best
seller. You know, Maxwell was ahead of his time with his love of otters.
In the 1950s, most people still considered them a pest that ate too
much fish and should be exterminated. What transformed this
perception was Maxwell's writing about the human qualities of this
wild animal. What Maxwell recognised was that, by bestowing
human characteristics - a personality and a name - on the
otter, the public would respond to wildlife quite differently. During
the course of the 20th century, it was human sentiment that was to
transform the fate of another marine animal from near extinction
Over centuries, the grey seal had been slaughtered on an astonishing
scale to supply demand for oil and skins. Unlike other seals in the UK,
the grey seal comes ashore to breed, making it an easy target for
hunters. As a result, grey seals had to find places further and
North Rona is a small uninhabited island 50 miles north west of Cape
Wrath. Known as one of the Lonely Isles, this is the remotest and
least-visited Nature Reserve in Home to thousands of visiting
seabirds, the island also hosts one of the largest breeding colonies of
grey seals in the UK. It was here in 1938 that Frank Fraser Darling,
an eminent ecologist, carried out the first ever in-depth study of
grey seals. Fraser Darling had quit his comfortable salaried life
working in animal genetics in Edinburgh, uprooting his wife and
eight-year-old son to travel to It was inside this old sheep pen
that Darling built three timber I mean, they had corrugated iron
roofs, but with wind, it must have been a noisy old place to be. But
this is where he wrote his detailed journals about seal behaviour on
the island. Darling studied the social and breeding behaviour of
grey seals, but during the research, he also observed that seals have a
great deal in common with human When he writes about baby seals he
says, "There is no creature born, even among the greater apes, which
resembles a human baby in its ways There's no denying the appeal of
the seal pup. This is an animal that tends to stare into the face
of its killers with big soppy eyes, as if asking for mercy. It's one a
handful of other species with the X factor, that innate ability to tug
at the heartstrings of the world's most sophisticated, dangerous,
illogical omnivore. Us. And it was this X factor which would
ultimately be the saving grace for the grey seal. In the late
seventies, seals were blamed for falling fish stocks and complaints
from fishermen in Orkney led to the In Gavin Maxwell's day, just 40
years before, a brutal event like But when images of seal culling
were broadcast into sitting rooms up and down the country in 1978,
there was a public outcry. Nature's future was about to be determined
by human sentiment. Another reason for the public outcry was the
appearance of a determined fledgling conservation group. The
Greenpeace Foundation had made their name trying to stop the
killing of whales on the verge of extinction. Now, they turned their
Greenpeace, seen as the popular heroes of animal welfare, skilfully
launched a clever public relations exercise designed to appeal to the
They fed the press and media with images from around the world of
man's brutality to seals as well as questioning the accuracy of the
scientists figures used to justify 40 years after Frank Fraser Darling
compared seal pups to human babies, Greenpeace used precisely that
imagery to press the emotional button on the British public.
Suddenly, that image of a grey seal pup with eyes that shed tears
cloaked in white fur, and with that innocent inquisitive face about to
be bludgeoned to death by a cruel The Greenpeace approach worked.
Downing Street received 14,000 letters in protest and announced a
halt to the cull. An opinion poll at the time revealed that a huge
majority of the protesters weren't aware of any of the arguments for
or against. They just wanted the killing stopped. It would seem that
the emotive power of the seal pup had won the day. Before the 20th
century, man's response to the grey seal was to use it as a resource
for food, for oil, its skins for waistcoats and sporrans. By 1978,
the grey seal had been embraced as a treasured part of our natural
heritage, our very first environmental icon and a powerful
This transformation of fortune, for seabirds and seals, only happened
when they were hauled into public But the rest of marine life under
the sea remained out of sight, out of mind. Over time, the sheer
quantity of fish taken from the sea by trawling began to have dramatic
effects on fish stocks and the While the trawlers, along with
their nets, just got bigger and bigger, the fishermen turned to
sonar imaging to track the fish. There was nowhere left to hide. As
fish populations began to plummet, we did try - through EU quotas - to
turn back the clock. But we didn't try hard enough. In the North Sea,
we now land half as much fish as we Fishermen and scientists are still
at odds as to just how depleted fish stocks are, but no-one doubts
And it isn't just fish stocks on the east coast that have suffered,
it's the same story in the west. Loch Fyne in the Firth of Clyde was
once known for its abundance of halibut, cod and herring. Today,
they have almost all gone, as have the communities and livelihoods
that have depended on the sea for centuries. A result of too many
boats with too much technology chasing too few fish. This fish
finder tells its own story. This is showing you a picture of the sea
bed, so you've got the depth going down there and, as you can see, the
sea bed, not much left... Ruth Thurstan is part of a team of
marine biologists that has been looking at the state of fisheries
in the Firth of Clyde. I mean, I'm amazed. This is Loch
Fyne! This is one of the great... Famous fish grounds. Yeah! And it's
absolutely... We've been looking at this for minutes and nothing has
come through. Mm-hm, yeah. It's very different to how it used to be.
Yeah. Over the last seven years, there
have been virtually no commercial white fish landings on the Firth of
Clyde. The only creatures left in any abundance are the prawns which
thrive in an environment devoid of It sounds like fishermen have been
kind of working their way down the food chain? Yes, they have been.
They started with the predatory species and now they are really at
the bottom of the food chain and we're now eating species that we
wouldn't have considered eating many years ago. Prawns and clams
and those sort of species, which is worrying, because if those species
decline, then there isn't much left for people to catch, so we do need
to start thinking about how we can recover other species. I mean, why
do you think people have been so reluctant to conserve fish? People
for centuries, I suppose, have felt quite disconnected from the seas.
They've not, until very recently, been able to see what is down there
probably and fish, for many years, have been seen as a resource,
they're not seen as wildlife. I mean, what is the future? It
sounds very bleak. It depends where we go from here, really, and we do
have a choice. We either carrying on fishing the way we are doing,
and that means that we're probably likely to have very little left in
quite a short period of time or we can start protecting and managing
the seas well. The best way to do that is if you create areas where
you halt destructive methods of fishing and some other areas where
you may create areas where there's Fortunately, exactly this advice is
taking root. After decades of neglect, there are signs that our
marine landscape is no longer out As part of a UK initiative,
Scotland's Marine Act came into law in March 2010, promising to create
a series of protected areas around our coasts. And there is one such
area in Scotland where this has already happened. Concerned about
the damage caused by the trawling community, campaigners on the
island of Arran spent 15 years lobbying Government for a No Take
Zone, a designated area of sea and seabed from which no marine life
can be removed. Approved in 2008, Scotland's first No Take Zone is a
small area, just over one square mile, in Lamlash Bay. It really is
a drop in the ocean, but a significant achievement
The seabed here is now a haven for nature to start recovery. A man-
made sanctuary protected from the biggest predator in the sea -
ourselves. We have an island of less than
5,000 people. Yet nearly 2,000 of them have joined... Howard Wood, a
local resident and recreational diver, is one of the figures behind
the ground-breaking project. I've been diving since 1973 and it was
quite obvious, through the late seventies and early eighties, that
species that we could see, like plaice and skate and rays, were
slowly disappearing and, by the mid-eighties, quite often you
wouldn't see any at all. So is your hope, really, that over the next
decade or so these things will start springing up all around
Scotland's coasts? If the Scottish Government is serious about a
recovery in the marine environment, this is one way forward, it's not
the total way forward, it's not a panacea, it's not going to solve
all the problems, but it's a very essential part of it. We're a
generation that has just taken, taken, taken from our natural
resources and it's time we started thinking about how are we going to
feed the next generation in 50 years' time? This isn't about
stopping fishing. This is about increasing the amount of fish and
shellfish, so we can feed ourselves Lamlash Bay is one of only three
tiny protected marine zones in Britain. And as the seabed takes
many years to recover from two centuries of trawling, it's too
The human heart has played a powerful role in the fate of
certain marine animals. Creatures with the X factor. But we can't go
on like this, because it discriminates. You can't leave the
destiny of marine life to the whims of human sentiment. It's time to
take stock of all species that depend on the incredible marine
landscape that lie under Scotland's Nothing exists in isolation. As the
conservationist John Muir says, "When one tugs at a single thing in
nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world". In other words,