Fishing trawlers scrape and destroy the seabed In Scotland, despite protection promises

Fisherman work on a boat in the North Sea in Fraserburgh, a fishing town in northeastern Scotland. While 37% of Scotland’s waters have been designated as marine protected areas, only a small fraction have management measures in place to enforce it. — Photos: AP

Bally Philp hauls up his baited traps from the waters off Scotland’s Isle of Skye, checking each one methodically. Unlike most of Scotland’s coastline, these waters are protected from industrial fishing methods that have devastated seabeds elsewhere.

But Philp, who’s fished for more than three decades, has watched conditions deteriorate nearly everywhere else along the coast.