Tag Archives: Holy Island
Holy Island fishing ban set to be dropped after outcry
The government had been exploring designating it a Highly Protected Marine Area (HPMA), which would have seen fishing halted. But fears were voiced it would devastate the local economy. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said it would designate its first English HPMA later this year. Berwick MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan tweeted a copy of a letter she received from Environment Secretary Therese Coffey stating her department would not designate Lindisfarne (Holy Island) an HPMA. Local fishermen warned they were worried about the future and in September local councillors said pressing ahead with the proposal would turn the area into a “museum”. >click to read< 08:37
House of Lords peer calls for Holy Island fishing ban proposal to be dropped
Lord Curry of Kirkhale, who sits in the House of Lords, has written to environment secretary Thérèse Coffey to express concerns about Defra plans to designate it a Highly Protected Marine Area (HPMA). There has been strong local opposition to the proposal, backed by Berwick MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan and county councillors Colin Hardy and Guy Renner-Thompson. Lord Curry, in a letter to the secretary of state, writes: “A HMPA ban on fishing would, as Holy Island’s fishermen and residents have expressed, end a thousands-of-years-old industry which still stands at the heart of their community today.” >click to read< 09:48
Whitehall’s eco-zealots are threatening the livelihoods of families who have fished off Holy Island for 1,000 years
Defra, the Whitehall department responsible for fishing, proposes to create a Highly Protected Marine Area of 50 square miles covering the island and parts of the nearby Farne Islands that will have the effect of banning fishing. ‘It will wipe us out and destroy Holy Island as a living and working community,’ says Shaun Brigham, 55, who has been fishing these waters since leaving school at the age of 15. ‘All that’s here is tourism and fishing – so take the fishing away and what would be left? Defra talks about ‘rewilding the sea’ but has produced no evidence that anything here needs rewilding.’ On the contrary, stocks of lobster and brown and velvet crab – which are the only sea-life that can be fished in what is already a highly regulated industry – are greater than they have been for decades, not least because it’s in the long-term interests of the fishermen to abide by strict sustainability rules. >click to read< 13:58
Whitehall fishing ban would ‘rip heart’ out of Holy Island, residents warn
For centuries, fishermen have been the lifeblood of the tiny Holy Island of Lindisfarne off the coast of Northumberland. But red tape from Westminster now threatens to kill off the profession and potentially the entire community, as officials propose banning fishing as part of a drive to rewild the sea. The Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs is consulting on designating the seas to the north of the island, a highly protected marine area, which would outlaw the crab and lobster potters who set sail from the island in the early hours. Fishing is the best-paid job on the island, and fishermen make up around 10 per cent of the population. If they were forced to move for work, they would take their families with them. At least three of these families include fully trained first responders who make up 50 per cent of the coastguard team, and it is said the 999 responses could not function without them. >click to read< 18:50
