CLIMATE activists dressed as “merpeople” are staging a protest outside the First Minister’s official residence in Edinburgh.
The three Cornish activists, part of the group Ocean Rebellion, are wearing crowns made of sea litter to urge Nicola Sturgeon to take the lead in keeping the world’s oceans alive.
The activists say the “merpeople” costumes represent the degradation of sea life around the world.
The group plans to project slogans onto the First Minister’s house, broadcasting how industrial fishing is damaging the planet’s seas.
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Ocean Rebellion also plans on projecting the slogans in French to highlight what they describe as “toxic politics” in the recent fishing row between the UK and France.
Shining a spotlight on bottom trawling, their slogans will read: “Don’t touch my bottom”; “la politique toxique permet le chalutage de fond”; “la me rest vide”; “Boris is tangled in industrial fishing”; “le nouveau probleme du carbone bleu”; and “save the fish, Sturgeon”.
The activists say bottom trawling is estimated to emit more CO2 than global aviation.
Campaigners have warned that bottom trawling is devastating the seabed, and are urging governments world-wide to act before it is too late.
Rob Higgs from Ocean Rebellion said: “Imagine how much damage a net bigger than a jumbo jet causes as it drags across the seabed. It catches everything in its path (whatever that might be), destroys marine life, and releases the ‘blue’ carbon stored there."
Blue carbon refers to the CO2 which is stored in the sea. When the seabed is damaged by bottom trawling, this blue carbon is released, switching the seabed from a carbon sink to a source of CO2 and methane (CH4), a much more potent greenhouse gas.
Climate activist Roc Sandford said: “Humanity has declared war on fish and we’re winning.
“The ocean is so depleted that small fishing communities are on the edge of survival and areas of former plenty are now empty.
“Over 100 million people rely on inshore subsistence and small-scale artisanal fishing for their daily food and livelihood − often using the same waters targeted by bottom trawlers.
“It’s a no-brainer to ban bottom trawling both on climate breakdown and nature breakdown grounds.
“Climate breakdown and nature breakdown are effectively the same thing and both have to be stopped now.”
Clive Russell from Ocean Rebellion added: “The facts are damning. Bottom trawlers land around 19 million tonnes of seafood annually.
“This is almost a quarter of global marine landings and is an amount larger than any other fishing method – it really is emptying our Ocean.
“Plus, over the past 65 years alone, bottom trawlers have discarded overboard more than 400m tonnes of unwanted marine life (bycatch).
“Had this catch been landed, it would have been worth around $560 billion, that’s an enormous amount of dead marine life, dolphins, sharks, turtles – all of these are considered ‘bycatch’.”
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Activist Suzanne Stallard added: “The ocean can recover quickly, but only if we halt this destructive practice now, within a few years these precious ecosystems will regenerate and fish populations will stabilise.
"We just need to give life a chance, if we don’t, there will be no more fish in the sea.”
Bally Croft from Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Association said: “To meet the challenges of the biodiversity and climate crisis Scotland desperately needs to transition to low impact fisheries, especially in our inshore waters where much of our carbon and biodiversity is currently being impacted.
“The Scottish Government’s own evidence shows if we restrict inshore trawling we can actually increase employment within our small scale artisanal low impact fisheries sectors and regenerate our coastal communities.”
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