Quote:
| Originally Posted by Okeanos
DEFRA have been talking to local divers about diving for scallops and are looking into the matter. Somewhere there's an old English law that states something like 'It's every Englishman's right to take food from the sea'.
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That is what is normally referred to as Magna Carta rights, however once you start using a powered vessel, that no longer applies, so shore diving for scallops might be difficult to ban, but boat diving, no problem. I also think if you are protecting a species for "conservation" reasons magna carta would not apply
The proposed byelaw to ban the take of scallops in the SAC by any means has been written and will be discussed by Cornwall Sea Fisheries Committee at their next meeting in April. This in itself is very unusual, the normal procedure is for CSFC to discuss an issue, then vote on whether a byelaw is needed. The byelaw is then written to be discussed at the next quarterly meeting, so this proposal has already skipped one step. CSFC is primarily composed of commercial fishing interests, so I dont think preventing divers gathering a few scallops will bother them
The really strange thing about all this, is that Cornwall has an marine MPA working group (which I sit on) involving representatives from most of the main stakeholder groups (divers, fishermen, conservationists etc) hosted by Cornwall Sea Fisheries Committee. There is also a DEFRA funded project called "Finding Sanctuary" looking at potential MPAs in the Southwest. For some reason CSFC and DEFRA has chosen not to put this proposed scallop closure down this route but try to sneak it in the back door, whilst still presenting it as an MPA proposal.
cheers
dave
drysuitrepair.co.uk