Highly Protected Marine Area – it has such a reassuring ring to it!
But it will be devastating to the Fishing Communities who’ve depended on fishing since the Clearances.
Now they feel they’re being Cleared again. Centuries of traditional skills, family history, local knowledge, centuries of living in harmony with nature, are all being piled on the pyre of Party Political manoeuvring.
The Scottish Green Party describes their attitude to HPMAs on their website:
“HPMAs are a key commitment in the Bute House Agreement between the Scottish Greens and the Scottish Government.”
In other words, the Greens are holding their withdrawal from the Bute House Agreement over the SNP, and are forcing through one of their policies with the SNP government obediently following their instructions.
The First Minister has a long list of apologies to make. This disastrous proposal based on a shabby political deal is the latest.
Hector McLeod, Alba activist.
The history of Green policies is not impressive: the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, the proposed Conversion Therapy ban, the Deposit Return Scheme. All need to be withdrawn or revised.
Now they are forcing through this draconian HPMA.
The issues are raised in this song, currently rising through the charts!
Here is one of the verses from the song:
Donald Francis MacNeil is my name,
Angus MacPhail, who wrote the song and is a founder member of Skipinnish.
I’m a fisherman through to the bone.
I have lived by the creel and the wave
To provide for a family and home.
Generations before me have followed
The toil and the call of the seas
But the soul will be torn from our future
And the heart from the Hebrides.”
There is a consultation, which closes on Monday 17th April, at this address: https://consult.gov.scot/marine-scotland/scottish-highly-protected-marine-areas/consultation/
You can’t submit your comments unless you complete some questions which quite frankly, appear to challenge whether you have a right to hold a view: https://consult.gov.scot/marine-scotland/scottish-highly-protected-marine-areas/consultation/intro/
The ALBA Party have published their response to the Scottish Government’s consultation on
Highly Protected Marine Areas.
ALBA claim that the proposals which could exclude coastal communities from up to 10 per cent of inland waters, place at risk “thousands of livelihoods in fragile coastal communities” and demand their immediate withdrawal.
They also say that the proposals are “potentially unlawful” as they are fundamentally based not on conservation or social-economic objectives, but on an arbitrary 10 per cent target contained in the Bute House political deal between the SNP and the Greens.
ALBA Party Highland and Island activist, Skye based Hector MacLeod said;
“The First Minister has a long list of apologies to make. This disastrous proposal based on a shabby political deal is the latest.
How dare the SNP risk the livelihoods of Scotland’s coastal communities with this poorly researched rubbish? These proposals must be withdrawn now.
Even more important than the risk of breaking the law by prioritising their Green Party political fix over Scotland’s coastal communities, is the breaking of trust between the SNP and rural Scotland.
That is the real political scandal engulfing the SNP”
the breaking of trust between the SNP and rural Scotland
Hector McLeod
Read the ALBA Party’s full response here …