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 The UK’s white fish fleet is under threat from legislation drafted by Europe that’s destroying traditional fishing communities along the Scottish coastline.
In a bid to conserve fish stocks the UK government is destroying hundreds of white fish boats whilst other EU countries receive grants to build boats. So far some 60% of the Scottish fleet has been destroyed and more fishing boats are targeted for decommissioning amongst the small fishing communities along the coastlines of Scotland. In this programme we meet some of those most affected by the decision to limit white fisheries and the efforts of their communities to halt the destruction of their local economies.
At the age of seventeen, Zanda West joined a brand new fishing boat owned by his father, beginning what he hoped would be an exciting period of his life working in his family’s traditional business. Working onboard a fishing vessel off the Scottish coastline is hard work but ultimately highly rewarding and provides the basis for the local economy of Zanda’s hometown Fraserborough – a small town now very much at the heart of the crisis facing the UK’s white fish fleet.
 The people of Fraserborough have seen the control over their seas and decisions governing their livelihoods moved from the hands of the UK government into the control of the European Common Fisheries Policy, which is widely resented by those within the fishing industry. So affected have these communities been by the impact of the CFP, that the people now feel they are fighting for their very survival. On the 5th November 2002 the wives of two Fraserborough fishermen, Carol MacDonald and Morag Ritchie, decided to challenge the decisions that are adversely affecting their husband’s professions and those of hundreds more in their community. They began an extraordinary campaign movement to put pressure on the European Union and the UK government to protect their livelihoods, and so The Cod Crusaders were born.
In the first week of their campaign, Carol and Morag gained over 9,000 signatures for their petition, and a staggering 59,000 signatures within a further four weeks. Before long the women were in Brussels challenging the European Fisheries minister France Fishler face-to-face. “If you remove an industry, especially from the likes of Fraserborough that’s so highly dependant on the fishing, you’re ripping the whole heart out of the community. You’re actually taking the heritage and history away from the community, which is what we are trying to preserve,” say the Cod Crusaders.
Follow this groundbreaking campaign to turn the tide on the collapse of the country’s white fish fleet and share the emotion of those fishermen for whom any changes in legislation will have come too late as they are forced in compulsory purchases, watching helplessly as their ships are stripped bare and destroyed. Don’t miss this opportunity to see ‘Gutted’ right here on Community Channel.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 06 March 2006 )
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