We promote sustainable fishing and fish farming practices and effective marine protected area management. To this end we are founder members of the Salmon Aquaculture Reform Network Scotland, we established the Coastal Communities Network with FFI and we are members of the Clyde Marine Planning Partnership to work with and hold Clyde region stakeholders to account to produce an environmentally sustainable Clyde Marine Plan in 2020.
COAST has a good relationship with larger Scottish e-NGO’s, especially the Marine Conservation Society through our local Seasearch surveys and training as well as feeding local marine litter data from our beach cleans into MCS’s BeachWatch programme.
We have also supported the Scottish Environment Link Marine Group’s campaign “Don’t take the P out of our MPA’s”. Their Save Scottish Seas website gives a good insight into the development of the MPA Network in Scotland.
We have also collaborated with the Great Nurdle Hunt, organised by FIDRA and with the Clyde Marine Mammal Project, who are monitoring porpoise populations in the Clyde.
The National Trust for Scotland, the Scottish Wildlife Trust, the Whales and Dolphin Conservation Trust and RSPB Scotland are also very active in improving coastal and marine policy in Scotland.
Other important conservation stakeholders, with whom we communicate on the Scottish West Coast, are the Mull Aquarium and the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust.
