Current status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 9 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its fisheries management strategy delivery plan update 2025, how it anticipates that creating separate fisheries management and conservation (FMAC) groups for the fishing industry and other stakeholders will deliver on the principle of co-management.
Following the FMAC review last year it is apparent that the structure and membership of the group was making co-management ineffective and the FMAC group has therefore been split. The new structure will still allow industry, environmental and other groups to contribute to policy development and delivery, and the different groups can engage together on an ad-hoc basis as needed to exchange views. This will still enable co-management to take place and will help different groups to engage productively, even though not all voices will be in the same room.