Thank you, Rod Liddle, for highlighting the appalling practice of scallop dredging (Comment, last week). I have been diving in UK waters for more than 30 years and know instantly when a trawler has been in the area scallop dredging: the sea bed is totally trashed and barren. Consumers need to know that unless they are buying diver-caught scallops they are complicit in the degradation of our marine habitat. If the government cares about the environment it needs to ban scallop dredging.
Susan Berry, Sutton, London
Hidden destruction
For more than 50 years I dived in the area known as Lulworth Banks in Dorset. I have witnessed what scallop dredging has done to underwater ledges and reefs: if pristine heathland was trashed in a similar way the public would be outraged and it would be stopped immediately.
Mike Smeaton, Winfrith, Dorset
Climate at risk
Liddle is right: scallop dredging is one of the most destructive ways of catching fish invented. It gained ground in the 1980s as traditional fish stocks declined and fishermen sought alternatives — but in fact the damage dredgers caused to seabed habitats hastened the collapse of those stocks.
Today, across large swathes of UK seas, continued scallop dredging undermines any attempts to rebuild fish stocks and protect wildlife. If that were not sufficient reason to abandon dredging, we now realise that digging up the seabed creates underwater carbon emissions, thereby hastening climate change. Hand-dived scallops are expensive but the right choice.
Callum Roberts, professor of marine conservation, Exeter University
Plumbing the depths
Rod could also have mentioned the carbon released in burning the fuel needed to pull these heavy dredgers. In the port where I live Scottish trawlers come down every winter and turn to scallop dredging. Even the local fishermen think it’s unsustainable.
Simon Willis, Plymouth
Buy British
As a recreational diver, I have seen some of the almost irreparable destruction created by fishing boats dredging for scallops and langoustine. Too many folk are guilty of mindless consumption and do not care to think about where things come from — or the unseen price.
Regarding his wider point on Cop26, if people want to do something to help our planet, start at home. How many goods are made in China? And how can anyone dictate to the Chinese government, telling them to reduce its emissions, when all it is doing is supplying the demand? We should try harder to buy more sustainable goods, made closer to home.
Faith de Sancha, Dumfries
