Protect sea bed before it's too late

MSP Monica Lennon and a leading marine charity have written to ministers demanding emergency action to protect global warming fighting carbon stores in sea lochs.

- BY DAN VEVERS

The Sustainable Inshore Fisheries Trust (SIFT) said the “extraordinary” carbon-sucking abilities of seabed ecosystems like kelp and seagrass in places like Loch Fyne were being put at risk by industrial dredging and trawling.

It comes as Sir David Attenborough’s new film about the oceans laid bare the brutal toll of commercial trawlers which tear up the sea floor indiscriminately.

Less than five per cent of Scotland's inshore seabed is legally protected from them.