Western Waters
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The Western Waters effort regime applies to UK fishing vessels over 15 metres in length fishing in UK territorial waters to the west of Scotland, Wales, England including the Channel and south west towards France and Spain (ICES Areas VI, VII and VIII).
The Western Waters Scheme will shortly be reviewed and furthers details of this review will be published here in due course.
There are two regimes:
- scallop effort- applying to king (Pecten Maximus) and queen scallops (Aequipecten opercularis) and,
- crab scheme- applying to fishing for Edible/Brown Crab (Cancer Pagurus) and spider crab (Maja Squinado)
The UK fisheries administrations (UKFAs) – the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Marine Scotland, Department of Agriculture & Rural Development Northern Ireland and the Welsh Government – have joint responsibility for the regime.
The scheme is managed by the setting of effort limits in the relevant fishing vessel licence.