It is happening hundreds of miles off Scotland’s coastlines. Boats are being fined thousands of pounds for entering marine protected areas (MPAs), where new fishing rules are designed to protect underwater species and seabed habitats.
But charities are casting doubt about whether this new enforcement system goes far enough to deter illegal fishing. They also question whether the fines will help the Scottish Government meet its own legal requirement to improve the state of the seabed, which, they say, it has so far failed to do.
A total of 36 boats have been fined £140,000 in the last 10 months. Between 16 October 2025 and 20 August this year, 28 fines of £4,000 were issued, as were six fines of £2,000.
A further two people were fined twice, paying £8,000 each, according to a freedom of information request. Four of those fines have not yet been paid and their cases are being referred to the procurator fiscal.
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Offshore MPAs cover vast swathes of Scottish coastal waters – around 176,000 square kilometers. They were set up to protect species like 400-year-old clams, the orange roughy fish, gulper shark and Portuguese dogfish, and habitats including burrowed mud, coldwater coral reefs, ancient deepwater sponge fields and areas where methane seeps from the seabed.
Although the MPAs themselves were introduced more than a decade ago, the new rules that prohibit fishing inside them only came into effect on 16 October 2025.
None of the fines over the last 10 months necessarily mean these boats were fishing illegally – they only indicate that the vessels entered an offshore MPA and were travelling below the required speed of six knots.
Enforcement is carried out via remote electric monitoring of boats and a “geofencing” system – which creates a virtual boundary around and records any breaches. Along with satellite imagery, this lets the Scottish Government’s Marine Directorate know which boats entered an MPA, when, and how long they stayed.
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Boats can enter the GPS coordinates of the MPAs into their ‘plotter’ to make sure they avoid those areas and are allowed to enter if they call or email the UK Fisheries Monitoring Centre’s 24/7 central office to explain their presence due to, for example, bad weather or a mechanical issue.
Each reported incursion is investigated by a fisheries officer. If a fine is issued, “mitigating factors” can result in the fine being halved to £2,000, but there is no further breakdown of Marine Directorate data to explain who is given a fine or what these mitigating factors are.
Neither does public data on the number of MPA fines issued in a given period currently distinguish between offshore and inshore, despite the Scottish Government itself telling The Ferret that these areas are “fundamentally different”.
The new fisheries management orders mean that trawling is now banned in 93.5 per cent of offshore MPAs, according to the Scottish Government, which said there had been “improved compliance” in offshore areas due to better understanding of the rules, education and “a fair and evidenced enforcement regime”.
Rea Cris, public affairs manager at campaign group Open Seas, said it is “vital” that fisheries authorities protect Scottish seas from illegal activity. “We welcome any evidence from the marine directorate that sanctions are being imposed,” she said. “But unless authorities are transparent about compliance and enforcement data it is impossible to have confidence in marine management.”
Open Seas was backed by Charles Millar, chief executive of the Sustainable Inshore Fisheries Trust, who said although it is good news the majority of the fines – around £108,000 have been paid already – a “persistent level of offending, or even re-offending”, can show that the deterrent effect is not working.
“As to whether £4,000 [offshore] fines are enough, our main focus as an organisation is inshore, but I think that my initial response was ‘that doesn’t sound very high’, especially when you consider some of the inshore fines south of the border are six figures,” he added.
“[Setting fines high enough in general] seems to us to be a potential win-win. You dissuade the small minority of bad actors from doing things illegally, and it’s a win for everyone else.”
However, the head of a Scottish fishing federation, which represents offshore boats, and who wanted to stay anonymous, said there was “no justice” if a fine was handed out when a boat had, for example, simply broken down in the wrong place.
Most of the offshore MPAs where the new fishing rules apply do not ban dredging and trawling across the whole site, and instead have drawn up certain zones where fishing is prohibited. This site-by-site approach was supported by the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF), which represents more than 450 boats, including large offshore trawlers.
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In fact, only five of the 20 offshore MPAs have implemented a total site-wide ban, in contrast to what the joint nature conservation committee, the government’s own scientific advisers, recommended.
The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation declined to comment.
Calum Duncan, head of policy and advocacy at the Marine Conservation Society, pointed out that trawling below 800 metres has been illegal since 2017, therefore a large swathe of Scotland’s offshore waters were arguably already protected.
He added: “The important thing now is to look forward and to ensure these sites are monitored scientifically so we understand how those sites are doing with those restrictions in place and see that they meet their conservation objectives.”
In June, Environmental Standards Scotland (ESS) found that Scottish ministers failed to fulfil their legal duties under the Marine Strategy Regulations 2010 to protect and restore Scotland’s seafloor.
Charities and campaigners hope the ESS report will add pressure to the Scottish Government when it comes to the long-delayed consultation, launched on 14 September, on how to better protect Scotland’s large network of more than 100 MPAs.
Compared to the offshore enforcement system, where the burden of proof is low, the network of inshore MPAS , which sit within 12 miles of the coastline, is much more opaque and complex. Indeed, the inshore and offshore fishing fleets are often treated as separate industries, due to the number and size of boats, the sort of gear they deploy and the species they fish.
While the vast majority of offshore MPAs are closed to trawling, just 13 per cent of inshore MPAs are closed to scallop dredging and trawling for species like prawns, lobsters and langoustines. The Ferret discovered that no fixed penalty notices were issued for inshore MPAs in the whole of 2025.
‘Culture of non-compliance’
Environmental groups previously warned of a widespread “culture of non-compliance” with inshore fishing after an investigation by The Ferret found that thousands of offences go unprosecuted every year.
Only boats longer than 12 metres are required to be tracked electronically, and most of the several thousand boats that fish closer to shore are smaller than that. However, the Marine Directorate is exploring how to roll out monitoring of the entire fleet.
Of the newly-launched inshore consultation, a Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Our focus is on ensuring that whatever measures are introduced can be enforced effectively and efficiently.”
The spokesperson said inshore areas are “fundamentally different” to offshore ones, and that further work is required to determine whether a similar enforcement system of monitoring boats’ speed in MPAs would be effective closer to shore.
They added that 37 per cent of Scottish seas are now designated as MPAs, with fisheries management measures already in place for a “significant percentage” of the MPA network.
However, Joe Richards, Scotland project manager of the Blue Marine Foundation believes that while it is “encouraging that the monitoring and enforcement measures have been put in place, the scale of non-compliance and number of repeat offences raises questions”.
To his mind this does not go far enough. He said: “If Scotland is serious about restoring marine habitats, protecting coastal livelihoods and ensuring MPA measures deliver real benefits, effective monitoring and enforcement must be in place across all our waters and all fishing vessels.”
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