Fish and Fisheries Advisory Group
SEPA has created a Fish and Fisheries Advisory
Group, which is a River Basin District Advisory Group under Section
17 of the Water Environment and Water Services Act (Scotland)
2003.
The main purpose of the Advisory Group is to
provide advice to SEPA within the Scotland and Solway Tweed river
basin districts on:
- monitoring and classification of fish
populations;
- protection of fish populations and fisheries
interests when regulating activities which affect the water
environment.
The Fish and Fisheries Advisory Group can
convene meetings with representatives of wider stakeholder
interests in order to progress the development of work such as
regulatory guidance.
The Advisory Group includes representatives
from organisations who have fish or fisheries interests, such
as:
Together with SEPA regulatory, policy and
fisheries science staff, the membership provides a wide knowledge
base available to advise us on strategic issues relating to the
development of policy, guidance and research in the protection of
fish and fisheries.
The expertise within the Fish and Fisheries
Advisory Group will support SEPA’s in-house fish science
capabilities. SEPA has ecologists based in area teams who have
varying levels of fisheries expertise and have been involved in
water quality issues in the past. With SEPA’s responsibilities for
abstractions, the Ecology function is now supported by 5 further
staff specialising in fisheries: a Senior Fisheries Scientist, 2
Fisheries Scientists and 2 Assistant Fisheries Scientists.
Meeting minutes