FOR EIGHT years until 2010 the Scottish Seals Forum was convened by ministers to allow stakeholders to debate and help formulate policy on the creatures.
Representatives from industry, campaign groups, government agencies and universities met regularly to discuss the health and protection of one of Scotland’s most-loved marine mammals. There’s still a government website with the minutes of all their meetings.
But then, gradually and inexplicably, the forum faded away. No meetings have been called for the last six years, despite requests to hold them. No explanation has been offered as to why the forum has fallen into abeyance.
As we report today, this has caused concern amongst animal welfare groups and Green politicians. Revelations over the last two weeks, as part of the Sunday Herald’s campaign to stop the slaughter of seals, make the forum more necessary than ever, they say.
We agree. The evidence that hundreds of seals have been inhumanely shot, and the threat posed to the £200 million US market for Scottish salmon, are good reasons to bring the Scottish Seals Forum back to life.
It is not good enough for Scottish Ministers to simply “review the need for further formal meetings” and rely on other networks. They should reassemble the forum so that it can discuss these disturbing issues, and help chart a way forward.
Otherwise ministers will be accused of failing to face up to the problems - and of allowing seals to suffer.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here