Alasdair Macleod, a life lived and lost at sea

Apologies for the silence on here in recent weeks folks, this is not because we have nothing to report, quite the opposite! As this phase of the SEA project comes to a close (April 2020 is our ‘official’ deadline) the project partners have been busy pulling together all of the data that has been collected into final reports, reviews and recommendations. We have also been busy giving presentations and attending meetings in a bid to secure further funding to continue working with the Scottish inshore fishing community to address concerns around entanglement and move towards trialling some of the mitigation measures suggested by the fishers themselves.

So plenty more to follow soon! But in the meantime, I was recently sent a link to the full version of an interview with Ali Macleod, which was featured in the film ‘The Fish in the Sea’. Ali was a creel fishermen who lived in Applecross on the north west coast of Scotland and fished the surrounding waters, and I was lucky enough to chat to him several times in the Inn (usually over langoustines he’d caught himself that day).

Like so many of the fishermen I have met through the SEA project, Ali was passionate about the environment and the wildlife he worked alongside, and believed wholeheartedly in the need to fish sustainably. This was reflected in the way he worked, which he discusses in this interview – ‘The best fisherman is not the guy who catches the most fish, he’s the guy happiest catching the least because he can leave some for the next generation’.

Ali was a founder of one of SEA’s partner organisations, the Scottish Creel Fisher men’s Federation (SCFF) which was formed in 2012 to give creel fishermen the chance to unite and make their voices heard at a national level.

He died at sea in late 2017, age 57.

You can watch his interview in full here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQC2cKZbDaM

Ali also wrote a blog about life in a vibrant but fragile community, which you can read here: https://applecrosslifeblog.wordpress.com/

Ali Macleod (Snoddy).