Pentland Firth Orkney Waters Marine Spatial Plan: Value Added in the Fish Supply Chain in Orkney and Northern Highlands

Aims and Objectives

The aims of this research are to investigate the value of inshore fisheries to onshore activities in Orkney and Northern Highlands and the socio-economic links to local auxiliary businesses and local communities.

The project objectives are to;

1) Quantify the value of species landed into PFOW to the catching sector using ScotMap, Vessel Monitoring System ( VMS) and the official landings data.
2) Quantify the proportion of species from inside PFOW-SA going into the processing sector in Orkney and the Northern Highlands.
3) Analyse, via an Input-Output ( IO) framework, the economic benefits to Orkney and the Northern Highlands from the processing industry.
4) Use the IO framework to provide scenario based outputs (10%) to quantify the wider economic impacts from reduced fishing activity in PFOW-SA.
5) Qualitatively measure the potential community impacts from a reduction in fish landings coming from the PFOW-SA.

Figure 1: Map of PFOW showing the Crown Estate Strategic Area and the wave and tidal Agreement for Lease areas.