Ocean Film Festival Tour Magazine - 2023 Virtual Edition

the custodians
17 minutes
Filmmaker: Arthur Neumeier
Meet three locals from the west coast of Scotland who are reclaiming
their natural coastlines – and find out how you can help too
hings have changed a lot in the last
“T40 years. Divers will tell you that in
the 1970s it looked like the Red Sea. It was
certainly as biodiverse, but now it’s all gone.”
The Custodians travels to the north west
coast of Scotland, to meet three people
from different walks of life who have a
common goal: to restore wildlife and create
sustainable fishing industries. A fisherman,
a marine scientist and a conservation charity
founder, all three focus on the same issues:
the catastrophic effect of bottom trawling
– dredging the seabed for a single species
which kills all other creatures and destroys
seagrass meadows in the process – and the
lifting of the inshore limit, which has allowed
the practice to happen close to shore.
First up is Danny Renton, CEO and founder
of the charity Seawilding, which is the UK’s
first community-led native oyster and
seagrass restoration project. Seagrass is vital
in terms of climate change – it traps carbon
for thousands of years, storing more carbon
than all of Scotland’s on-land peat, forestry
and soil combined. A healthy seagrass
meadow is also a spawning ground for fish.
With the help of local volunteers, Seawilding
is trialling multiple methods to understand
how best to restore seagrass, at the lowest
possible cost, and at scale.
Next up is Ailsa McLellan, a marine
scientist who helps fishermen get a voice in
UK & IRELAND OCEAN FILM FESTIVAL TOUR
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