Economic and Social Impact of the Fisheries Industry – Defra, Marine Scotland, DAERA and Welsh Government

This report considers the economic and social impacts of the fishing sector (marine fishing, aquaculture and fish processing) on small-scale geographies of individual coastal villages and towns.  The high-level aims of the study were to:

• Conduct a thorough literature review of the evidence base concerning the nature of economic and social impacts at a local scale.
• Report on direct and indirect impacts for different types of settlement.
• Analyse how impacts differ between localities.
• Describe the impacts of specific exogenous shocks
• Model impacts on the locality in the event of changes in scale to the sector.
• Consider how evidence can be best presented in the future.

The evidence presented is based on an extensive literature review and fieldwork in sixteen locations across the UK.