John P. Grant

The conflict between the fishing and the oil industries in the North Sea A case study

Abstract The activities of the fishing and oil industries are essentially incompatible. Offshore extractive operations, and the installations and devices associated therewith, pose a number of problems for a long-established fishing industry: areas of sea become closed to fishing, offshore structures can constitute a hazard to navigation, debris from offshore operations can damage fishing gear and vessels and offshore operations can result in damage to fish stocks and their food through pollution. This paper is an attempt to assess the manner in which one country, the United Kingdom, has sought to reconcile the fishing and oil industries in the North Sea. It is clear that, with the exception of the control of pollution, law is in itself an instrument incapable of meeting the needs of the two industries. Generally, law provides only a framework and needs to be filled out with practices and with attitudes. Indeed, for many of the points of conflict between the two industries much more can be achieved by liaison, the interchange of problems and cooperation than by simple dictate of law. The United Kingdom has, through a variety of means, created a not unharmonious relationship between two industries whose interests do not usually converge.