The Scottish Entanglement Alliance (SEA) is a partnership of six organisations dedicated to promoting and protecting Scotland’s wildlife, heritage and sustainable marine industries. SEA work closely with the Scottish inshore fishing industry to provide a co-ordinated, comprehensive monitoring and engagement programme to better understand the scale and impact of marine animal entanglements in our waters, and work towards developing strategies to reduce this threat.
SMEEF’s funding is supporting SEA to work with Scottish creel fishermen to address entanglement risks through piloting the increased use of negatively buyout ‘sinking rope’. The project focuses on stakeholder engagement and providing fishermen with the new sinking rope and training on how to deploy.
In 2025, SMEEF was able to provide total grants of £44,000 to the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation to support the Scottish Entanglement Alliance using resources donated by businesses and from the Nature Restoration Fund. This is a great example of public and private finance working together.