麻豆社

Mackerel, once considered one of the lowliest fish and derided as a scavenger of the seas, is now Scotland's most valuable catch. It's also its most contentious, lying at the heart of a long-running international dispute. In 2008 when Iceland and the Faroe Islands declared their own quotas for mackerel, allowing themselves far more than had ever previously been agreed, a war of words - and sometimes even of direct action - broke out.
Scotland is the heartland of Britain's mackerel fleet, with twenty five trawlers, based mainly in Fraserburgh, Peterhead and Shetland. Fishing has long been crucial to the survival of towns like Fraserburgh, so to what extent could this dispute threaten the future of an already fragile economy? And do local sympathies lie with the mackerel fishermen, or has the decline of fishing and the rise of the oil industry destroyed the traditional allegiances?
Presented and produced by Moira Hickey.