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The right of the government to prevent trawlers dredging the sea bottom for shellfish is being challenged in the high court by scallop fishermen.
The scallop, much admired down the centuries by artists, pilgrims and gourmets, provides rich pickings for specialist dredgers who can make £4,000 a trip. But other fishermen believe the destruction the dredging causes to the seabed ruins their chances of making a living.
Scallop dredging excites much anger in the hard-pressed fishing community. The battleground is the Isles of Scilly, and the case is of European importance because it is the first legal challenge to an EU marine special area of conservation (SAC).
The SAC, one of only 12 in Britain, covers a four-mile area around the islands. It prevents large-scale dredging of scallop beds, and imposes such stringent conditions on the practice that fishermen from Cornwall and Devon say it is not economically worth the trip for them to fish in the Scillies.
The leader of a newly formed group of scallop fishermen, Chris Vinnecombe, is seeking a judicial review of a bylaw, introduced in September, which restricts the number of dredgers to two per boat, compared with the six that his organisation maintains is necessary to make money.
English Nature's maritime officer Roger Covey, who advised the government of the need for protection, said: "Dredging is destroying seabed communities, including populations of the rare sea fan and ross coral."
The Department of Environment (), which designates the SACs, said that it will be "fully contesting the claim".
The Isles of Scilly sea fisheries committee, which regulates fisheries in its area, applied for the bylaw. It was supported by the Cornwall sea fisheries committee. Both bodies have a strong membership of fishermen.
The passion that the issue causes is typified by a government official, a former fisherman, who described scallopers as "doing Satan's work".
He and others like him believe dredges destroy the seabed, and reduce marine life and therefore the catch for other fishermen.
Scallopers believe they are fighting for their livelihood in the face of ever increasing government restrictions.
"It was like a Klondike here in the early summer," said Isles of Scilly maritime officer Steve Watt. "We only ever used to have one or two scallopers from the mainland and then infrequently, but then someone started talking about a rich bed of scallops and suddenly a fleet of 17 appeared and blitzed the site.
"They came from as far afield as Plymouth. Allegedly the boats were earning up to £4,000 a day, but they soon fished it out and left. But I do know they were looking at other sites. "
Mr Watt insisted the bylaw was needed on environmental grounds. "It is to protect the slow-growing sea fan and ross coral which is found in the SAC," he said.
The effects of scallop dredging on the seabed are now well known through trials that have been conducted worldwide over the past 10 years.
In Scotland, trials have shown that scallop dredging destroys large numbers of crabs and other crustaceans along with starfish, shellfish, and burrowing sand eels. The Scottish parliament, keen to conserve stocks, is introducing measures that will further restrict dredging.
In the Devon portion of Lyme Bay, where scallop fishermen have agreed not to dredge two areas, three of five key species were up to 10 times more abundant in the protected zones compared with areas unaffected by the scheme.
Jenny Glenville, maritime conservation officer for Devon Wildlife Trust, said: "We have found that scallop dredging causes significant and lasting damage to reef habitats and their associated species."
She added: "We had a lovely seabed with lots of sponges and sea fans and that sort of thing. And, at the end of the dredging, we had a pretty barren area that was also quite devoid of habitat - because one of things that dredgers do is to remove the boulders and cobbles."
A spokesman said: "The aim of the bylaw is to protect the seabed within this area from damage from intensive use of multiple dredges, to protect the features of interest within the SAC around the islands and to ease potential increased effort on local fish stocks."
Andrew Oliver, of solicitors Andrew Jackson of Hull, advising Chris Vinnecombe, said the legal challenge was on procedural grounds.
He will argue that the secretary of state's decision to issue the bylaw was "irrational and unreasonable
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