More than 100 people with an interest in the North Sea attended meetings at Whitby Yacht Club last week.

The meetings were hosted by Net Gain which has been set up to identify and recommend potential sites for Marine Conservation Zones, to protect the flora and fauna of the sea, alongside its natural resources.

Mick Leonard, secretary of The Whitby Charter Skippers' Association, said there was a lot of suspicion among his group's members.

He said: "It seemed to me that they were asking the fishermen to give up their secrets, which of course we hold very close.

"There is the concern that someone could say, 'this is a very good spot for fishing' then next thing we know there is a conservation zone there."

Trawler skipper Richard Brewer said he accepted that protecting the sea was in everyone's interest but there had to be a balance found.

"If we can protect a place that we know is a good nursery for cod or haddock then obviously that is in the fishermen's interest," he said.

"However, I think they need to be a bit more careful with some of the data they are using.

"They showed data showing a decrease in fish landed as a sign of over fishing when everyone knows that the drop is down to quota cuts.

"If there is one thing fishermen know it is their quota stats.

"If we can find a balance then hopefully this scheme will work."

Joanna Redhead, Net Gain's project manager, accepts the prospect of wildlife groups and industrial-scale fishermen coming to an agreement will be "challenging", but is confident it can be achieved.

Her group must submit its final recommendations in 18 months' time.

She said: "The difference between what we're doing and what's been done before is we're taking a stakeholder-led approach.

"By stakeholder I mean anybody who has an interest in or uses the sea for the livelihood or for recreation.

"We will be collecting information from the sea-users like fishermen, anglers, divers, oil and gas firms and people who use it recreationally.

"We then give that data to a group of key stakeholders and ask them to come to a consensus about where the zones should be.

"It's totally different from the normal top-down approach."

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