Introductory Presentation

Firth of Clyde Forum

Annual Conference 2005

Earning Our Living: the Firth of Clyde as a Sustainable Economic Resource

The Lighthouse, Glasgow © The Lighthouse

Isabel Glasgow, Chair of the Firth of Clyde Forum, chaired the conference. Here we give a summary of the Forum update report, aims of the conference and outline the programme for the day. Click below for the full programme.

Conference programme pdf

Isabel Glasgow began by welcoming all the speakers and delegates, in particular, our Dutch visitors from CityPorts Rotterdam. We were really pleased and excited that they were able to join us and give such a fascinating presentation on port regeneration in Rotterdam from which there was lots to learn for us on the Firth of Clyde.

Isabel gave an update on the work of the Forum in the past year including the review and business planning exercise. This set priorities for the coming two years including continuing to hold information events and an annual conference each year, publishing Forum newsletters, promoting access on and along the water, working on a study on the economic benefits of marine protected areas, liaising with Local Biodiversity officers on their work in the marine environment, a tourism brochure for the area and educational resource and working with the Clyde Pilot Marine Spatial Planning Project.

The Forum has had a successful year having run two successful events and working to develop plans for the Clyde Pilot Marine Spatial Planning Project. The Forum Core Group is becoming more well established and engaged and making very positive contributions to the work of the Forum. We are still looking for further funds for next year and plan to introduce a membership charging scheme in order to generate some of our funds.

At Earning Our Living: the Firth of Clyde as a Sustainable Economic Resource, itself, the quality and range of presentations from the international to more local levels was very high throughout. The main thrust of the day was to look at the many ways the Firth of Clyde provides us with an economic resource , how we use it and whether our use is sustainable. By this the Firth of Clyde Forum takes sustainable to mean economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. In other words, can these activities continue to the socio-economic benefit of the Clyde communities while balancing the needs of the Clyde’s environmental assets. Just how sustainable some of the activities came out to varying degrees in the presentations.

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The day started by looking back at the factors which made the Firth of Clyde economically important initially and the historical growth of the area. We then had a presentation on what sustainable development means in the built environment. The keynote presentation from CityPorts Rotterdam followed before looking at development and regeneration locally on the upper Clyde and the Inverclyde coast. After lunch we turned to tourism in the Firth of Clyde and how we can exploit the resource provided by the natural environment to economic gain in a sustainable manner. The session started with an introduction to the opportunities on the Clyde from Wild Scotland, before a presentation from a Clyde tourist boat operator on their experiences, a view from the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park and the contributions which it makes in the Argyll and Bute coastal area. The session concluded with a fascinating and entertaining presentation from Inverclyde Tourist Group on how a voluntary group grasped a tourism initiative.

Finally, the conference concluded with two presentation on the working and living on the Clyde. Jason Combes introduced the Clyde Fisheries Development Project and how it contributes to the Clyde economy. Euan Dobson explained the background to the Creative Clyde initiative, the community creative projects included and the opportunities for the Clyde Forum and its members to get involved.

Again, as can be seen from this, it was very full day and time was limited for questions. We intend to remedy this timing element next time by including more and longer discussion slots. However, there were nevertheless some interesting discussions had both in the formal sessions and informally.

Isabel Glasgow concluded the day by thanking all the speakers and delegates for their very positive and interesting contributions.

We would welcome any comments you have on the conference or the articles presented here and hope you find this special edition an interesting read.