Scotland’s underwater environment is neglected, poorly understood, and under serious threat from habitat loss and destructive fishing. Yet it underpins healthy seas and coastal communities, providing fish nursery grounds and storing carbon. We need evidence to identify areas most in need of protection, understand harmful impacts from poorly managed industry, and demonstrate the benefits of protection to secure meaningful, lasting safeguards for these fragile ecosystems.

We want to lift the lid and investigate what is happening underneath the surface of the sea. Using our existing expertise we want to run our biggest research season yet - using our underwater drones to carry out on-the water seabed research across Scottish seas. We will build powerful visual datasets, showing the areas that deserve protection, the impact of bad management decisions, and that reveal impact and recovery, support conservation action and influence marine protection decisions.