The fishing industry in Scotland comprises a significant proportion of the United Kingdom fishing industry. A recent inquiry by the Royal Society of Edinburgh found fishing to be of much greater social, economic and cultural importance to Scotland than it is relative to the rest of the UK. Scotland has just 8.4 per cent of the UK population but lands at its ports over 60 per cent of the total catch in the UK. Many of these are ports in relatively remote communities such as Kinlochbervie and Lerwick, which are scattered along an extensive coastline and which, for centuries, have looked to fishing as the main source of employment. Restrictions imposed under the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) affect all European fishing fleets, but they have proved particularly severe in recent years for the demersal fish or whitefish sector (boats mainly fishing for cod, haddock and whiting) of the Scottish fishing industry. Fishing areas The main fishing areas are the North Sea and the seas west of Scotland. Historical development Fish have been recognised as a major food source from the earliest times. Fishing was important to the earliest settlers in Scotland, around 7000 BC. At this stage, fishing was a subsistence activity, undertaken only to feed the fisher and their immediate community. By the medieval period, salmon and herring were important resources and were exported to continental Europe, and the towns of the Hanseatic League in particular. As the industry developed, "fishertouns" and villages sprang up to supply the growing towns and fishing became more specialised. The many religious houses in Scotland acted as a spur to fisheries, granting exclusive fishing rights and demanding part of their tithes in fish. In the early 19th century, the British Government began to subsidise the catches of herring boats larger than 60 tons, plus an additional bounty on all herring sold abroad. This, coupled with the coming of the railways as a means of more rapid transport, gave an opportunity to Scottish fishermen to deliver their catches to markets much more quickly than in the past. Herring is considered a delicacy on the Continent and was caught relatively easily off the Coast of Scotland – off the East Coast during winter and spring, off the North Coast of Scotland and Shetland during the summer months and, in the autumn, off the Coast of East Anglia. At this time, there were as many as