Fisherman are at loggerheads with conservationists over a bid to preserve stocks in the Firth of Clyde.

A charity wants Scottish ministers to back controls over fishing in the Firth to ensure it has a sustainable future, but fishermen have warned of huge job losses if important areas are closed off to them.

The Sustainable Inshore Fisheries Trust (SIFT) is to seek an order to ban certain fishing operations in designated areas to allow stocks of finfish such as whiting, haddock, herring and saithe to replenish.

SIFT executive director Charles Millar said the trust was founded in 2011 not as an environmental organisation or a pro-angling lobby, but as a group committed to improving the sustainability of local fishing through such "spatial management."

He said: "There are some fishermen who are worried that we are trying to close the fishery down. But that is exactly the opposite of what we are trying to do.

"We are trying to diversify the fishery because it basically relies on scallops and prawns. We think if it was managed in the right way, we would be able to bring back commercially viable species of finfish.

"We had intended to submit our application at the end of March, but we are continuing our dialogue with different sections of the industry."

He stressed that his group's consultation document would not be the final document the trust would submit to the Scottish Government, as already some parties have taken issue with sections of it.

Tarbert-based Kenny McNab, chairman of the Clyde Fishermen's Association, which represents 60 boats, was pleased to hear that.

"If it went ahead in its present form it would be devastating. With certain areas being closed off, it would end fishing in Tarbert for about 50 men working in the mobile sector on trawlers and dredgers."

He said the existing proposals would also hit creel fishermen. "They are against it as well."

He said SIFT's proposals wouldn't help the return of finfish.

"We are not catching them. SIFT's science is out of date."

He said two years ago environment secretary Richard Lochhead had set up the Clyde 2020 group which had produced an action plan to address the Clyde's problems which was now being implemented.

"So SIFT is jumping the gun, because they don't think things are going quickly enough."

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "We have not yet received an application for a Regulating Order in respect of the Firth of Clyde.

"Once the application has been received Marine Scotland will undertake a consultation and assessment of the submission before any decision is made on whether to support it. Regulating Orders are subject to Parliamentary approval."

The Firth of Clyde once supported a profitable fishery which produced substantial landings of finfish such as cod, whiting and herring.

But the finfish fishery declined rapidly in the decades following the mid-1970s.

In place of finfish, the Clyde fishery now has to rely on shellfish. According to the trist in 2013 over 99 per cent of the firth's landings were shellfish, 89 per cent of which were scallops and prawns

SIFT claims that relying so heavily on only scallops and prawns "means that the fishery lacks resilience" and could be undermined by disease, contamination, climate change, foreign competition or changes in consumer taste".

If these fisheries decline there is no substantial alternative stock left to fish for, according to SIFT's consultation document.

So it wants to protect sensitive seabed habitats known to be nursery grounds for finfish.

To do so it proposes some areas of the Firth of Clyde would be closed to boats using mobile (trawling) gear; some would be a no go area for those with static gear (creels and pots); while others could be closed or open to both.