Memorandum submitted by the Royal Society
for the Protection of Birds
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
i. Better and more co-ordinated protection
of the marine environment is needed. Marine conservation currently
lags well behind that on land.
ii. The RSPB is campaigning, through Wildlife
and Countryside Link, for comprehensive marine legislation. Such
legislation should include putting an ecosystem-based approach
to marine management, better protection for sites and species,
better strategic planning of activities in the marine environment,
improved enforcement of marine legislation, and reform of legislation
governing Sea Fisheries Committees and other fisheries legislation.
iii. Our evidence concentrates on two main
areas, Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and protection
of important marine wildlife sites.
iv. The introduction of SEA for all marine
plans and programmes (ideally within the framework of a marine
spatial planning system) will improve the early identification
of environmental problems, thus helping avoid and minimise them.
v. The principal barrier to full SEA analysis
has been the lack of information on the most sensitive environmental
areas at sea, the designated conservation sites. The delay in
designating, and collecting the data necessary to designate, these
sites hampers both the SEA analysis of potential impacts and the
protection of important marine wildlife sites. We call for focussed
data gathering and rapid designation to address these problems.
vi. Nationally important marine wildlife
areas do not receive the protection they merit, in contrast to
the relatively strong protection for Sites of Special Scientific
Interest on land. Current mechanisms which seek to protect these
nationally important sites—eg Marine Nature Reserves—are
not working.
vii The UK has global and regional commitments
to establish an ecologically coherent network of marine protected
areas—including a suite of nationally important marine wildlife
areas—by 2010 at the latest. Recommendations on how this
can be achieved are in place - what is required now is clear political
will, and an appropriate legislative opportunity.
INTRODUCTION
1. The RSPB is grateful to be invited to
submit evidence to the Committee's inquiry. Our evidence is divided
into three sections.
2. Section 1 concentrates on the Committee's
terms of reference, particularly the positive benefits of Strategic
Environmental Assessment (SEA) of marine plans and programmes.
The RSPB welcomes the use of SEA to facilitate informed decision-making
and believes it should be carried out for all marine activities.
SEA enables potential impacts of plans and programmes to be identified,
in turn avoiding, or at least minimising, environmental damage.
The delay in designating the full suite of marine Special Areas
of Conservation (SACs) and marine Special Protection Areas (SPAs)
is a major barrier to effective SEA, and we urge rapid identification
and designation to facilitate decision-making, informed by SEA
and protection of marine biodiversity. Designation must be based
on sufficient and appropriate data—at present, this is not
being gathered quickly enough.
3. Section 2 examines the need for legislation
to allow the identification and designation of a network of sites
to protect important marine wildlife and habitats. Our emphasis
is on nationally important sites, which presently fall between
the legislative gaps, leaving much marine wildlife unprotected.
4. Finally, section 3 summarises a number
of other areas of marine policy which need to be examined.
SECTION 1: STRATEGIC
ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT
5. SEA is a systematic process for evaluating
the environmental consequences of policies, plans and programmes.
It is widely accepted as a means of integrating environmental
considerations into the mainstream of decision-making. SEA has
the potential to promote more sustainable decision-making and
to strengthen and streamline project level Environmental Impact
Assessment (EIA) through early identification of potential impacts
and cumulative effects. It can address strategic issues related
to the justification and location of proposals and reduce the
time and effort necessary to assess individual developments/activities.
6. The EU Directive on "the assessment
of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment"—the
SEA Directive—must be implemented by 21 July 2004. The RSPB
urges government to prepare for its implementation in the marine
environment, and welcomes the UK's policy commitment to carry
out SEA for certain activities in the interim. We support the
establishment of a robust SEA process, incorporating SEA best
practice informing, and clearly linked to, the decision about
what form activities/developments will take. It should also inform
and be linked to future developments/uses for that and other activities.
7. The SEA Directive will require mandatory
assessment of certain marine plans and programmes. The provisions
governing its scope are complex and, to date, the Government has
not indicated which plans and programmes it expects to be covered.
The UK is currently producing SEAs for oil and gas exploration
and offshore windfarm development, but they should cover all activities,
with wide interpretation of the Directive so all plans and programmes
for activities in the marine environment likely to have significant
environmental effects benefit from SEA. For example, fisheries
are widely regarded as one of the most damaging activities in
the marine environment, yet no environmental assessment is currently
carried out on them.
8. Ideally, SEAs should be carried out within
the framework of a marine spatial planning system (see below).
However, even without such a system, introduction of SEA for marine
activities would facilitate the development of a strategic approach
to offshore decision-making, enabling more sustainable resource
use. As well as SEA of marine plans and programmes, policy appraisals
should be carried out for all Government policies and regulations
to consider their potential effects on the marine environment.
9. The RSPB wishes to see changes in the
way that fisheries, in particular inshore fisheries, are managed,
to protect both commercial stocks and wider marine wildlife and
habitats. SEAs should occur in the context of "regional seas",
eg the Irish Sea. They should define baseline data for fisheries
against which assessments of "new" fisheries, ie those
for new species, in new grounds or using new techniques, could
be made. Such SEAs and EIAs would be a major step forward in implementing
an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management.
10. Dispersed or sectoral decision-making
and assessment prevents cumulative or "in-combination"
effects from being adequately assessed and addressed. Therefore,
the true impacts and pressures on the marine environment are not
fully understood. To overcome this weakness, SEAs should be carried
out on a cross-sectoral basis to enable effective consideration
of the cumulative impacts of the full range of activities on the
marine environment.
11. The delay in designating important sites
for marine species and habitats is impeding marine biodiversity
conservation. There is no network of protected sites for internationally
important wildlife at sea either through the offshore European
nature conservation (Natura 2000) sites—although consultation
is underway—or the OSPAR network of marine protected areas
(MPAs), and no formal nationally important marine designations
(see Section 2). Evidence increasingly shows that marine protected
areas can benefit local economies. A recent University of York
study found that reserves closed to fishing could actually lead
to the restoration of fish stocks in adjacent fisheries, as fish
"spill over" from reserves into the fishing grounds,
thus maintaining and in some cases even enhancing catches.
12. Information about actual, or even potential,
marine protected areas within the Natura 2000 network, plus other
conservation sites, is essential for effective marine SEA. Without
such information, SEAs will be incomplete. The RSPB thus believes
that designation of marine protected areas must be progressed
urgently. The identification of sensitive marine areas would assist
in the planning and development of the marine environment, providing
a clear indication of where conflicts might arise between development,
users and wildlife conservation. Knowing where the conservation
sites are will avoid such conflicts, making planning and consenting
proposals more straightforward and reducing the risk to developers
and the environment. This will also have economic benefits, enabling
SEA on development/activities to proceed with confidence—the
current uncertainty helps no-one, and may actually increase risk,
something SEA is designed to reduce.
13. The lack of designations, and sufficient
information to make such designations, presents a risk that some
potentially qualifying sites may be irreparably damaged by development
or other activities. Therefore, a precautionary approach should
apply in areas that may qualify as future European marine sites.
14. These problems are compounded by a lack
of knowledge and data about marine habitats and species. To advance
both the SEA process and marine wildlife conservation, the UK
must focus on environmental research, survey and monitoring needs,
and the production of SEA best practice guidance. The funding
and responsibility for this work must be given priority within
government and progressed immediately.
15. Marine spatial planning would also advance
SEA, providing the basis for determining development proposals,
resource use, and management of the marine environment. The marine
spatial plan would take a strategic plan-led and geographically
broad overview of how the marine environment can be sustainably
used and managed. Within this framework, SEA of specific areas
in the context of particular activities (eg oil and gas exploration,
offshore renewables, aggregates, etc) would be a tool to ensure
environmental issues are fully explored in marine spatial planning.
The implementation of SEA should not be a surrogate for long-term,
forward looking marine spatial planning. In an increasingly pressured
marine environment, such planning is essential to avoid conflict
over uses and damage to conservation sites, and to ensure proper
assessment of cumulative effects. Marine consenting regimes must
operate within a plan-led system, as they do on land.
16. The Government should take the opportunity
provided by the introduction of new industries such as offshore
wind and other renewable technologies, and its review of marine
consenting processes, to introduce fully integrated and multi-sectoral
marine spatial planning—a planning system for the sea.
SECTION 2: PROTECTING
IMPORTANT MARINE
SITES
17. It is thought that over 50% of UK biodiversity
is found in the marine environment. While much of that environment
has been damaged and degraded, there are still many areas where
important habitats and species are found all around the UK's coasts.
18. There is a long history of identifying
and protecting nationally important wildlife sites on land. The
first Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) were notified
in 1949. The level of protection afforded to SSSIs has increased
over the years, first through the Wildlife & Countryside Act
1981 and then, in England and Wales, through amendments to that
Act by the Countryside & Rights of Way Act 2000. However,
despite the increased protection SSSI notification can bring to
a site, SSSIs are of limited use in the marine environment. Coastal
policy guidance states that they do not normally extend below
the mean low water mark, but can where there is local authority
jurisdiction. Even where SSSIs do extend below this mark, they
are of limited value because:
— The SSSI system is designed around
owners and occupiers of land delivering positive management of
sites—in marine areas, most activities likely to need management
are carried out by non-owner/occupiers (ie third parties); and
— In marine areas, competent authorities
(especially Government Departments) play a much bigger role than
on land.
19. The first legislation specific to protecting
marine wildlife was introduced through the Wildlife & Countryside
Act 1981. It gave the Secretary of State a power to designate
Marine Nature Reserves (MNRs). These may include any land covered
either continuously or intermittently by tidal waters or parts
of the sea out to a distance of three nautical miles from the
baselines from which territorial waters are measured. However,
since 1981, only three MNRs have been designated in the UK (Lundy
(England), Skomer (Wales) and Strangford Lough (Northern Ireland)),
and government has accepted that the concept has not been as successful
as hoped, and that the procedures need an overhaul.
20. There have been numerous reviews of
the problems relating to MNRs. These have concluded that, in general,
these problems relate to (a) the length of time taken to designate
MNRs and (b) difficulties managing potentially damaging activities.
The problems have arisen due to weaknesses in the legislation
as well as the policies that relate to its implementation.
21. While there is an almost complete lack
of designated nationally important marine sites, the UK is obliged
to designate marine sites of European importance under the Birds
and Habitats Directives. Government is currently consulting on
new secondary legislation that should implement these Directives
beyond UK territorial waters throughout the UK Continental Shelf
and superjacent waters (ie those lying above) up to a limit of
200 nautical miles. This is a welcome development, but the application
of the Directives in the marine environment is limited by the
lack of marine habitats and species for which marine sites can
be designated. Furthermore, the Government admits that implementation
of even the existing requirements in territorial waters is lacking.
The existing Regulations are specifically designed for terrestrial
conservation, and the Birds Directive remains unimplemented below
the low tide mark.
22. Consequently, a growing gap exists between
the recently strengthened site protection provisions on land and
the inability to protect nationally important marine wildlife
areas in territorial waters and beyond.
23. Several recent political undertakings
require the UK to do more to identify and protect important marine
wildlife areas. The 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable
Development agreed a plan of action which, amongst other things,
requires the establishment of representative networks of marine
protected areas by 2012. In the Bergen Declaration of the Fifth
North Sea Conference, Ministers agreed to designate, by 2010,
relevant areas of the North Sea as marine protected areas that
belonged to a network of well-managed sites. Furthermore, in June
2003, the OSPAR Commission meeting in Bremen agreed a recommendation
to establish, by 2010, an ecologically coherent network of well-managed
marine protected areas throughout the OSPAR maritime area of the
North-east Atlantic.
24. Therefore, the UK has a number of global
and regional commitments to establish an ecologically coherent
network of marine protected areas—including a suite of nationally
important marine wildlife areas—by 2010 at the latest. The
RSPB believes that the current lack of progress will jeopardise
any possibility of meeting these obligations.
25. In fact, the UK Government has recognised
the lack of marine nature conservation measures. In 1998, it announced
that it would set up a working group to consider options for improving
protection for marine sites and species. Five years and fourteen
meetings later, it is hoped this Review of Marine Nature Conservation
(RMNC) will report by Easter 2004!
26. The RMNC published an interim report
in May 2001. This recognised that, whilst many of the habitats
and species that would benefit from site protection were already
afforded some protection, in virtually no cases could existing
mechanisms provide fully effective protection and management.
It concluded that, while a significant amount of conservation
will be secured through the Natura 2000 network in the marine
environment, important gaps and shortcomings exist.
27. The interim report made it clear that
designated sites should be a fundamental component of the marine
nature conservation legal and policy framework, alongside species
protection and wider measures. The ability to identify and give
statutory protection for the conservation and management of nationally
important marine sites was key to any approach to marine nature
conservation.
28. A significant initiative that explored
these issues in depth was the development of John Randall MP's
Marine Wildlife Conservation Private Member's Bill (2001). Through
consultation, it became clear that further development of the
SSSI system for application in the marine environment was not
considered appropriate. A legislative approach that better reflected
the management requirements of the marine environment was preferred.
The Bill was developed with considerable assistance from the Government
and received all-party support in the House of Commons. Unfortunately,
it failed to complete its passage through the House of Lords.
29. Subsequently, the RMNC's 12th meeting
established a legislative sub-group (LSG) to consider what legislative
mechanisms may be required to implement the findings of the RMNC
(including looking at the technical aspects relating to site protection,
including existing sites, lessons from the Marine Wildlife Conservation
Bill, and the form of any new site-based mechanism). At the fourth
meeting of the LSG, a report was agreed which concluded that a
number of different legislative approaches to delivering marine
wildlife site protection already exist. However, whilst many of
them have strengths, all have weaknesses. The Marine Wildlife
Conservation Bill sought not only to plug the legislative gap
but also to improve on current approaches, but it was somewhat
constrained by the weaknesses in existing legislation.
30. The LSG report proposes several fundamental
legislative building blocks needed to develop a network of nationally
important marine wildlife areas, including:
— Where sites should be designated;
— Who should be responsible for designation;
— How sites should be selected;
— What duties should arise as a consequence
of site designation;
— What provisions for site management
should be made;
— What new powers might be needed;
and
— What penalties and offences might
be appropriate.
31. The analysis, consultation and legislative
development has been carried out to allow comprehensive legislation
to be passed enabling a network of nationally important marine
wildlife areas to be established on a statutory basis throughout
the UK marine area. All that is lacking is a clear demonstration
of political will, and an appropriate legislative opportunity.
SECTION 3: OTHER
AREAS OF
INTEREST
32. In addition to the two areas explored
above, the RSPB believes that a number of aspects of marine policy
must be examined if the UK and Devolved Governments are to achieve
the vision in the Government's Marine Stewardship Report of "safe,
productive and biologically diverse oceans and seas".
33. Better integrated management of the
marine environment is needed, and conservation of our marine resources
and natural heritage must be progressed more urgently. To achieve
this, new marine legislation must be introduced, covering, among
other things:
— Protection of nationally important
marine areas;
— Protection of wider marine biodiversity,
including sites and species currently not protected by sited-based
measures;
— Sustainable management of coastal
fisheries and the inclusion of wider marine conservation objectives;
— Development of a spatial planning
system for the sea to manage development, marine users and conserve
the environment; and
— Better enforcement at sea.
34. Defra's England Biodiversity Group has
already identified a lot of what needs to be done—in policy
and practical terms—to protect marine biodiversity. What
is needed now is more investment in environmental surveying and
research, and the political will to take the decisions required.
35. The RSPB would be happy to supply the
Committee with any further information required.
11 September 2003
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