Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
12 NOVEMBER 2003
JOAN EDWARDS,
SHARON THOMPSON,
MARK SIMMONDS,
MELISSA MOORE
AND JAN
BROWN
Q1 Chairman: Good afternoon, ladies
and gentleman. In case you are wondering why it says Michael Jack,
in as far as the Chair of the Committee is concerned, and not
David Curry, some of you may have noticed that David Curry was
elevated to the Conservative Front Bench with responsibilities
for Local Government and resigned his position as Chair of the
Committee with effect from this afternoon. We are very sorry that
David has gone because he has done a first class job in chairing
the Committee; that was the unanimous view of the Members of the
Committee. They have done me the great honour of electing me to
take his place, hence the position I am in this afternoon. This
is our first evidence session on our inquiry into the marine environment.
For the record, we have got Jan Brown, Senior Marine Policy Officer
for the WWF-UK, Melissa Moore, Marine Conservation Society, Mr
Mark Simmonds, Director of the Science, Whale and Dolphin Conservation
Society, Sharon Thompson, Marine Policy Officer of the RSPB and
therefore by definition that must leave Joan Edwards, the Head
of Marine Policy of the Wildlife Trusts. You are very welcome
indeed and do indicate if you want to come in and chip in as we
go along because this is a complex subject. I would just like
to start by making an observation and perhaps asking you to respond
to it because, having read the submissions (and thank you for
them), I found this an incredibly complex area with seemingly
umpteen fingers in the pie, both from a national, a European and,
in the case of OSPAR, one could almost say a world perspective.
It is hardly surprising that there are many conflicts of interest
and difficulties in implementing protection and progress in this
area with seemingly so many players in the field. Is that a fair
summary of some of the problems that protecting the marine environment
faces?
Joan Edwards: You are right. That
is a perfect conclusion of the situation we are in. We have a
whole myriad of obligations that this Government has to implement.
Also, if you look at the marine environment, firstly think of
the marine environment, it is not just inshore waters or estuaries.
To put it into context, 50% of the UK's biodiversity is found
in the marine environment. The UK seas are three times larger
than the UK land mass and obviously increasingly it is becoming
very important in terms of development and industry and it is
economically very important and yet it is an environment that
really is increasingly showing signs of damage and neglect. Evidence
for that has been produced via Defra in their Safeguarding
the Seas Marine Stewardship Report. Also, a lot of
evidence has been provided by English Nature in their State
of the Maritime report. Wildlife and Countryside Link feel
that we urgently need a real change and I mean urgently. We really
need a change in the way that we manage our marine environment.
We are actually calling for a comprehensive package of measures,
including legislation, which will bring a more sustainable and
integrated approach to the marine environment and one that will
put the eco-system and biodiversity at the heart of policy. We
acknowledge that Defra, in particular, have taken some very important
steps over the last 12 months, including the Marine Stewardship
Report, the Irish Sea Pilot and the Review of Marine
Nature Conservation. We have also had some assurances at ministerial
level that we will get some new legislation, but the concern of
the NGOs is the timetable. When are we actually going to see real
change and when are we going to see marine biodiversity getting
the same protection as it has on the land?
Q2 Chairman: Can I just ask you,
because one of the things that was lacking from the evidence were
some examples of what were the threats, you have indicated in
your remarks that the marine environment is under pressure, but
if you had to give the Committee, if you like, just three things
to focus on to say that these are the really pressing issues,
what would they be?
Joan Edwards: I think it is so
complicated that actually, as conservationists, we have had to
think about the marine environment in a very different way. There
are not one or two simple things that you can do. What we have
ended up is, over the last 30 years, we have had a wide range
of regulatory and policy initiatives coming in, a lot of them
in response to disasters or an event or an obligation, and actually
it is the management of the marine environment that is the biggest
threat to the marine environment. You could say fishing, you could
blame oil and gas, you could blame shipping, you could blame pollution,
but it is management. It is all very piecemeal, ad hoc,
there are gaps and there is lots of duplication. There is no transparency.
There is no vision for the marine environment. There is nowhere
in UK policy where it actually says "We will protect our
marine environment. We will have a sustainable marine development".
There is no strategic vision of where we will be in ten years
time. What we are saying is that we need to look at management
and what we would like to see is this comprehensive package of
measures, which includes legislation, that makes the Government,
at UK level and at the devolved level, actually manage the marine
environment in a much more integrated and holistic way. But also,
by doing that, you are actually going to streamline development
and streamline nature conservation and we actually feel that that
would be more cost effective but it will also mean that biodiversity
will actually get the attention it deserves.
Mark Simmonds: I think one of
the things that we did want to put to you very strongly is that
the NGOs here, the conservation and welfare organisations, are
all united in this position of a need for integrated change, but
I think you are also asking us for some evidence of what the problems
are and I think it is appropriate that we should highlight a few
of those in addition. I do not think we can pick out three, that
is really very difficult. One of the things that we can do, and
I am aware of the weight of the Government agencies sitting behind
me, is to point out some useful resources. English Nature's own
report on the "State of Nature" I find very helpful
indeed. It does give a very good overview of many of the problems
that we have got in the marine environment today. We have problems
of coastal inundation. We have got problems of chemical pollution.
Nutrient pollution is increasing, threatening eutrophication which
will create, in effect, dead zones in the seas. We have matters
relating to climate change which may affect the distribution of
important currents and therefore nutrients and prey and predator
species. Of course, we have fishing pressure, which I know is
being looked at in a sub-group of this Committee. We have increasing
numbers of fast moving water vessels. We have the issue of loud
noise which has only really become apparent in the last few years
and this is quite a significant threat to marine life because
of the special physics of the marine environment. We have the
problem of collisions coming from more and more fast moving leisure
craft, which is borne out by the marks that you can see on the
backs of British dolphins, for example. We also have a movement
of industrial interests into deep water, which we have never had
before. So it is really a time of great change and the challenge
therefore is to come forward and meet that change in an integrated
and holistic fashion, which is what Joan was referring to.
Melissa Moore: I think maybe another
way of looking at it is also what our seas provide for us, UK
Plc. They provide us with our energy from oil and gas and increasingly
offshore renewables. They receive our waste, such as nuclear waste.
They are essential to the health of much of Europe by providing
protein through fishing and key to transport with 95% of exports
and imports transported by ship.
Q3 Mr Lazarowicz: Can I just come
back to one of the points made by Mr Simmonds that on the list
of threats or issues that you hold out, in the last one you referred
to, you referred to the movement of industrial activity into the
deep oceans. I suspect that that would not be the least important
on your list. Can you give me an indication, from your perspective,
of what type of scale that problem is now and what particular
types of activities most concern you?
Mark Simmonds: Thank you for the
question, it is a very important point. I think what has changed
over the last few years is that the fossil fuels industry has
the ability now to go further offshore than it had before and
this is basically made possible, as I understand it, by the advent
of floating production platforms, previously oil rigs and similar
structures were fixed. It is now, therefore, possible to go out,
explore and then find oil and gas deposits far off shore where
the industry was not present before. That brings two issues into
play. It brings into play the exploration for fossil fuel deposits,
which uses very loud noise (and I have referred to the noise as
an emerging problem for us) and also the presence of oil and gas
production facilities out in the high seas. So, in effect, we
are now going off the continental shelf. Before we had been limited
to the inshore zone and now we are going out in that direction.
Whether wind farms will ever go in that direction is not very
clear to me, but I suppose that is a possibility if facilities
can be found to fix them out in the deeper waters.
Sharon Thompson: If I could just
add to that, beyond oil and gas I think there are a number of
industries and activities that are finding greater pressure on
land and people are beginning to look at the sea as a sort of
empty wet zone where they are not restricted in the same way as
they are on land and they can now develop further offshore. The
obvious one that is putting increased pressure on the marine environment
is renewables because it is essentially a new industry. So it
is antagonising an already under pressure system. We have probably
all heard discussions about offshore airports, so it is not just
the traditional what you would consider at sea industries. People
are thinking of putting lots of stuff offshore. In the situation
where the conservation of the marine environment is maybe 20 or
30 years behind that of terrestrial protected site, I think it
is very timely that we have this review now to really focus our
minds in and look at how we can better achieve that protection
and the fact that we need it urgently now as well.
Q4 Mr Mitchell: I concede that it
is a mess of the legislative and institutional framework and I
can see the problem areas that you are talking about emerging.
Are those also the areas where effective marine stewardship is
currently hindered by the fact that it is a mess?
Joan Edwards: Exactly. The word
"marine stewardship" has been used by Government for
the last couple of years, but you are not going to get marine
stewardship unless we have this overall framework and we look
at the marine environment holistically.
Q5 Mr Mitchell: So how would you
like to see the laws changed in this respect?
Joan Edwards: It is not so much
the laws changed, what we want the Government to do is to look
at how it manages the marine environment. Government needs to
look at the management of the marine environment across all departments,
not just Defra. Many sectors of government are involved in the
management of the marine environment including ODPM, MoD, DTi
etc.
Q6 Mr Mitchell: Does that mean one
agency of management?
Joan Edwards: I do not think it
is right for us to actually say that we want a marine agency or
we want a marine department, but I think it is important for the
Government to actually review what is happening and to actually
make a decision in terms of strategically how it wants to manage
the marine environment. I think we probably want some sort of
planning system in the sea. At the moment there is no planning
system, it is all very ad hoc. So we need some sort of
planning system. There is going to need to be change in every
single department. At the moment we have a Marine Stewardship
Report and it talks about marine stewardship, it sets a vision
for clean and healthy seas but, to be honest, I would consider
that it is Defra's Marine Stewardship Report at the moment.
Marine stewardship has to be accepted by all Government departments,
including those that have shown reluctance, such as DTI and MoD,
for example, and there will need to be change right the way across
the departments. And then, once the Government has decided how
it should manage it and it has actually decided on its long term
objectives, I think it ought to be considering what sort of institutional
structure and what type of institutional change needs to happen
because I think it would be very easy to say that we have got
a problem with the marine environment, we will bring in a marine
spatial planning system and we will have a marine agency and then
what will happen probably is that certain departments will continue
on their way as they always have done, separately, and we will
not have a holistic way.
Q7 Mr Mitchell: That is going to
include the management structure. Do you also see, like the World
Wildlife Fund, a need for a Marine Act?
Joan Edwards: Again, I think one
of the difficulties we have as NGOs is we obviously have to talk
to people like yourselves who are very informed, but we also have
to talk to the public and you can imagine trying to say to the
public that we want a comprehensive package of measures that includes
legislation, etc., etc. So many of us have been using the term
"Marine Act" and "Marine Acts" as a simple
way of putting across that we want something large and comprehensive
but, to be honest, at the end of the day, we are asking for exactly
the same thing.
Q8 Mr Mitchell: So a Marine Act would
underline the parities and the importance of the issue?
Joan Edwards: In simple terminology
a Marine Act will be fine.
Q9 Mr Mitchell: I wonder if in terms
of the management changes you are asking for and in terms of the
Marine Act that the World Wildlife Fund wants, and I think I agree
with them, on it we do face a problem and that is Europe. Under
the terms of entry in `72 we have to provide equal access to a
common resource. Under the European Constitution, as I have skimmed
through it and I must say it is a rather a trudge through it rather
than a skim, it allocates competence over the marine environment
and its resources to Brussels, not to the nation state. So what
can we do, as a nation state, in that situation?
Joan Edwards: I think the only
competence that we have actually given to the EU or Brussels is
actually fisheries and fisheries policy.
Mr Mitchell: No, it says the marine environment,
the full marine environment.
Chairman: Order, order. I guess I should
ask people to come back as quickly as possible and hopefully within
10 minutes please.
The Committee suspended from 15.05 pm to 15.20
pm for a division in the House.
Chairman: I think we are quorate, so
we will continue.
Q10 Mr Mitchell: The point I was
just putting was; while we do not know exactly what the Article
under the European Constitution Convention will be, because it
does say European competence in the marine environment and its
resources, no mention of 12 or six miles or anything, it may be
that that is one of the things that Mr Blair is going to strike
out with his Sword of Damacles which will be exercised, but it
may not and, in any case, we cannot discriminate against other
European countries, fishing fleets or whatever and the same could
go for resource extraction in our waters because we do not have
effective national responsibility. So how can we have effective
control or effective legislation?
Jan Brown: I just wanted to say
a couple of things. One is that the principles that we are looking
for in the management of our marine environment are closely aligned
to the European Marine Strategy which is not legislation and not
likely to be in the near future. But I do not think that we should
wait for European guidance or European legislation. I think we
can lead the way with some of the responsibilities we have for
marine stewardship. There are over-arching principles which we
know we have to implement, such as the precautionary approach,
integrated management and long term strategies, so that we can
have an ecosystem approach to management of our seas, which is
an international obligation, plus under the Convention for Biodiversity
we have an internationally recognised commitment to halt the decline
of biodiversity. Also, as I understand it, DTI are proposing to
declare an REZ, a renewable energy zone, out to 200 nautical miles
to allow proper development of renewables in the marine environment.
We are not against development of marine renewables, but we are
concerned that development is going way ahead of nature conservation,
particularly out to 200 nautical miles. We do have the Habitats
Directives which will now be extended with offshore regulations
in the UK, but that is not going to give us holistic management
and sustainable development of the marine environment. If
development and activities are going out to 200 nautical miles,
we need to keep up with that really to make sure our marine biodiversity
is managed, not only for conservation, and for its intrinsic value
for future generations, but there are other things just on the
horizon like bio-prospecting for pharmaceuticals from the marine
environment. That is already being identified as something quite
important for cancer research and things like that. So there are
all sorts of reasons why we should be managing the whole of our
marine environment as far as we can.
Q11 Mr Mitchell: I agree with all
that, but I think the Convention actually says something about
energy as well, oil, which I think will get exercised. But my
point is not that we should not take unilateral action of the
kind you are advocating and act for ourselves, I am all in favour
of that. Say like gunboats and sink anybody who tries to ignore
it, it is how can we exercise effective management control which
you want tightened, in an area where the basic principle of the
EU is equal access?
Sharon Thompson: I do not believe
it is equal access at the moment. That is an issue that is still
under consultation in the new Constitution, as far as I am aware.
So as you say, it may or may not, but many of the issues in the
marine environment are multilateral anyway. We should be working
with our neighbours. For example, an ecosystem approach would
include areas such as the North Sea or the Irish Sea. So we will
be working, one would hope, with our neighbours in other countries.
That comes back down as well to the UK level because the marine
environment is now devolved. So I think we have to look beyond
boundaries in the marine environment and work together with the
other groups and look at this holistic management. Obviously,
as you say, we can push forward within the UK and lead the way
and hopefully we will be able to influence the other member states
to follow that view. I do not think we need to be ruled in any
way by what may or may not come out of the Constitution.
Q12 Mr Mitchell: I am not sure, it
might be why the British Government is being so cautious on the
issue. Is that not from the West Country?
Joan Edwards: No, representing
all the wildlife trusts. I think generally on the European Constitution
we have not read it in great detail and looked at the marine aspects
of it. As a result of what you have said obviously we will be
looking at it in great detail and if we are concerned then we
will be happy to produce a written briefing for the Committee.
Q13 Mr Mitchell: I do not want to
make your life that miserable.
Melissa Moore: One of the key
things that we are requesting is marine spatial planning and that
would necessitate working with other member states anyway because
we want to implement planning at the ecosystem level, at the regional
sea level. So we will need to take the North Sea, the Irish Sea
and the English Channel and work with the appropriate partners.
And while, to a certain extent, that will need to happen, whether
it is at the English level, devolved level and at other times
with member states, we also need to establish the right infrastructure
to enable that.
Q14 Joan Ruddock: I think it was
Joan who said that the Marine Stewardship Report was very
important but at the same time she said that management was the
main threat to the marine environment. The Government said that
their vision was essentially clean, healthy, safe, productive
and biologically diverse oceans and seas and I just wondered to
what extent you think that the package of measures and initiatives
in the report could actually deliver that vision?
Joan Edwards: I think that when
we responded to the Marine Stewardship Report we actually
welcomed the statement that the Government wanted this clean,
healthy sea and sustainable management etc. The problem with the
Marine Stewardship Report is that we just see it as a list
of obligations that the Government has made and a list of nice
things to do, but there is no framework to actually make it happen.
It talks about lots of obligations that we must meet but it does
not practically say how we would meet those obligations. What
also concerns us is that it was published as a UK Government document,
but when you speak to other departments they often refer to the
Marine Stewardship Report as the "Defra Initiative"
and they are sometimes quite surprised when you say "But
no, that is your document too. You signed up to it" and you
get the embarrassed looks and they say "Did we?" That
really is very concerning because every Government department
has to have that vision at the basis of their policy and it has
be at the heart of the policy of DTI, the heart of the policy
of ODPM, but also of the military as well and I do not think that
that is happening.
Q15 Joan Ruddock: Have you any suggestions
as to how it could happen?
Joan Edwards: One of the suggestions
that was suggested as the Marine Stewardship Report was
being produced is that there perhaps should be an inter-departmental
group set up that looks at how we should implement the Marine
Stewardship Report and maybe a Minister should be made responsible
for its implementation. So I think it needs very high level responsibility
because otherwise nobody is actually going to take it as policy,
they are just going to say "It is a report, it is very nice.
Yes, we do want clean and healthy seas, but is not really going
to affect us, is it?" So I think it needs to be at a very,
very high level. Somebody must take responsibility for the Marine
Stewardship Report.
Q16 Joan Ruddock: There was a discussion
earlier about a Marine Act and I think it was said that not everyone
thinks that that is necessarily the way forward. A Marine Act
might produce a similar list, might it not, of obligations without
precise mechanisms?
Joan Edwards: Again, as Wildlife
and Countryside Link, we believe that we want a package of measures
which includes legislation, which might be described as a Marine
Act, probably Acts, I do not think that you could have one Marine
Act because of devolution. But I do not think that we want to
be too prescriptive. What we are saying is that we want institutional
change, we want some sort of framework, we want some sort of planning
system in the marine environment, we want better protection for
biodiversity, we want some sort of champion for marine biodiversity
and for that to all be put into place, we know that we will need
new legislation. We will need new legislation to put this framework
into place, but I think you are also going to have to look at
the legislation that exists already because there is lots and
lots of legislation covering marine activities and some of it
is literally out of date, some of it duplicates other legislation,
there is overlapping legislation, there are loopholes. So the
legislation, we will have to look at all of that as well.
Melissa Moore: Wildlife and Countryside
Link are calling for comprehensive marine legislation covering
all areas that are lacking, from site and species protection,
to inshore estuaries, energy and marine spatial planning and we
have produced briefing papers on all of these topics which we
can provide the Committee with.
Q17 Chairman: At the risk of protecting
my colleagues from being saturation bombed by more paper, if there
are some key issues in the light of this line questioning that
you would like to tease out in a summary, then we would love to
have it, but I think having every single paper may be just a step
too far. Sharon Thompson just wanted to come in, Joan, on the
point that you raised.
Sharon Thompson: Yes, Joan essentially
covered most of this. I think the only thing that I was going
to add was really that we have said that there are initiatives
out there; there is the Marine Stewardship Report, there
is the Review of Marine Nature Conservation, there is the
Irish Sea Pilot. Many of those have come forward and said
that we do need legislation. I think maybe what we would like
to emphasise here is that we believe that we need this legislation
urgently and we would like to know when are we going to see this
legislation. I think that is maybe an addition on top of what
Joan has been saying.
Q18 Joan Ruddock: I am not sure that
I have got as comprehensive an answer as I might like. Given that
we are not expecting, as I understand it, such a proposal in the
Queen's Speech, then I am wondering what it is we need to suggest
to a higher level Committee. It is a real champion, you are saying.
We need somebody to take this on and to work on it in a way, I
assume, that you believe Defra is not doing. Is that fair?
Joan Edwards: I think that Defra
would like to, I just do not think they can because management
of the marine environment is the responsibility of many sectors
of the Government not just Defra. A ministerial-led cross government
committee could be given the responsibility of implementing the
Marine Stewardship report.
Q19 Joan Ruddock: Other departments
are not co-operating?
Joan Edwards: Exactly. It has
got to be across all Government departments. We do understand
that we are looking for a very large package of legislation. We
are not just looking for a small piece of legislation for one
of the things that we would list. So therefore we do understand
that we are probably, in political time, looking perhaps at the
next session.
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