Memorandum 21
Submission from the Wildlife and Countryside
Link
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
(i) Wildlife and Countryside Link is campaigning
for comprehensive marine legislation, to provide better protection
for marine wildlife and effective management of our seas. One
of Link's key priorities for the forthcoming Marine Bill is that
it should provide for the designation of a representative network
of Nationally Important Marine Sites, including some that would
be afforded the highest level of protection, for biodiversity
conservation and recovery.
(ii) In submitting this brief response Link
wishes to highlight that there is currently no adequate system
in place for the designation of nationally important marine wildlife
sites. Besides their primary purpose—biodiversity conservation
and recovery—we believe such sites have an important role
to play in improving our understanding of our marine environment.
We also briefly outline the need for improved survey and data
management to support the development of a protected area network.
INTRODUCTION
1. Wildlife and Countryside Link (Link)
brings together the UK's leading voluntary organisations united
by their common interest in the conservation and enjoyment of
the natural and historic environment. This submission is supported
by the following Link members: Marine Conservation Society, RSPB
(Royal Society for the Protection of Birds), The Wildlife Trusts,
WWF-UK, Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, Buglife—the
Invertebrate Conservation Trust, the Herpetological Conservation
Trust, and Marine Connection.
2. Link has been campaigning for many years
for comprehensive legislation to achieve better protection for
marine wildlife and effective management of our seas. We were
therefore delighted at the Government's commitment, in May 2004,
to develop a draft Marine Bill. We have engaged closely with the
development of the Bill so far, and await the Government's detailed
proposals in the promised White Paper, due in March 2007. Link's
key priority for the Bill is that it should provide new legislation
for protection of marine wildlife, primarily through the designation
of a representative network of Nationally Important Marine Sites
(NIMS), including some that would be given the highest degree
of protection, excluding all damaging human activities to ensure
biodiversity conservation and recovery.
3. In submitting this brief response, we
wish to address the final bullet point in the Committee's call
for evidence, "use of marine sites of special scientific
interest". In particular, we wish to highlight that Sites
of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) are a terrestrially-based
designation, generally extending to the limit of local authority
planning jurisdiction (which is usually Mean Low Water Mark),
although a few existing sites extend beyond this limit. Adequate
legislation to protect nationally important nature conservation
areas (equivalent to SSSIs) at sea does not currently exist. We
believe that NIMS and, in particular, highly protected sites,
also have an important role beyond their primary purpose—that
of biodiversity conservation and recovery—in enhancing our
understanding of marine ecosystems and the pressures acting on
them.
4. Link is calling for a comprehensive Marine
Bill which provides a new framework for the sustainable management
of human activities in the marine area in addition to specific
provisions for nature conservation. We were pleased that Defra's
consultation document on a Marine Bill (March-June 2006) touched
upon all the key elements that Link has been campaigning for:
managing marine fisheries, licensing marine activities, planning
in the marine area, and improving marine nature conservation.
5. A number of terms (and associated acronyms)
are used in this response, in reference to different categories
of marine protected area. "Marine Protected Area" or
"MPA" is used as a generic term.
CURRENT LEGISLATION
AND COMMITMENTS
6. In the UK there are currently two types
of MPA designation: national Marine Nature Reserves (MNRs) under
the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981), and European Marine Sites
(EMSs)—the latter covers marine Special Areas of Conservation
(mSACs) and marine Special Protection Areas (mSPAs), designated
under the EU Habitats and Birds Directives respectively. Unfortunately,
experience has shown that these tools alone cannot ensure the
conservation of biodiversity and sustainable management of our
seas.
7. Only three MNRs have been designated
throughout UK waters in the last 25 years, in large part due to
shortcomings in the relevant legislation and associated guidance
(Link Marine Bill Bulletin 9—Marine Nature Reserves: Lessons
we must learn). The Government recognised that this approach has
not been successful in a 1998 Consultation (SSSI—Better
Protection and Management. A DETR consultation).
8. EMSs can be designated to protect specified
marine nature conservation features of European importance, but
do not cover the full range of important marine features found
throughout the UK and European seas. Link also has concerns about
the level of protection afforded to EMSs in practice. In addition,
the designation of EMSs in UK waters has not yet been completed.
At present there is limited funding for marine biological surveys
to be undertaken to inform the designation process, and legislation
is still not in place to provide for designation of EMSs beyond
territorial waters (12 nautical miles), in spite of EU member
states' commitment to complete the marine Natura 2000 network
by 2008.
9. As a Contracting Party to the OSPAR Convention
for the protection of the marine environment of the North East
Atlantic, the UK has committed to designate an ecologically coherent
network of well-managed MPAs by 2010. Representative examples
of all the broad marine habitat types should be included, as well
as areas with exceptional biodiversity, rare, threatened or declining
species, and aggregations of mobile species, otherwise "important"
species, areas of ecological significance, and particularly sensitive
and/or natural areas. The Government has recognised that new legislation
is needed to enable it to fulfil this commitment.
10. Work was undertaken through the Irish
Sea Pilot study conducted as part of the Government's Review of
Marine Nature Conservation, and is ongoing through OSPAR on how
to design an "ecologically coherent network" of MPAs.
Within such networks MPAs should be mutually supporting, ie populations
of species in one area should be capable of supporting, and be
supported by, populations in other areas, and all features should
be represented at a number of sites. A particular challenge will
be designing both individual MPAs and networks that can be responsive
to the changes that are brought by climate change. This would
mean, for example, protecting site features that move inshore
or north as sea levels rise and temperatures increase.
THE MARINE
BILL
11. Through the recent Consultation on a
Marine Bill (March-June 2006) and subsequently, Defra has set
out its commitment to developing legislation for a new system
of MPAs to protect nationally important marine biodiversity and
to allow the Government to meet its commitment under OSPAR. Link
supported the list of functions of these MPAs set out in the Marine
Bill Consultation (Defra 2006):
(a) protecting areas of threatened species
and habitats to help ensure that biodiversity is not lost as a
result of widespread damaging activities;
(b) protecting areas of representative species
and habitats to help ensure that they do not become threatened
as a result of human activities; and
(c) providing some relatively unaffected
areas of high biodiversity value to support the structure and
functioning of the wider marine ecosystem.
12. We are anxious that this new legislation
should avoid shortcomings apparent in the protection of both MNRs
and EMSs and will continue to engage with Defra as further detail
of their proposals emerges through the proposed White Paper. In
particular, we believe that the new MPA legislation must allow
some sites to be designated as highly protected—that is,
areas where all damaging activities are excluded.
13. These highly protected marine areas
would essentially provide breathing space for marine habitats
and wildlife to exist in conditions that are as near to the unexploited
state as possible, helping to maintain biodiversity-rich areas,
or allowing biodiversity to recover at previously impacted sites.
Zones given this high degree of protection within NIMS, for example,
could be an important tool in the achievement of conservation
objectives. As part of a coherent network of MPAs, highly protected
zones or sites will help to support the wider marine ecosystem,
buffering or moderating the effects of human activities outside
the network and increasing the resilience of marine ecosystems,
for example in the face of climate change. They have been recommended
as a means of underpinning conservation and protection of marine
ecosystems, for example by the Royal Commission on Environmental
Pollution.
14. Highly protected sites have been proven
to aid recovery of threatened biodiversity and biomass in tropical
and temperate marine habitats, and have also proved important
as areas of scientific study (eg Scientific consensus statement
on marine reserves and protected areas, NCEAS, 2001). The
only currently highly protected area in English waters—the
Lundy Island Fisheries No Take Zone—was set up in 2003.
After only 18 months, three times more lobsters of landable size
were found in the No Take Zone compared to fished areas. This
difference was highly significant and was repeated the following
year (http://www.english-nature.org.uk/news/story.asp?ID=745).
15. Monitoring and scientific study of marine
protected areas, particularly highly protected areas, would enable
us to improve our understanding of marine biodiversity and ecosystems.
Further, these highly protected sites could be used as reference
(or control) areas for study of how various pressures impact on
marine biodiversity, and thus help to inform regulatory decisions
in the longer term. They would also allow information to be gathered
about environmental changes, such as those linked to climate change,
identified by the UK administrations' Charting Progress report
as one of the two greatest threats to the marine environment,
the other being fisheries (Defra 2005). However, it would be important
to ensure that any scientific research beyond monitoring of the
status of an MPA was agreed as part of the MPA designation and
management process, and did not impact negatively on the site.
DATA REQUIREMENTS
16. The UKSeaMap project (www.jncc.gov.uk)
undertook broad scale habitat mapping for the whole of the UK
marine area based on the concept of using seabed geology and sediment
types to determine marine landscapes, and as such provides an
important information source to help guide the identification
of important seabed habitat types that may qualify as MPAs. However,
precise knowledge of the distribution of marine habitats and species
at the finer scale is much less comprehensive. In many cases,
the provision of new or up to date scientific information has
depended to a large extent on the data collection exercises undertaken
for the Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) prepared on behalf
of developers, or Strategic Environmental Assessments undertaken
on behalf of government departments. For example, investigations
linked to proposals for development of wind farms have discovered
internationally important aggregations of seabirds, with significant
implications for the licensing process. MPAs should provide the
backbone of a marine spatial planning system, representing important
information about the environment for marine industries targeting
locations for development.
17. Resources are needed for a much more
systematic survey approach, to build on the broad scale data already
available, gathering the full range of necessary data and information
about seabed habitats and associated species as well as aggregations
of species such as fish and marine mammals and those species that
depend on the sea for survival such as seabirds. The Marine Nature
Conservation Review finished prematurely in 1998 and initiating
new surveys to continue this work would enable gaps in marine
wildlife data to be filled. We are pleased that government has
committed to filling in marine biological data gaps in the establishment
of the Data Archive for Seabed Species and Habitats (www.dassh.ac.uk).
There is a need to ensure that all relevant scientific data is
made available to support the development of MPA networks and
Marine Spatial Plans, and regulatory decisions taken within the
context of these plans. A new "Marine Management Organisation",
expected to be introduced through the Marine Bill, could have
a leading role in data collation and management, and advising
on science requirements to underpin policy and management.
18. Link is happy to provide further information
on any of the points highlighted above, and has a range of Marine
Bill Bulletins that cover specific issues regarding our views
on the need and benefits of site protection in the marine area.
January 2007
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