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Marine Protected Areas for the UK
The UK Government aims to establish a coherent network of marine protected areas for UK waters by 2012. This network will consist principally of European Marine Sites (marine Special Protection Areas (SPAs) and Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) designated under European legislation), and Marine Protected Areas established under national legislation.
The UK Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 introduced a new marine protected area designation, the Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ). The Act allows for MCZs to be designated in inshore waters around England and Wales, and offshore waters around the whole of the UK. The UK Government has 'executively devolved' the power to designate protected areas in the offshore waters around Scotland to the Scottish Government. These sites will be called Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
In addition, the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 introduces a corresponding designation for nationally important areas in Scottish inshore waters, which will also be called Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
Complementary legislation is expected to fill the gaps in inshore waters around Northern Ireland, to ensure a coherent network for the whole of the UK.
The future
We welcome the introduction of new mechanisms in the new marine legislation for designating marine protected areas - our focus now is on ensuring these tools are used effectively to protect the full range of marine wildlife both above and beneath the waves.
Marine protected areas should be designated to protect the full range of UK marine wildlife.
In England and Wales, Marine Conservation Zones will be designated through stakeholder involvement projects. Welsh inshore waters are covered by one project run by the Welsh Assembly Government. The focus of this project will be designating Highly Protected Marine Conservation Zones (HPMCZs), with the Assembly Government having the final say on where these sites will be located.
Four separate regional projects have been set up around the coast of England: Finding Sanctuary (the south west), Balanced Seas (eastern Channel), Irish Sea Conservation Zones (the Irish Sea), and Net Gain (the North Sea). These stakeholder involvement projects aim to give all local and regional stakeholders a role in the decisions on where Marine Conservation Zones should be placed.
Each project will collate information on the distribution of marine wildlife and the various uses of the sea within their project area. This information will be used by the stakeholders involved in the projects to make decisions about where to designate sites to make up the network of Marine Conservation Zones. The projects need to have finalised network recommendations by mid-2011 at the latest.
We are very keen to be involved with the process of Marine Conservation Zone designation around England and Wales, as we want to help ensure that an overall coherent network is achieved.
We will be working to have our members of staff on each project stakeholder group, and will be supplying each project with relevant information on the distribution of the relevant seabirds, so that this can be taken into account when decisions are made about which sites to protect.
However, we have several concerns about the structure of these stakeholder involvement projects, and the process outlined for selecting sites. Our main concerns are:
- The potential for socio-economic factors to dominate discussions: The Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 allows social and economic factors to be taken into account when designating Marine Conservation Zones. However, statements from the UK Minister have clarified that, in England, science should be the primary consideration when designating sites, and socio-economic factors are only secondary considerations. We are concerned that the current set-up of the regional and Welsh projects does not take this hierarchy into account, and that socio-economic factors are being allowed to influence site designation decisions from the very earliest stage. This could mean that important areas for conservation are ruled out of the network by one or other socioeconomic interest, before the value of including them in the network has been properly discussed.
- Representation of seabirds in the Marine Conservation Zone network: We are concerned that so far, Government policy seems to be not to promote seabirds as features for which Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) should be designated. We fear that this will mean that the projects will be less likely to consider the needs of seabirds when discussing which sites to designate, with the result that seabirds might miss out on any protection from the final MCZ network.
Last modified: 14 April 2010