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7 Protected Areas for Seabirds at Sea

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7 Protected Areas for Seabirds at Sea The first step towards a network to protect Scotland’s seabirds In this report, RSPB Scotland presents seven areas of Scotland’s seas which should be treated immediately as potential Special Protection Areas under the EU Birds Directive, and within which all decisions affecting seabirds should be assessed accordingly. We have been obliged to identify these sites because of the absence of protected area designations by the Scottish Government. This leaves the foraging areas of Scotland’s declining seabird populations unprotected, despite the unprecedented scale of potentially damaging developments at sea, some of which are in the consenting process. These seven sites are only the first step towards designating a complete and ecologically coherent network of sites at sea to protect seabirds. RSPB Scotland is identifying a second tranche of sites using advanced seabird tracking data. This will be announced in the coming months, as will the data to support our recommendations. We urge the Scottish Government and its advisors to work with RSPB Scotland to identify the full network of designated sites for seabirds which is a requirement of both EU and Scottish legislation, and will enable Scotland to protect its invaluable marine biodiversity and support the sustainable development of world-class marine industries. Background Scotland holds internationally important numbers of 24 species of breeding seabirds1. However, Scotland’s seabird populations are declining rapidly. According to the Scottish Government’s own figures, of the 11 seabird species for which abundance could be calculated, nine have shown sustained declines since 1986. The largest declines have been for Arctic skua (80%), Arctic tern (72%) and black-legged kittiwake (68%). Arctic skua may cease to be a UK breeding species within a decade from now. Evidence suggests this decline is due to changes in oceanography affecting the food web, resulting in a lack of prey, and hence poor breeding success. Seabird declines can be exacerbated by damaging human activities at sea, for example badly placed marine renewable developments, or the loss of colonies due to invasive non-native species. Protected areas at sea can boost resilience in declining seabird populations. 1 Scotland’s Marine Atlas http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/marine/education/atlas Page 1 of 15 For many years, the Scottish and UK Governments have acknowledged their commitment to designating an ecologically coherent network of protected areas at sea2. To meet Scotland’s various duties and obligations, the Scottish Government must protect its important seabird populations by designating both nature conservation Marine Protected Areas (ncMPAs, designated under the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010) and Special Protection Areas (SPAs, designated under the EU Wild Birds Directive). The designation of SPAs is long overdue, as this commitment dates from 1979. The Birds Directive requires EU Member States to protect birds and their habitats, in order to secure their survival and reproduction in their area of distribution. Article 4 requires that special conservation measures be undertaken for particular threatened birds (listed on Annex 1) and regularly migratory species, and these measures must include the designation of the most suitable territories as special protection areas for these species on land and at sea. In addition, Article 3 of the Directive requires more general measures to preserve, maintain or re-establish a sufficient diversity and area of habitats for all wild birds including through the establishment of protected areas and appropriate management of habitats. This means the Scottish Government must protect areas of sea which seabirds use for activities they need to survive, including their feeding areas. Proper implementation of the Birds Directive by designating both nature conservation MPAs for seabirds and marine SPAs will enable Scotland to protect its invaluable marine biodiversity and support the sustainable development of world-class marine industries. Indeed, the failure to designate any offshore SPAs is now causing regulatory difficulties for those seeking to undertake development projects in the marine environment. This is compounded by the failure to include most seabird species in the search for Scotland’s nature conservation MPAs. Governments’ failure to protect seabirds as required by the EU Birds Directive In order to provide effective protection for Scotland’s seabirds, nationally and internationally important sites must be protected3, and each must include both the colony extensions and offshore feeding areas, as both are essential for the survival of these species. Without protection of these areas, breeding colonies designated as terrestrial SPAs and Sites for 2 Including obligations under OSPAR, Convention on Biological Diversity, EU Birds and Habitats Directives and Marine (Scotland) Act 3 On land, terrestrial SPAs are supplemented by additional SSSI designations, which protect smaller, “nationally important” concentrations. However, because these SSSIs cannot be extended below the low water mark in Scotland, the areas relied on by birds from these nationally important colonies, and other at-sea aggregations, for feeding and overwintering are not protected. Page 2 of 15 Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) risk being little more than safe places to starve, and leave seabirds unprotected through the majority of their lifecycle. The Scottish Government has identified 33 SPAs for breeding seabirds, and in 2009 extended these to cover sea areas between 1 – 4km from the cliff. We urge the other UK administrations follow suit; we have used this as an exemplar of best practice in our discussions with the other UK administrations. However, this ignores the scientific data which states that species often depend on sea areas many tens of kilometres from their colonies. These key feeding areas are vital for the protection of the birds and so must be protected in order to meet the EU Birds Directive. Work is now continuing, by the Scottish Government and agencies, to identify the other important seabird areas necessary to complete the network. However, progress is unacceptably slow. Such is the RSPB’s frustration at this ongoing failure to protect seabirds that in 2012 we submitted a formal complaint to the European Commission about the failure of the UK Government and Devolved Administrations including the Scottish Government to fulfil their legal obligations under the Birds Directive. Thirty-three years after the deadline for the classification of SPAs under the Birds Directive, there has been no action to address these major concerns and meanwhile the pressures on our seabirds from climate change and developments at sea are growing. Earlier this month, for example, the Scottish Government gave permission for the world’s third largest wind farm, despite clear evidence that this development could significantly harm important seabird populations using the Moray Firth4. The first step towards a network of protected areas for seabirds at sea. In response to the Scottish Government’s failure to protect declining seabird populations, while simultaneously sanctioning potentially damaging marine developments, RSPB Scotland has identified seven areas of sea that must be designated as potential SPAs as soon as practicable, and which should henceforth be treated as protected areas in that all decisions affecting seabirds in this areas should go through the correct assessment processes. These seven sites were in fact already identified as potential SPAs by one of the Scottish Government’s statutory advisors, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC)5, but despite ongoing dramatic declines in seabird numbers, and the unprecedented speed and scale of developments at sea, these seven areas remain undesignated and unprotected by the Scottish Government. 4 RSPB Scotland response to Marine Scotland Licensing Operations Team on the Moray Firth offshore wind proposals (communication by letter, 7th January 2014) 5 http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/pdf/461_final_web.pdf Page 3 of 15 The scientific approach taken by JNCC for the identification of SPAs for foraging areas used by Scotland’s breeding seabirds, and offshore areas used in winter, was supported by RSPB scientists, with the caveat that both the methods and the underlying data (European Seabirds At Sea dataset) are only capable of identifying a limited and incomplete set of important areas. This approach has therefore identified only some of the areas that would be required for coherence and for the conservation of Scotland’s seabirds, and RSPB Scotland has, for over a decade, highlighted the need for further research and survey to address the shortcomings of these data. Despite this important caveat, RSPB Scotland strongly believes that sites identified from this data should be classified and protected now, while work progresses to gather more knowledge to complete the network6. Analysis to identify inshore aggregations of seabirds in the non-breeding season and the foraging areas of breeding terns has also been undertaken, but, again, to date no SPAs have been proposed or classified. We urge immediate action to publish the results of these analyses and classify those sites identified to enable the Scottish Government to meet its obligations to have a complete and well managed network of protected areas at sea in place by 20167. RSPB Scotland is identifying a second tranche of sites for seabirds using seabird tracking
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