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Report to Parliament on the Marine Protected Areas Network

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Report to Parliament on the Marine Protected Areas Network www.defra.gov.uk Report to Parliament on the Marine Protected Areas Network December 2012 Report to Parliament on the Marine Protected Areas Network Presented to the Parliament pursuant to section 124 of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 December 2012 © Crown copyright 2012 You may re-use this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/ or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or e-mail: [email protected] This document/publication is available on our website at: www.defra.gov.uk This document is also available for download from www.official-documents.gov.uk Any enquiries regarding this document/publication should be sent to us at: [email protected] Contents Part 1. Background ......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Why do we need a Marine Protected Areas Network? ........................................... 1 1.2 National, European and International Commitments .............................................. 2 1.3 Reporting Requirements ......................................................................................... 3 Part 2. Current State of the Marine Protected Areas Network ........................................ 4 2.1 English inshore and English and Welsh offshore .................................................... 4 2.1.1 Marine Conservation Zones ................................................................................ 5 2.1.2 European Marine Sites ........................................................................................ 5 2.1.3 Sites of Special Scientific Interest ....................................................................... 7 2.1.4 Ramsar Sites ....................................................................................................... 8 2.2 Devolved Administrations ....................................................................................... 8 2.2.1 Marine Protected Areas in Scotland .................................................................... 8 2.2.2 Marine Protected Areas in Wales ........................................................................ 9 2.2.3 Marine Protected Areas in Northern Ireland ...................................................... 10 2.3 Assessment of achievement of section 123 of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 ...................................................................................................................... 10 Part 3. Future Plans for the Marine Protected Areas Network ...................................... 12 3.1 Further Steps for European Marine Sites ............................................................. 12 3.2 Marine Conservation Zones in English inshore and English and Welsh Offshore waters ................................................................................................................... 12 3.2.1 Background ....................................................................................................... 12 3.2.2 Proposals for the First Tranche of MCZs ........................................................... 14 3.2.3 Future Tranches ................................................................................................ 17 3.3 Devolved Administrations ..................................................................................... 17 3.3.1 Marine Protected Areas in Scotland .................................................................. 17 3.3.2 Marine Conservation Zones in Wales ................................................................ 18 3.3.3 Marine Conservation Zones in Northern Ireland ................................................ 19 Annex MPA site and feature tables .............................................................................. 20 Part 1. Background 1.1 Why do we need a Marine Protected Areas Network? 1. With a coastline of over 12,000 km the UK has a large marine area, rich in marine life and natural resource. As an island nation we are never more than 70 miles from the sea. Although it may not always be immediately obvious, the seas around our coast are home to some of the best marine wildlife in Europe, with a wide diversity of underwater landscapes, habitats and species. Over 8,000 species are found within these waters including many of national and European importance; from corals and jellyfish to seahorses and kelp forests. 2. The geology of the seabed around England is rich and diverse ranging from intertidal rock to muddy deep sea bed. It is this variety of seabed type, coupled with the influence of both colder and warmer waters around our shores, that results in the diverse range of marine species and habitats in our seas. 3. Our seas are not just places of important biological diversity, they also provide us with a variety of goods and services including food, building materials, recreation opportunities, transport, oil, gas, renewable energy, potential carbon capture opportunities and pollution control. This makes the marine environment key to social, economic and environmental well-being and provides significant opportunities for the future that should be protected. 4. However, at present the marine environment is coming under pressure from unsustainable human activity which is damaging marine ecosystems. In comparison to terrestrial conservation, marine conservation is less well developed and it is important that appropriate additional conservation is introduced in order to protect our marine resources before it is too late. By protecting our marine environment now we can ensure that our seas, which are a common resource, will continue to contribute to our society for generations to come. 5. The linking of marine protected areas together into a network, supported by effective management measures, is important for promoting the recovery and conservation of marine ecosystems. This is because a network of sites can achieve benefits more effectively than unrelated individual protected areas can alone. 6. The Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 provided for the establishment of a network of marine protected areas that: • contributes to the conservation or improvement of the marine environment in the UK marine area; 1 • is representative of the range of features present in the UK marine area; and • reflects the fact that the conservation of a feature may require the designation of more than one site. 7. The Act also set out that the network will be comprised of: • Special Areas of Conservation established under the Habitats Directive1; • Special Protection Areas for birds established under the Wild Birds Directive2; • Sites of Special Scientific Interest; • Sites designated under the Ramsar Convention3; • Marine Conservation Zones, provided for in the Act. 1.2 National, European and International Commitments 8. In order to protect the marine environment, the Government has signed up to and made a number of commitments on marine protected areas at a national and international level. These include: National Marine Policy Statement (MPS)4: in this the Government re-stated its vision for ‘clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse oceans and seas’. To help deliver this vision the Government with Devolved Administrations has committed to creating an ecologically coherent network of marine protected areas in the UK; Biodiversity 2020: a priority action for the England Biodiversity Strategy is to establish and effectively manage an ecologically coherent network of marine protected areas which covers in excess of 25% of English waters by the end of 2016, and which contributes to the UK’s achievement of Good Environmental Status under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive; European Habitats Directive and Wild Birds Directive: these Directives provide for the establishment of Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) and Special Protection 1 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/legislation/habitatsdirective/index_en.htm 2 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/legislation/birdsdirective/index_en.htm 3 http://www.ramsar.org/cda/en/ramsar-home/main/ramsar/1_4000_0__ 4 http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2011/03/18/marine-policy-statement/ 2 Areas (SPAs), respectively, which together form the Natura 2000 network5. This is an EU-wide network of nature protection areas which aims to assure the long-term survival of Europe's most valuable and threatened species and habitats; Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD)6: the Government has committed to contributing to achieving Good Environmental Status of Europe’s seas by 2020. This will involve protecting the marine environment, preventing deterioration and restoring where practical, while using marine resources sustainably. The MSFD specifically requires spatial protection measures, that contribute to a coherent and representative network of marine protected areas, to be established7 and for their management to be in place by 2016; International Oslo and Paris Convention8 (OSPAR): through this convention, the countries bordering the North-East Atlantic, including the UK, have agreed to establish an ecologically coherent network of marine protected areas in the North-East Atlantic by 2012 and ensure it is well-managed by 2016; Convention on Biological Diversity9: in 2010, parties to the convention made a commitment that “by 2020....10 per cent
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