SNH Commissioned Report 747: SNH's Advice on Selected
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Scottish Natural Heritage Commissioned Report No. 747 SNH’s advice on selected responses to the 2013 Marine Scotland consultation on Nature Conservation Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) ADVICE TO GOVERNMENT Commissioned Report No. 747 SNH’s advice on selected responses to the 2013 Marine Scotland consultation on Nature Conservation Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) For further information on this report please contact: Ben James or Katie Gillham Scottish Natural Heritage Great Glen House INVERNESS IV3 8NW Telephone: 01463 725000 E-mail: [email protected] This report should be quoted as: Scottish Natural Heritage. 2014. SNH’s advice on selected responses to the 2013 Marine Scotland consultation on Nature Conservation Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Scottish Natural Heritage Commissioned Report No. 747. This report, or any part of it, should not be reproduced without the permission of Scottish Natural Heritage. This permission will not be withheld unreasonably. This report was commissioned as part of the Scottish MPA Project and the views expressed by the author(s) should not be taken as the views and policies of Scottish Ministers. © Scottish Natural Heritage 2014. ADVICE TO GOVERNMENT Summary SNH’s advice on selected responses to the 2013 Marine Scotland consultation on Nature Conservation Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) Commissioned Report No.: 747 Year of publication: 2014 Background The Scottish Government launched a formal consultation on a suite of possible Nature Conservation MPAs on 25 July 2013, alongside parallel consultations on the draft National Marine Plan, Priority Marine Features (PMFs) and draft sectoral plans for offshore renewable energy. The 16-week consultation period ended on 13 November, 2013. Consultation events and publicity were combined under the banner of ‘Planning Scotland’s Seas’. There were 14,703 responses to the MPA part of the ‘Planning Scotland’s Seas’ consultation. The vast majority of these (14,371) were generated by a series of campaigns relating to seabirds; whales and dolphins, and the development of the MPA network more generally. There were also local community campaigns supporting the designation of the South Arran pMPA and progression of an MPA from the Skye to Mull MPA search location. Marine Scotland officials undertook a preliminary review of the consultation responses and, at the end of December 2013, formally requested that SNH consider the scientific and evidential aspects of 137 discrete responses (59 individuals and 78 organisations) from a total of 332 (216 individuals and 116 organisations). This document sets out SNH’s formal advice in relation to the 17 pMPAs situated entirely (or primarily) within Scottish territorial waters (within 12 nm of the coast). The JNCC is providing separate advice to Marine Scotland regarding the 16 pMPAs in offshore waters (>12 nm). We do not provide any details within this report in relation to the possible progression of the four remaining MPA search locations in territorial waters. These will be the subject of separate formal advice to Scottish Ministers later in 2014. Main findings We respond to a range of broader and more targeted site-specific issues raised during the consultation. Where relevant, our responses to the broader issues were initially developed in conjunction with our MPA Project partners at the JNCC (i.e. where the broader issues apply across Scotland’s seas). We highlight ongoing work in relation to calls for improved coverage of additional bird and cetacean species within the network. We explain that the network affords protection to far more than 39 species / habitats (as suggested by some respondents) and provide clarity in relation to queries about specific features and the principles used for setting boundaries and conservation objectives. In many cases this reflects our existing advice, supported by clearer explanations of the rationale we used and assessments we undertook. Our commentary is the result of careful consideration of the responses received. i A number of the responses sought changes to the boundaries of individual pMPAs, either to encompass additional features or adjacent sea areas. There were numerous calls from two campaigns for an extension to the South Arran pMPA to encompass the entire island. There was also considerable support from local communities regarding possible extensions to the Small Isles pMPA (to incorporate Lochs Scavaig, Slapin and Eishort on the south coast of Skye) and the North-west sea lochs and Summer Isles pMPA (now the Wester Ross pMPA) seeking the inclusion of Loch Gairloch and adjacent maerl beds). Having reviewed the consultation submissions, SNH does not recommend extensions to the boundaries of any of these pMPAs. The proposed extensions are not required to achieve adequacy within the Scottish MPA network (with the possible exception of native oysters). However, we do recognise the potential nature conservation benefits associated with these requests. We also consider that additional information gathering within the south Skye sea lochs should be undertaken to inform a detailed assessment of the merits of that proposal as part of the first review of the network in 2018. There were also multiple calls for diverse biogenic habitats such as horse mussel, maerl and seagrass beds to be formally recognised and confirmed as protected features within all pMPAs where they are known to occur. As with the requests for extensions to some pMPAs we believe that there are potentially significant nature conservation merits to adopting a ‘biogenic feature additions’ approach of this type (including potential secondary benefits for some mobile species that may use these seabed habitats). However, we also recognise that additional examples of these features, over and above those already proposed within the pMPAs and covered by existing measures, are not required to achieve adequacy within the Scottish MPA network and we have therefore not recommended any additions. A small number of respondents commented on the need to include protection for kelp forests within the pMPAs where black guillemots are proposed as a feature. SNH understands that the kelp habitats in the relevant pMPAs will be afforded protection through the conservation objectives as foraging habitat for black guillemot. SNH therefore does not propose adding these habitats as named pMPA protected features. We provide a short update regarding feature representation within the proposed network i.e. features that are / are not covered in the pMPAs. A number of changes took place between publication of our 2012 MPA network advice and the subsequent 2013 consultation. It was apparent from the responses that we did not make all of these changes sufficiently clear (e.g. at the time of consultation native oysters were only proposed as a protected feature within the Loch Sween pMPA and the inshore deep mud with burrowing heart urchins feature was not recommended within any of the pMPAs). In response to concerns raised that we had taken a broad-brush approach to boundary setting, we reviewed the boundaries of all of the pMPAs. We recommend changes to the boundaries of seven individual pMPAs. These changes include the exclusion of active harbour areas from the Loch Sunart to the Sound of Jura pMPA (Tobermory Bay, Craignure Bay and the Glensanda Harbour area in Loch Linnhe); modification of the Noss Head pMPA boundary to better reflect the distribution of available horse mussel bed feature records; and the simplification of the outer boundary of the South Arran pMPA (adoption of a minimum convex polygon shape). We identified small landward boundary refinements to three of the pMPAs that support black guillemots as a proposed protected feature (East Caithness Cliffs; Monach Isles; and the Small Isles pMPAs). These changes ensure that only suitable nesting habitat at the back of the shoreline is included within these sites. Collectively these changes reflect the full implementation of the boundary setting principles set out in the Scottish MPA Selection Guidelines. On the basis of new survey work undertaken at the end of March 2014, we also recommend a small extension to the Lochs Duich, Long and Alsh pMPA to fully encompass the flame shell bed feature which is now known to be more extensive than previously thought. ii We summarise the findings of an audit undertaken to review the evidence-base behind the South Arran pMPA that was the subject of a number of consultation responses. Insufficient evidence was available to support three individual records of the proposed protected features and these are not considered further in the MPA process (with no effect on the recommended site boundary or case for designation). More generally, our review of the data around South Arran highlighted differences in biotope assignments between different surveys (apparent on completion of analyses of 2013 samples - the provisional results were included in the MPA consulation documents), reflecting heterogeneity in seabed types within the pMPA and the use of expert judgement in the assignment process. In an attempt to more clearly distinguish the distribution and extent of three of the seabed sediment proposed protected features (maerl beds, maerl or coarse shell gravels with burrowing sea cucumbers, and, shallow tide-swept coarse sands with burrowing bivalves); we commissioned an external research project to review the available data for these habitats. We outline the conclusions of that study which recommends refinements to a number of the individual protected