Marine Bill becomes law
The Marine and Coastal Access bill passed into UK law on 12 November 2009.
This is great news for the species and habitats of our Irish sea.
The future of the species such as the cuttlefish, the burrowing sea heart urchin and the sea mouse are intimately tied to what happens in the sandy muds of our local seas, and this new act will provide a statutory duty to protect representatives of all our marine habitats.
The act does this by allowing the designation of a set of marine conservation zones (MCZs). These will be placed to give all our marine habitats such a deep water muds, sandy muds, under boulder communities, sea grass beds for example, some protection. And will fulfil a legal requirement to have an ecologically coherent network of marine protected areas.
Some MPAs already exist: these are SPA's SAC's and SSSIs however this is the first time all habitats of the Irish sea can be protected and therefore a new protected area the Marine Conservation Zone will be designated.
Each site will be placed because that area is a high quality example of one of these habitats. But each site will be managed differently. In very important and rare habitats there may be high protection (Highly Protected Marine Conservation Zones or HPMCZs) which means that little or no commercial activity is allowed. In many sites, some, but not all activity will be allowed and possibly in some sites, all activity will be allowed.
The marine bill states that where these sites have other key users, the socioeconomic factors may be taken into account.
Recently, the first of the Stake holder groups such as fishermen, energy industry, divers and conservationists met to discuss the process of finding and agreeing sites for designation as Marine Conservation Zones, this is being facilitated by Envirolink (Warrington) a consultancy (meetings took place in Runcorn, Liverpool, Blackpool and Penrith). This process will go forward through a regional stakeholder group.
We strongly support the designation of highly protected sites (HPMCZ) which will give our sea bed communities the best chance to recover from historical damage and allow the Irish sea to become a truly vibrant living sea once again. This will allow cuttlefish, sea mice, basking sharks, and countless other Irish sea natives to thrive.
For more information, contact
Dr Kathryn Turner
Irish Sea Advocacy Officer
North West Wildlife Trusts
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