Despite detailed and extensive debate during April and May of the Marine and Coastal Access Bill in the House of Lords, both during its Committee and Report Stage, the Government has resisted all arguments and attempts to have highly protected marine reserves (HPMRs) incorporated into the text of the legislation.

The Government says that it believes in highly protected marine reserves, and indeed expects such reserves to be created, but insists that such a proscriptive act is unnecessary and would encumber the legislation without good purpose.

This is not the view of MARINET, nor indeed of the Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament when they considered the draft legislation last summer.

MARINET believes that if a specific power to create highly protected marine reserves is not written into the Bill, then there will be a retreat from this committment by future Governments as economic and social interests argue that such a restrictive provision (no extractive activity) would prejudice their freedom. Thus, the conservation of the sea, its habitats and biodiversity, will continue to remain subordinate to economic and social interests (e.g. fishing, mineral extraction and other commercial activities).

An amendment to include highly protected marine reserves was introduced was tabled at the Report Stage in the House of Lords on 12th May 2009 by the Liberal Democrats with crossbench support, but it was not supported by the Conservatives who, like the Government, argued that to write the provision for highly protected marine conservation zones (MCZs) into the Bill was “unnecessary” and thus the amendment failed to secure enough support and so was not pressed to a vote by the Liberal Democrats.

MARINET has argued for six key amendments to the Marine Bill. These are:

1. The need for highly protected marine reserves to be written into the legislation.
2. The need for the selection of marine reserves (marine conservation zones) to be based primarily on scientific criteria, with social and economic factors taking a subordinate role in this process. At present the legislation does not specify the primacy of scientific criteria in the selection process, and the Government and the other political parties have refused to support this amendment
3. The legislation recognises that marine reserves will need constitute a network, but the legislation does not specify that this network should be “ecologically coherent”, so an amendment to this effect is required.  This amendment has been supported by the Conservativs and Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, and the Government has been forced to concede that an amendment is required.  This amendment will be tabled (precise wording presently unknown) at the Third Reading of the Bill in the House of Lords on 8th June.
4. The marine reserves network must be sufficiently large in order to ensure that UK seas are managed sustainably (i.e. balance conservation, soical and economic interests).  The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution recommended in 2004 that at least 30% of UK seas should become highly protected marine reserves, but MARINET has found that no politcal party in the present UK Parliament will support this recommendation.  MARINET has therefore had to desist from advocating this specific objective, and has instead argued that the Bill should be amended so “that the network [of marine reserves] is sufficiently extensive to enable economic and social uses of the sea to be environmentally sustainable“. No political group in the House of Lords has supported this amendment.
5. The marine reserves network should be established in an intial ecologically coherent form by the 2012.  Currently the legislation gives not date by which the network of marine reserves should be established, so MARINET has asked for the Bill to include this amendment which corresponds with the UK legal commits under OSPAR and the World Summit on Sustainable Development. The Government said it would meet its international legal obligations, but wanted no dates to be included in the legislation. No other politcal party in the House of Lords fely compelled to table this amendment.  Thus the date for the ecologically coherent network of marine reserves, either in an initial or a comprehensive form, remains undefined by the Marine Bill.

The other key purpose that MARINET has argued that the Marine Bill must serve is to rebuild our commercial fish stocks. At present, 88% of commercial fish stocks in EU seas are being exploited beyond their maximum sustaianble yield and 30% are being exploited beyong their safe biological limit. These are the latest figures from the European Commission. This over-exploitation of our fisheries makes new management practices both essential and urgent, but the UK Government insists that the UK Marine Bill is not the place to address this issue.  it argues that such reform can only come from the European commission via the CFP.  However, as MARINET has pointed out to the UK Government, powers to prohibit fishing in spawning nursery and other key marine areas of biodiversity already exist under the CFP and the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive which is now operative gives the UK conservation powers to recommend the cessation of fishing in areas of UK seas out to 200 nautical miles when conservation imperatives require. Such imperatives are the maintenance of commercial fish stocks in a sound condition along with marine food chains (see Annex 1 of the MSFD).

MARINET has explained these facts to the UK Government and the political parties in the House of Lords during their consideration of the Marine Bill (see Briefing Paper, titled Briefing on UK Legal Powers to create Marine Reserves). However, at the present time, no politician in the UK Parliament is prepared to act on this matter and no political party believes that the UK Marine Bill should address this issue.

It is MARINET’s view that the UK Marine Bill can and must address the issue of the sustainabilty and re-building of the commercial fish stocks in UK seas, and that the UK Parliament has the necessary sovereign powers to do this in the UK Marine Bill.

Tags: House of Commons, House of Lords, MARINET

This entry was posted on Wednesday, 3rd June, 2009 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.