Help decide which coastal areas need to be Marine Conservation Zones

By Fred Attewill

SAILORS, surfers, scuba divers – in fact anyone who loves the sea – your country needs you. If you know your coastline like the back of your hand then you can help decide which areas need special protection.

Between now and September 30, Natural England wants sea lovers to upload details of underwater species, habitats and landscapes to hep it decide which areas will be covered by Marine Conservation Zones. Information from Metro readers will be ‘critical’ in boosting scientific knowledge, said Michelle Hawkins from Natural England.

‘It’s really important they go to www.mczmapping.org and share any information,’ she added.

Recreational and commercial needs will be taken into consideration before zones get marked in 2012, the agency stressed. The only existing zone has covered parts of Lundy Island off north Devon since 2003.

Five years on, lobsters are growing up to seven times bigger than they used to.

Lundy’s second annual underwater photography competition, the ‘Splash-In’, took place last month and produced some spectacular shots of marine life and habitats.

The End of the Line

If you missed “The End of the Line” on More4 yesterday, there’s good
news. It’s available on 4oD for 30 days at:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-end-of-the-line/4od#3006316

What Greenpeace say about it:

Missed it in cinemas? Here’s your chance to see the film that changed the way people think about what’s on their dinner plate. It’s a compelling story, brilliantly told, and you need to see it if you haven’t already.

Fish report hits bottom note

The Living Seas report by the Wildlife Trusts is also cited in the Big Issue article. This report states that basking sharks have declined by 95% and the once ubiquitous common skate is on the verge of extinction. The report also observes that dolphins, whales and seals have all suffered in recent years and that fish stocks have collapsed. “The marine environment — our life support system — is on its knees” the Wildlife Trusts report states.

Abigail Herron, a member of MARINET and Manchester FOE, is a diver and has first-hand experience of how marine wildlife has declined near Anglesey. “The waters around Anglesey” she says “are very rich in biodiversity and you used to find a lot of dogfish there, but you just don’t see them anymore.”

MARINET believes that the only way to reverse this decline in marine biodiversity, which is not just due to over-fishing but also pollution, development and, increasingly, climate change is to establish a widespread and extensive network of marine reserves throughout UK seas out 200 nautical miles where all damaging human activities are forbidden. This way the marine ecosystem as a whole can be protected, and be allowed to heal and recover. MARINET is proposing an amendment to the Report Stage of the Marine Bill in the House of Commons which will allow for precisely this. The amendment will mean that marine reserves can be created not just to protect habitats, species and geomorphological features (as the current draft of the Marine Bill proposes), but that marine reserves can also be created in areas to protect “the marine ecosystem as a whole”. This is the key phrase and concept that will ensure that the UK Marine Bill can deliver on its political promises. At present, this phrase and concept is absent from the legislation.

A recent correspondent complained about the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy, and I certainly agree it is a disaster. Like the Common Agricultural Policy, also a disaster, it is devised by politicians who ignore science. What that correspondent failed to mention is that a bill to improve the character of British seas, including our North Sea, is making its way though parliament, just having exited the House of Lords and moved to the Commons.

However, this bill in it present form is inadequate, rather like the early Climate Change Bill, which was also inadequate until it was beefed up. Readers should write to their MPs and demand the strengthening of this bill.

It does call for Marine Reserves but information around the world shows that unless they are highly protected they will do nothing to increase species. We already have a few Marine Reserves, but they are not doing their job because all kinds of exploitative activities still go on therein. Highly protected means no exploitative activities at all, including trawling, which destroys the sea bed.

The original bill did not call for these marine reserves to be in an ecologically connected network, but fortunately it has been amended to include this, as it is worthless to have marine reserves dotted here and there with no connection between them.

The timing of this bill is also left in limbo in its present form. Marine Bills are required by EU members, but without a time limit there is no obligation on the Government to move forward speedily.

And, most unusual, there is no mention of science in the bill. Obviously the establishment and location of these reserves should be based on science and it’s science that tells us that our seas are dangerously over-fished.

Your correspondent mentioned Charles Clover and The End of the Line. May I also recommend The Unnatural History of the Sea written by Callum Roberts of York University, which provides the science.

The Marine arm of Friends of the Earth, called Marinet, has been lobbying for 30% of UK seas out to 200 nautical miles to be highly protected marine reserves by 2015.

This is the only way to save our seas.

A study published last year, in the journal Science, identified the marine environment around the UK as among the most degraded in the world, as a result of human activities. Many fish stocks are close to commercial, or even actually extinction and much of the sea bed has been turned into a lifeless desert, as a result of the damage done by activities such as bottom trawling and aggregate dredging.

Read the full article in the Leicester Mercury.

The following week, The Observer published a number of letters in response, including one from the Fisheries Minister, Huw Irranca-Davies, and another from the Marine Reserves campaign’s very own Malcolm Hunter.

Local groups are working together to protect and enhance the marine environment around the UK coast. Bill Rigby explains why reserves are the way forward.

Q What is MARINET?

The marine information network of Friends of the Earth local groups. We have about 40 member groups and we provide an information service on marine issues.

Q What’s the key problem you’re tackling?

Our priority now is to persuade the Government to improve its Marine nad Coastal Access Bill. We know less about the sea than we do about the surface of the moon, yet it contains most of the biomass of the planet, and the majority of the biodiversity.

Humanity is damaging this mysterious ecosystem through overfishing and the use of damaging fishing gear but also through extraction of oil, sand and gravel. Our sewage system decants untreated waste, and coastal and harbour management practices have serious impacts. Stocks of key species are near extinction, and many others at unsustainable levels.

Q Why are Marine Reserves the solution?

There is a real need to regulate and protect this better – existing legislation is confusing and ineffective. The concept of Marine Reserves – exclusive no-take zones – cuts through the confusion by saying “leave 30 per cent of our seas, out to 200 miles, alone for a very long time” with the remaining 70 per cent used for business as usual. This method was recommended by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) and is backed by a huge body of scientific opinion. But it is missing from the Marine Bill.

Q What progress have you made?

We have an Early Day Motion (EDM 337) with all-party support which in a few weeks has reached number 12 out of over 700 EDMs. It simply asks for the RCEP recommendation to be incorporated in the bill.

We have strong support from MPs, major conservation agencies, senior academics, Greenpeace, the Marine Conservation Society and the Co-op, a major buyer of fish, which is running a campaign through its shops.

We are regularly meeting and briefing key members of the House of Lords, where the bill is being discussed.

TAKE ACTION

Write to or talk with your MP about EDM 337. Write a letter to the press (MARINET can suggest wording) or organise a public meeting on the issue. MARINET can help you with speakers and send materials.

Join the campaign at marinet.org.uk

Ministers are reneging on promises to safeguard vital wildlife areas around Britain’s coasts from destruction through “world-leading” legislation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

They have diluted plans to set up highly protected areas where dredging and drilling are banned in the Marine Bill that is working its way through Parliament.

Though the waves may be rippling or mountainous, the waters angry or calm, the ocean itself is eternal. Its moods pass. Its tides keep to a rhythm. It is unchanging. Or so it has long seemed. Appearances deceive, though. Large parts of the sea may indeed remain unchanged, but in others, especially in the surface and coastal waters where 90% of marine life is to be found, the impact of man’s activities is increasingly plain.