THE Green Party has criticised government proposals that designate just 31 sites as marine conservation zones in 2013.
Under proposals from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 31 sites will be marine conservation zones in 2013. However, the 31 sites are a small proportion of the 127 zones that were recommended for conservation following government consultations with scientists and stakeholders.
Elisabeth Whitebread, Green Party spokesperson for the marine environment, said: “The government is going back on its promise to deliver a network of comprehensive and representative Marine Conservation Zones, as stated in the Marine and Coastal Access Act of 2009.”
“Scientists, conservationists, local communities, fishermen and other stakeholders have spent years in discussions over the locations of these zones, and it has cost the taxpayer millions of pounds. Consensus was reached on 127 sites, and a scientific panel assembled by Defra for the purposes of assessing the recommendations then further recommended them.
“Rather than take the advice of their own scientists, or the stakeholders that they purport to be listening to, the government is announcing a consultation on just 31 sites. One might ask why they even bothered to run a stakeholder engagement exercise in the first place.”
The Green Party advocates working within existing legislation to implement a large-scale, ecologically coherent network of Marine Protected Areas within the UK’s seas as soon as possible. Some sites would be established as no-take reserves, closed to commercial fishing and other extractive activities.
Ms. Whitebread said: “Defra are refusing to include any areas within the proposed 31 zones that will be totally off limits to fishing. No-take areas, or "reference areas" to use the government jargon, are an essential component of any marine conservation plans, as they enable scientists to test the effectiveness of other interventions, providing a baseline against which all other management can be judged. Without these reference areas, it will be impossible to tell how well the Marine Conservation Zones are performing.
“Without all 127 sites being designated, our waters will not have the ecologically coherent network of marine protection that they need in order to protect our coasts and beaches and amazing underwater life for the future. Fish populations will suffer, putting further economic strain on our inshore fishing fleet - who, for the most part, fish sustainably, but whose livelihoods are jeopardised by the irresponsible actions of industrial fishing fleets and the government, who fails to regulate them”.
“If the government were taking its responsibility to our seas, the people who depend on it and the wildlife that lives within it seriously, then it would designate all 127 proposed Marine Conservation Zones, including reference areas within each of these.”