The report of the BES – UK BRAG joint session on ‘The UK Marine and Coastal Act- what does it mean for biodiversity research?‘ has been published online. The session saw speakers from Defra, the JNCC, Marine Biological Association and University of Bangor join participants for a wide-ranging discussion at the University of Leeds, taking place as part of the BES Annual Meeting (6-9 September).

Our speakers, and their topics, were:

Alison Reeves, Deputy Director, Marine Stewardship Team, Defra: An introduction to the Marine and Coastal Access Act
Prof. Mike Kaiser, University of Bangor: Managing Conflicts and Conflict Resolution
Dr Matt Frost, Executive Secretary, Marine Biological Association: Ecosystem Services from the Marine and Coastal Environment

The session was Chaired by Dr John Goold, Marine Director at JNCC.

The UK Marine and Coastal Access Bill was granted Royal Assent yesterday (12th November), meaning that it has now become law. It has taken many years of work by the ecological and environmental community, but a network of Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) will now be created in UK seas. We would like to thank all our members who contributed their considerable scientific expertise and advice to our work on this Bill.

Looking forwards, much work is now underway to identify where MCZs should be located. To coincide with the Bill’s enactment, the Marine Conservation Society has launched a new website with an interactive map showing the location and characteristics of 73 sites which they believe merit full protection. Members of the public are invited to vote for the sites which they believe should become reserves; the results will be presented to the regional bodies charged with making recommendations to the Government. Readers with marine expertise may also be interested in the facility which allows them to nominate their own sites for protection.

To vote for the protection of specific marine areas, visit: http://www.yourseasyourvoice.com/mpa/

If you would like to read a review of all the changes which have been made to the Bill during its passage through Parliament, please visit here.

The Chair Designate of the Marine Management Organisation has been announced as Christopher Parry. Mr Parry will become Chair once the Marine Bill has passed through Parliament and received Royal Assent.

In making the announcement yesterday Defra outlined Mr Parry’s credentials to lead the MMO, the new delivery body for the Government in the marine environment. Mr Parry is a former naval officer with a career spanning 30 years. He has held Director and Director-General roles at the Ministry of Defence.

The UK Marine Bill continued its passage through Parliament yesterday with the first debates on clauses in the Bill taking place in the House of Commons Committee stage. The Bill entered the Committee Stage on 29 June with a first ‘programming’ or procedural sesssion to discuss the order in which amendments and clauses to the Bill would be tackled. Yesterday’s sessions focused on the early clauses of the Bill, including clause 117 which concerns the grounds for designation of Marine Conservation Zones.

The BES contacted MPs sitting on the Committee earlier this week, along with the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Huw Irranca-Davies, to express concern at the omission of ‘ecological coherent network’ from the face of the legislation, concern that there is no duty to designate highly protected marine areas and concern that socio-economic considerations may override scientific evidence in the designation of marine protected areas. Many members of the Public Committee debating the Marine Bill at this stage had proposed amendments related to these concerns but in discussion these were withdrawn, or were not chosen by the Chair of the Committee for debate.

It was encouraging that, in responding to MPs concerns, Huw Irranca-Davies stated that “science is absolutely fundamental in determining where we will designate sites for MCZs”. In response to questioning from Martin Salter MP, asking for reassurance from the Minister that “the inclusion of phraseology such as ’socioeconomic factors [is not] a Trojan horse and an excuse not to designate marine conservation zones” and that designation would be based on scientific evidence, the Minister stated that the Government would take this on board and look at strengthening guidance to this effect. Encouragingly, he recognised that “They [MCZs] will be able not only to protect on an individual site basis, but to allow for the replenishment and regeneration of species”. The Minister seemed committed to the development of an ‘ecologically coherent’ network, yet in earlier debates has expressed that the Government will not place this term in the Bill itself. Neither would the Government commit to including a duty to designate highly protected areas during yesterday’s meeting, stating that this would create an undesirable “two-tier” system which would undermine the conservation goals of the less highly protected areas within the network.

The BES plans to submit amendments to the Bill in relation to these points, to be heard during the next, Report, stage, which is likely to take place in October, following the summer parliamentary recess.

Read up to date proceedings from the Public Committee on the Marine and Coastal Access Bill and track the Bill’s progress through Parliament.

A quick update to let you know that the Marine Bill had its second reading in the House of Commons yesterday. The second reading debate is unusual as it is not the time for detailed changes to be made to a Bill, but is rather an opportunity to debate the aims, principles and big issues surrounding a piece of legislation. On the basis of this, the results were encouraging.

The debate was very well-attended, with numerous MPs expressing their deep interest in Bill, as well as the notably high interest that had been expressed to them by many of their constituents. The debate also focused largely on the nature conservation aspects of the Bill, which are undoubtedly seen as its core component. A significant number of contributors did however express concern over whether science was really going to play a sufficiently important role in the designation of the marine protected area network. The Bill now proceeds onto the Committee Stage, where the contents of the Bill are discussed and amended in fine detail. The promising tone of the Second Reading would suggest that the nature conservation measures of the Bill will hopefully be further improved upon.

Amidst all the high drama of UK politics over the last week, it was very easy to miss a significant environmental legislative milestone. However, on Monday 8th June, the UK Marine Bill achieved its third reading in the House of Lords, thereby being passed out of that House and sent on to the Commons for consideration (somewhat unusually, the Marine Bill started first in the Lords and goes to the Commons second).

It has taken considerably longer than normal legislation to make its way through the Lords, and is in fact amongst their slowest-moving pieces of legislation ever (it took 1 week short of 6 months), which reflects the wide-ranging and complex nature of the Bill. Hopefully the amount of time spent examining and amending the Bill also means that it has been considerably improved. Indeed, this was one of the major sentiments expressed by Lords from all sides of the House in the last debate on the Bill, who took the opportunity to reflect on the significant improvements that have taken place over the past six months. In particular, marine science has been given a more major role in the new Marine Management Organisation, and the duty on Ministers to create a network of marine reserves has been strengthened.

There are still some major concerns however. The most important being that the network of marine reserves to be established under the Bill does not currently have to be ecologically coherent, which means there is ample opportunity for future Ministers to limit the effectiveness and extent of the network. Given the current focus on marine sustainability issues engendered by the excellent documentary ‘The End of the Line’, which was released this week, the BES hopes that this issue may be addressed by MPs when the Bill is taken up by the Commons.

The Marine & Coastal Access Bill, potentially the most important and far-reaching marine legislation ever passed in the UK, is continuing its slow but methodical progress through the House of Lords, where it is currently at report stage (the penultimate stage required before it can be sent to the Commons). The BES has been closely monitoring developments in the Bill, and it is a pleasure to be able to share some good news.

There were widespread concerns that the Marine Management Organisation (MMO), the new body which the Bill will establish to manage the UK marine environment, was going to have an insufficient focus on marine science in its decision-making processes. However, the Government has responded to our concerns by agreeing to several key new amendments.

Most importantly, the MMO will now have to employ a Chief Scientific Advisor at all times, and is under a new obligation to take account of all relevant scientific evidence when carrying out its duties. This comes on top of the Government’s recent undertaking that they would establish a science advisory committee for the MMO, and goes a long way to reassure us that the MMO will follow an evidence-based approach in its work.

The BES is still working to ensure that other parts of the Bill, particularly that establishing a network of marine reserves in UK waters, attach equal importance to the use of sound marine science. Nevertheless, the changes to the MMO represent a clear move in the right direction and are a significant improvement to the Bill.

If you are interested in the Society’s work on UK marine issues and would like to get more involved, we are currently in the process of responding to the Government’s draft strategy on the designation of marine protected areas. Please e-mail the Policy Team at policy@britishecologicalsociety.org if you would like to contribute to our response.

The Scottish Government this morning launched a Marine Bill for Scotland’s seas, setting out measures to restrict damaging activities in the interests of marine conservation and preserving ecosystem services in Scotland’s inshore waters.

The measures, which conservationists view as more stringent than those set out in the UK Marine Bill, currently progressing through the House of Lords, include potential restrictions on fishing, salmon farming, dregding and the development of oil pipelines up to 12 nautical miles from Scotland’s costs. This area accounts for 60% of the UK’s inshore waters, and includes rich fishing grounds.

Launching the Bill, the Scottish Environment Secretary, Richard Lochead, said: “Scotland holds a quarter of Europe’s total tidal and offshore wind resource and 10 per cent of its potential in wave power. Our seas generate more than £2.2 billion for the Scottish economy. We have huge potential to increase economic growth from our seas but need to do so in a sustainable way.” A network of Marine Protected Areas will be created in Scotland’s seas.

Under the proposals, damaging activities would be permitted within Marine Protected Areas only if two or more MPAs consist of identical habitats. This differs from the UK legislation, which focuses on finding a balance between nature conservation and socioeconomic concerns within Marine Conservation Zones. This difference raises the prospect of clashes between the Scottish and UK Governments over the legislation and over enforcement.

See the full press release on the Scottish Government website

At 11.20am today, the House of Lords witnessed the State Opening of Parliament marking the beginning of the parliamentary session.

Here, the Queen’s Speech was delivered, outlining the Government’s plans for the coming Parliamentary year.

Given the current global economic climate, it was no surprise that the Government’s main priority is to ensure the stability of the economy during the global economic downturn. Many of the commitments and proposed legislation mentioned in the Queen’s speech, understandably centred around helping people and families through hard economic times.

The main highlight for the British Ecological Society was the Marine Bill receiving Royal Assent. The science policy team are particularly pleased that many of the recommendations made to Government to strengthen the bill were taken into consideration. The Queen said:

“To protect the environment for future generations – a bill will be brought forward to manage marine resources and protect access to the coastline.”

The speech also described the Government’s intention to work closer with the devolved administrations – a requirement for the Marine Bill to be effective.

The science policy team would be delighted to receive comments from readers of the blog

As popular white fish species such as cod, face fisheries collapse, pollock has increasingly been an essential alternative. For instance the kid’s favourite, Fish Fingers, now increasingly consist of pollock rather than cod, as do McDonald’s ‘Filet-o-Fish.’

Perhaps the pollock’s newly received endangered status has been brought about by increased corporate-consumer demand.

Recently the US National Marine Fisheries Service advised an 18 per cent reduction in next year’s catch from the pollock’s stronghold in the eastern Bering Sea. However given that advice about the North Atlantic Cod stocks were not heeded, many believe greater reductions are needed.

Greenpeace’s oceans campaign director, John Hocevar has been vocal about the need to reduce pollock fishing in order to prevent total collapse, suspecting that “we are on the cusp of one of the largest fishery collapses in history.”

Many scientists including Hocevar believe that the pollock’s immense decline could be the reason that stellar sea lion’s – a major predator of pollock – are faring so badly. Their numbers have tumbled by 80 per cent since the 1970s.

Once again, the imperative to diversity fish tastes at home and abroad has been highlighted, to allow imperilled fish stocks to recover.