From Kent Wildlife Trust
‘Bitterly
disappointed’ - Kent Wildlife Trust reacts
to
the Marine Conservation Zones consultation just published
On 12th December Defra released its long-awaited consultation
on the next stages of designation of Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) in
English and non-devolved waters.
Along with other English Wildlife Trusts, Kent Wildlife Trust is gravely
concerned at the lack of ambition shown in this consultation. Defra proposes to designate only 31 of the
127 sites recommended by experts and stakeholders at the end of August last
year. This includes just four small
sites of the eleven MCZs recommended around Kent and just 9 of the 31
recommended in the south east. The four
Kent sites are: Medway Estuary, Thanet Coast, Folkestone Pomerania and Hythe
Bay.
Kent Wildlife Trust’s Marine Policy Officer, Bryony Chapman, said: “We were promised a network of sites to help
reverse the decline in our marine wildlife and habitats, and this does not even
approach a network. We are bitterly
disappointed that the Government has largely ignored the recommendations made
by the stakeholder groups, and is failing to safeguard the future of our seas.”
The 127 recommended Marine Conservation Zones were chosen after two years
of hard work by more than one million stakeholders from all sectors of the
marine environment and at a cost of over £8.8 million to Government. Kent Wildlife Trust was heavily involved in
this process, attending all the stakeholder meetings, discussing the best sites
for wildlife and for all the various industries and recreational users and
reaching consensus on a network of sites across the south east.
Seven of the recommended sites around Kent are not being put forward for
designation in this consultation. Of
these, four have been identified as being at high risk to damage, and yet their
designation is being delayed for an undetermined time, so they will continue to
be degraded, and wildlife lost.
See Editors’
Note 1.
To admire some of the many wonders these MCZs feature, visit The Wildlife
Trusts’ interactive map at wildlifetrusts.org/MCZmap. This includes videos taken on survey dives in
several of Kent’s recommended Marine Conservation Zones, showing the wonderful
and fragile marine life we are trying to protect.
Marine Conservation Zones should protect the species and habitats found
within them from the most damaging and degrading of activities whilst mostly
allowing sustainable activity to continue.
The network was designed to ensure that we don’t end up with isolated
and vulnerable sites and to ensure that the wide range of marine habitats found
in UK seas are protected. Failure to
designate all but a very small proportion of sites recommended by these
stakeholders will mean that we lack the ecologically coherent network that our
seas so badly need to recover.
The UK’s marine habitats are rich and diverse but largely unprotected -
which is why The Wildlife Trusts spent a decade asking the Government to pass
the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009.
This included a commitment to designate this ecologically coherent
marine network of protected areas.
The seas surrounding Kent have an astonishingly varied range of submerged
landscapes which support wonderful marine life: from sponge meadows and shrimp
beds to rossworm reefs, and from deep chalk gullies and greensand ridges to massive
sandbanks. Without these habitats and
wildlife communities there simply wouldn't be any fish, let alone fantastic dahlia
anemones, seahorses, dolphins, brittlestars and all the other wild and
extraordinary creatures which are part of a healthy marine ecosystem.
Despite the variety of fantastic species and habitats, our marine
environment is in decline. In the last
400 years, two species of whale and dolphin have gone extinct in UK waters and
of the 11 commonly sighted species found in UK waters, all are considered to be
in decline. Basking shark numbers have
declined by 95% and species such as the common skate, once abundant in our waters
are now critically endangered. For too
long, we have taken this environment for granted, taking too much, with too
little care, destroying fragile habitats.
Designation of an ecologically coherent network would provide our seas
with the protection they need to recover from past abuses and help them to be
restored to their full potential.
The Wildlife Trusts will be responding to the Government
consultation. We will be publishing our
recommendations on the consultation on our webpage. Meanwhile, we urge those interested in
responding to the consultation, to sign up to be an MCZ friend so that we can
contact you when we complete our response to the consultation.
Ends
Editors’ Notes:
1) Kent
sites included in the 31
for designation in 2013:
Medway Estuary, Thanet
Coast, Folkestone Pomerania, Hythe Bay
Sites not included for 2013
designation:
Thames Estuary, Swale Estuary, Goodwin Sands, Kentish Knock, Offshore
Foreland, Dover to Deal and Dover to Folkestone.
Four sites ‘at high risk’ but
not included for designation in 2013:
Thames Estuary, Swale Estuary, Dover to Deal, Dover
to Folkestone.
2) Map of the recommended MCZs and the sites
put forward for 2013 designation is available on request.
3) Background
to recommended MCZs: At the end
of 2009, the UK Government passed a piece of landmark legislation, the Marine
and Coastal Access Act. This was swiftly followed, at the start of 2010, by
similar legislation in Scotland - the Marine (Scotland) Act. These pieces of
legislation place a duty on the UK, Welsh and Scottish Governments to
dramatically boost protection by creating an ecologically coherent network of
protected areas. By 2013, the UK,
Scottish and Welsh governments should designate their network of protected
areas. The 127 recommended MCZs
mentioned above cover England and non-devolved waters. The Scottish Executive and the Welsh Assembly
are in the process of determining their network. The Welsh Assembly is in the
first round of consultations for its sites and the Scottish Assembly is
expected to release its proposed network for consultation later this year. The
Northern Irish Assembly is currently consulting on its Marine Bill which should
ensure this network extends into Northern Irish waters.
4) Kent Wildlife Trust is the leading wildlife
conservation charity for Kent and Medway. Since its formation in 1958 we have
worked to make Kent a better place for both wildlife and people. We manage five
visitor centres and 60 nature reserves covering 7,500 acres, and we are
supported by over 31,000 members and around 1,000 registered volunteers.
5) The Wildlife Trusts wildlifetrusts.org
There are 47 individual
Wildlife Trusts covering the whole of the UK.
All are working for an environment rich in wildlife for everyone. We have more than 800,000 members including
150,000 members of our junior branch Wildlife Watch. Our vision is to create A Living Landscape
and secure Living Seas. We manage around
2,300 nature reserves and every year we advise thousands of landowners and
organisations on how to manage their land for wildlife. We have 35,000
volunteers and host around 17,000 events engaging people with nature every
year. We also run marine conservation
projects around the UK, collecting vital data on the state of our seas and
celebrating our amazing marine wildlife.
Every year we work with thousands of schools and our nature reserves and
visitor centres receive millions of visitors.
Each Wildlife Trust is working within its local communities to inspire
people about the future of their area: their own Living Landscapes and Living
Seas.
Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:
