Marine-Life Protection Zones need to be speeded up
23 Jun 2014 12:37 PM
MPs have cast doubt on
the Government’s commitment to protect sea life in Marine Conservation
Zones (MCZ) after less than a quarter of the recommended sites were designated
and inadequate enforcement provisions put in place.
Committee
Chair
Chair of the Committee, Joan
Walley MP, said:
“Marine Conservation Zones
can protect our seas from over-fishing and give species and habitats space to
recover, ultimately benefiting people whose livelihoods depend on healthy seas.
But the Government has been too slow in creating these Zones, and it has failed
to get coastal communities and fishermen on board.”
It is now well over four
years since the launch of the programme, yet only 27 of the 127 sites
recommended by independent project groups have been designated. The Government
must stop trying to water down its pledge to protect our seas and move much
more quickly to establish further protection zones and ensure they can be
enforced.”
Funding for managing the
MCZs
Budget reductions at DEFRA mean
the Government is currently unable to demonstrate that the Marine Management
Organisation - the public body charged with managing the zones - will have the
resources needed to manage and enforce the MCZs. The Environmental Audit
Committee says the Government must set out a strategy for the management of the
27 MCZs and management plans for individual Zones to demonstrate that they can
be enforced.
Gathering the
evidence
The MPs are calling on the
Government to bring forward the MCZ programme, so that more Zones are
designated in the next phase, due in 2015. Ministers should follow a
precautionary principle approach to designating new Zones, according to the
Committee, and use the ‘best available’ data rather than applying
the more stringent evidence standards recently introduced by the Government
– which require data that is much harder and more expensive to
obtain.
Joan Walley
concluded:
“When a rare species or
biodiverse stretch of seabed is destroyed, it may be lost for ever. The
Government must therefore act on the best available evidence and base its
decisions on new MCZs on the precautionary principle, rather than demanding
unobtainable evidence.”
It is not acceptable that the
Marine Management Organisation will have management and control plans in place
for existing MCZs only in 2016 — over two years after they were
designated. The failure to move more quickly and decisively raises questions
about whether the Government and its agencies are really committed to Marine
Conservation Zones. The Government needs to show that a falling MMO budget will
not jeopardise this essential programme.”