Marine Science needs a step change, and MCZs are vital

New report from Parliamentary Committee

Today the Parliamentary Science & Technology Committee releases their report into the way that science and evidence are used in the marine environment, following their enquiry at the end of 2012. I’d encourage you to have a read of it, as it contains some strong messages to Government, in particular on the recent selection of Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) in England and the importance of data and monitoring.

From the RSPB’s perspective, the report’s conclusions and recommendations highlight many of the same key issues that we raised in our recent response to the consultation on MCZs, which closed last month.

Some of the main conclusions on MCZs from the Committee’s MPs include:

• The Government has not set a clear vision for MCZs and appears to have lost impetus for selecting them;
• The Government “shifted the goalposts” during the MCZ process to require a higher level of evidence, and should stick to its standard of best available evidence as set out in its initial MCZ guidance, and not delay sites further because of scientific uncertainty;
• It is not clear why the 31 sites being taken forward this year were selected and others not. MPs also want information on how the MCZs that haven’t come forward in the current tranche will be protected in the meantime; 
• A clear timetable, with a clear end date, for the designation of the current and further tranches of MCZs must be provided by Government.

We would urge the Government to take this opportunity to reinvigorate their original vision (in place since 2002) of “clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse oceans and seas”, and take the actions needed to deliver this, by designating a full and ecologically coherent network of protected areas at sea as soon as possible. As well as MCZs, this network also includes a suite of marine sites of European importance for seabirds (called Special Protection Areas), which is a long way from complete. Only with such an approach will the risks to our important marine wildlife be reduced.

A further important area that the report highlights is the value of data and monitoring. As the Committee itself concludes, “collecting scientific evidence about our marine environment is fundamentally important to the Government’s marine policy agenda”.

The Committee’s recommendation has two strands. Firstly, the Committee recommends that the Government and the relevant agency, the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) should develop proposals that would make sharing of more data at sea a condition of licensing commercial activities in UK waters. The information that industry collects is highly relevant to a range of other marine work areas, such as marine planning and the location of protected sites, and should guide the smart roll-out of marine renewable energy.

Secondly, the Committee is concerned that long-term monitoring programmes that tell us so much about the natural environment over time are not funded strategically. One particular example that we are very concerned about at the moment is the regular census of breeding seabirds that takes place every 15 years. This really important census tells us how well or how badly seabird populations around the UK are doing and makes an assessment of what the main impacts are. It’s the basis for so much of what we do but the last census was back in 2000 and so the next one is due soon. The Government needs to make ‘Seabird 2015’ a real priority and we are concerned that initial preparation is not taking place as quickly as it should.

We hope that the Government uses the recommendations of the Science & Technology Committee’s report as positive encouragement to improve marine science, fill the data gaps and create a mandate to deliver more effective marine conservation. The time is now.

Kittiwake: Kaleel Zibe (rspb-images.com)