By Kate Sugar, Senior Marine Policy Officer
You might have noticed that, over the weekend, Bradley Wiggins became the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France EVER – great work Bradley! You might also have noticed that this weekend, for a lot of the country (sorry to those bits still waiting for it) the summer sun finally made an appearance – about time!
So with all these historic events going on, and the sporting hype building up to fever pitch, you could be forgiven for not having noticed the latest developments in the ongoing process of Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ) designation in English waters.
We noticed it though… as after 10 months of patiently waiting we finally have the statutory advice from the Government’s nature conservation advisors (Natural England and the JNCC) on the MCZ network recommended by the regional projects last September. So far, so dry – I can see why a 1,455 page technical document on things like scientific confidence levels might not light your fire. But it’s the implications of this advice that are going to be crucial for the MCZ designation process, as the Minister (Richard Benyon) will use this scientific advice to help make his decision about which MCZs to take forward to designation in 2013.
From a first read – there’s a lot to be positive about. The advice expresses support for the network of 127 sites as a whole, and the regional project process that came up with it. The case for the 6 sites in the recommended network with seabirds as proposed features for protection is examined, and found to be justified (woop! while this doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll get these sites into the first tranche to be designated, it’s certainly a helpful bit of support from the statutory agencies).
However, the devil will most certainly be in the detail, and in the way that Government react to this advice. So over the next couple of months we’ll be working through the advice, assessing those implications, and most importantly – keeping up the pressure on the Government and the Minister for greater ambition in designating the network next year. Watch this space!
In the meantime, if you want to find out more, you can access all the documents online here
Fantastic Fish on a Bicycle by Daren Greenhow - check out his other amazing work here