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Stuart Housden

This year we are sandwiched between two great sporting events in Britain; The London Olympics of 2012 and the Glasgow Commonwealth games in 2014.

The memories that stay with me from sporting events like the Olympics and previous Commonwealth events are the energy and enthusiasm of the crowd, the look on the athletes’ faces when they cross the finish line. It’s an exhausted expression which tells its own story of the limits of human physical and mental strength. It’s an epic about pride, achievement, journey, a sense of occasion, making dreams come true and a battle against any obstacle that gets in your way.

Kittiwake by Andy Hay

I’m probably never going to finish a marathon or run the hundred metres in under 10 seconds, but I do feel that same sense of pride and achievement when I think about what RSPB Scotland and its supporters have accomplished in the marine environment. Together we have campaigned for over a decade to ensure that the vast wealth of species we have in our seas are properly protected.

We have achieved so much with the introduction of the Marine (Scotland) Act which allows the Scottish Government to set up Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) for nationally important groups of species and for the first time protect the amazing variety of plants and animals in our seas. However, we’ve been running this particular marathon for a long time now - and we’ve hit ‘the wall’.

What we want is protection for the areas at sea where seabirds feed. And frankly that’s what the birds themselves desperately need-this is not a paper exercise, but a matter of long term survival.The only way that it can happen is if our Government in Scotland sets up MPAs for ‘our’ seabirds, something it has so far refused to do.

The Government says seabirds have enough protection through European designations. The statistics tell me differently - Arctic skua down 80%, black-legged kittiwake down 68%, Arctic tern down 72% since 1986. These long-term declines tell us that Scotland’s seabirds are not coping well with changes in their environment and need better protection. RSPB scientists tell us that some seabird colonies could disappear within a decade.

Marwick Head 1970s

Marwick Head 2013

In a radio interview recently one of my colleagues was asked about seabird declines and why people should care. I could write a book about why people should care about the environment and I needn’t mention economics once, but seabirds are valuable in a number of ways. In Orkney alone they bring in £1.3 million a year to the local economy[1] and the Government's own advisors in Scottish Natural Heritage report that marine wildlife tourism is worth £63 million a year to Scotland[2]. That’s all very well if money is what makes your world go round, but seabirds are a vital part of our marine ecosystem. As apex predators their role in maintaining ecological equilibrium cannot be underestimated. If we don’t take a holistic approach to marine conservation and create an ‘ecologically coherent network of MPAs’ (which is what the law says the Government must achieve), it will be of great detriment to our environment, our economy and our way of life in Scotland. Seabirds are an inspiration to many young biologists, artists, poets and musicians. Can we really be the generation that apathetically watches our seabird colonies fall silent? Colonies which I remember as raucous,smelly, hives of industry-massed ’cities’ are now hamlets, and all but deserted.

Guillemots

Although we are may have hit ‘the wall’, this marathon is far from over. Scotland is one of the most important places in the world for seabirds and they deserve better. They need MPAs to act like SSSIs do on land, protecting areas that are nationally important. Why should our seas and our marine birds be given less protection than those found in Scotland's forests or farmlands?

When faced with a wall the only option is to keep going, but we can’t do it on our own, we need the energetic, enthusiastic crowd behind us. We need you, our supporters, friends and comrades to help cheer us.

The Government has the power to create MPAs for seabirds today. They’ve even gone so far as to say that if there is enough public support for MPAs for seabirds they will listen. The Scottish Government’s consultation on MPAs is open until 13 November. If you care about the future of our marine environment then this is your best and maybe your last chance to have your voice heard.

You can take part in out e-action here – http://bit.ly/13WmaWx or, better still write a letter. You can find a briefing here – http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/MPA_LW_briefing_tcm9-356400.pdf.