The RSPB’s new report ‘A world richer in nature: Where nature and people can thrive’ sets out our vision for a nature positive world by 2030. In this blog Ally Lemon, Marine Policy Officer for RSPB Scotland, outlines what this means for fisheries and our marine environment.
Scotland’s seas are massively important to us and to nature, they provide food for us, they provide energy through offshore wind and are important for our health both physical and mental. They are also home to internationally important wildlife and habitats, a prime example of this is seabirds. Seabirds are one of the most threatened groups of birds in the world facing multiple threats such as climate change, food shortages and predation by invasive non-native predators. The pressure on our seas and seabirds is increasing – with the demand to meet the government's Net Zero target, there is an increase in the pace of the offshore wind sector and this year an outbreak of bird flu devastated populations of many of our seabirds.
The report outlines two main areas for action – fisheries management and protected areas.
Our vision is that by 2030, fisheries are managed so that they support thriving seabird populations, and benefit nature and the climate. To achieve this, we need to see:
Changing how fisheries are managed could help nature and our climate. Credit: Aidan McCormick (rspb-images.com)
The other key component, highlighted in the report, for helping struggling seabirds is a fully functioning network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
There are a number of different designations that make up the Marine Protected Area Network currently such as MPAs (which can be designated for nature conservation, historic features or demonstration and research purposes), marine SACs, marine SPAs, SSSIs and RAMSAR sites. In total Scotland has over 230 sites that make up the network protecting a whole host of Scotland’s wildlife and habitats. For these sites to work there needs to be effective management in place. We are looking forward to this being completed by 2024 as has been promised.
There is also a new type of designation being proposed by the Scottish Government called Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) which would go above current levels of protection. There is a commitment to have at least 10% of Scotland’s seas covered by this new designation by 2026 which came about from the SNP and Scottish Greens’ agreement to work together in the current parliament. This agreement is known as the Bute House Agreement.
HPMAs will be the gold star of protected sites. Within them no extractive, damaging or depositional activity should be permitted and nature will be allowed to flourish. A difference between the current designations that we have in Scotland and HPMAs is that current sites are focussed on protecting the best bits of nature that we have, HPMAs will focus on nature’s recovery!
Seabirds need both their nesting and feeding areas protected if they are to thrive. Credit: Andrew Bielinski (rspb-images.com)
Some key ways we would like HPMAs to deliver is by protecting important blue carbon habitats such as seagrass which is excellent at storing carbon - seagrass captures and stores carbon 35 times faster than rainforest. Also, for HPMAs to be meaningful to seabirds, these sites must overlap with seabirds foraging areas or provide a role in protecting forage fish species. We worked with our partners at Scottish Environment LINK to fully explore what we think HPMAs should look like and you can read the policy briefing here.
Following the initial announcement in the Bute House Agreement and re-commitment to HPMAs in the Programme for Government this year we are still waiting on the consultation process to begin. The latest from Marine Scotland suggests this will be by the end of 2022. This consultation will be around the policy framework and what HPMAs will look like, before moving onto site selection which is the next step. We are looking forward to engaging with the consultation process and working with partners, government and other stakeholders. We need HPMAs to be ambitious and bold and for both habitat and species recovery to be at the core of what they will deliver. This is needed so that HPMAs can fully achieve their potential and start playing their part in ocean recovery in Scotland!
Header image: razorbills diving underwater by Aidan McCormick (rspb-images.com)
Great article, thank you very much. I find it especially terrifying how nature is dying and we are even accelerating this. poisoning animals