In the run up to the Scottish Elections in May we will be talking to you about the transformative changes that politicians in Scotland must make to recover Scotland’s amazing nature and how you can help. Today, we look at actions to recover nature in Scotland’s spectacular seas.
There are two actions in our joint Nature Recovery Plan that focus on how we manage our seas and would deliver huge benefits for nature and the climate.
Scotland’s seas are six times larger than its land mass, and our shores make up an astonishing 10% of Europe’s coastline. A wealth of habitats and species, including seagrass meadows, coral reefs, dolphins and seabirds, can be found in Scottish waters from the coastal shallows to the deep ocean. We are lucky that our seas support an incredible diversity of marine life, but current policies are failing to protect wildlife let alone reverse the damage already done.
The legacy of historic human impacts combined with current and emerging threats from coastal and offshore development and extraction, mean that our marine environment faces intense pressure and is less capable of coping with change. The effects of climate change are already evident and are predicted to intensify as temperature rises – at the same time we are increasingly learning about the crucial role of our ocean in climate mitigation.
While our seas face a number of threats, our Nature Recovery Plan focusses on two actions that would improve the overall health of Scotland’s seas – reforms in management of fishing and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
Ask #2: Introduce new legislation to achieve sustainable, low-impact fishing by the end of 2021
Alongside climate change, commercial fishing remains a persistent and widespread pressure affecting marine biodiversity. To match the scale of the challenges our seas face, an urgent shift in management towards modern, nature and climate-smart fisheries is needed. The unintended impacts that can come with harvesting seafood (such as incidental bycatch, damage to habitats and overfishing) need to be minimised to help restore the marine environment. Fisheries legislation, policy and governance must chart a course to recovery and resilience. We’re asking leaders to champion sustainable fisheries by committing to end overfishing, deliver fully documented fisheries with all vessels fishing in Scottish waters required to use Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM) with cameras, to protect vulnerable habitats and boost recovery by spatially managing fishing gears in Scotland’s fragile inshore waters and to end the needless capture of seabirds, whales and dolphins.
Ask #11: Commit to at least 30% of Scotland’s seas being highly protected, with at least 10% fully protected, by 2030
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are tried and tested tools for conservation, delivering a range of benefits to ecosystems and communities. While progress has been made, and the Scottish MPA network currently covers 37% of the Scottish marine area, most of the network awaits effective protection from the most damaging and extractive activities, and even those MPAs with management plans still allow damaging industrial activity to continue, offering neither protection nor recovery. Across the globe, there is a drive to deliver more ambitious protections for nature. We’re asking political parties to embrace new global standards and commit to a minimum of 30% of Scottish seas being highly protected, of which at least a third is fully protected, by 2030. In the immediate term we’re also asking for urgent classification of outstanding Special Protection Area (SPA) sites in Orkney, for the entire network to be protected from damaging activity in line with international standards and for long-term funding for effective site monitoring.
The Marine Protected Area Guide outlines common language for MPAs. Fully protected is defined as: no extractive or destructive activities are allowed, and all impacts are minimized. Highly protected is defined as: only light extractive activities are allowed, and other impacts are minimized to the extent possible.
It is time for decision-makers to transform protection and management of Scotland’s marine environment. To tackle the nature and climate emergency, we must form a new relationship with the sea, where the greatest societal value is placed on what is left behind rather than what is taken out. With devolved responsibility for conservation in 61% of UK seas, the next Scottish Government has an opportunity to be a shining beacon for marine conservation and to set the international gold-standard for ocean recovery.
Why not check which candidates and parties have made these commitments and let yours know that nature is important to you by calling on them to champion nature? Find out more about the Nature Recovery Plan at rspb.org.uk/reviveourworldscotland