Bempton Cliffs and the surrounding area of Flameborough Head are home to Britain’s largest seabird breeding colonies and they need your help.Thursday night saw the last in the present series of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s FishFight ‘Save our Seas’ campaign. This programme highlighted a number of important marine conservation and sustainability issues. Yet the one which concerns us is the urgent need to designate Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) to protect important, sensitive and threatened marine species and habitats, both in UK waters and elsewhere.
Within this the Government are only proposing to designate up to 31 out of the 127 sites that were recommended by stakeholder groups (including fishermen, industry and environmentalists), which are currently out for consultation until the end of March. And as it stands, none of the proposed sites will include mobile species such as seabirds, dolphins, whales or sharks as protected species.
Furthermore to top it off, Flamborough and the surrounding area is not included in the proposed designations, despite its importance to seabirds and marine natural heritage. The RSPB is concerned that this pattern is repeating itself across the UK, as currently none of the processes to identify MCZs will deliver protection for the important areas used by seabirds at sea for key activities such as feeding and moulting.
You can help! You can step up for nature by adding your voice to the call for an ecologically coherent network MCZs around the UK by signing our e-actions, click here today.
For more information and updates about our ‘Safeguard our Sealife’ campaign please visit www.rspb.org.uk/marine
(Image: Steve Race)