New Marine Designations - WordPress.com · 2016. 6. 28. · The deep water (circalittoral) rock is a habitat for cup coral, sea-fans, and anemones, and sponges, ... PowerPoint presentation
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New Marine Designations
Richard Macdonald Lead Adviser Marine
• Introduction
• New Marine Designations
• Coquet to St Mary’s MCZ
• Northumberland Marine pSPA
• Additional features added to Coquet Island, Farne Island and
Northumbria Coast SPA
• MPA – Conservation Advice
• Teesmouth and Cleveland Coast pSPA
• Holderness Inshore MCZ
• Flamborough and Filey Coast pSPA
• Possible Greater Wash SPA
• pSPA
Creating a network of Marine Protected Areas
(MPAs)
• UK government has signed up to international
agreements (e.g. OSPAR convention) committing to
creating an ecologically coherent network of MPAs
• ‘Ecologically coherent’ means that the network will
function as more than the sum of its parts
• Marine Strategy Framework Directive - ecologically
coherent and well-managed UK MPA network
contributing to Good Environmental Status by 2020.
• The government is committed to delivering a Blue Belt of Marine
Protected Areas (MPAs) around our coasts. These will protect
precious species and habitats in our seas.
Components of a UK MPA
network
England’s contribution:
SACs – Habitats Directive
SPAs – Birds Directive
Ramsar sites – Wetlands
Convention
SSSIs – Wildlife &
Countryside Act 1981
MCZs – Marine & Coastal
Access Act 2010
Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs)
• MCZs set up to conserve
– Representative marine habitats
– Nationally rare or threatened species and habitats (‘FOCI’)
– Overall marine diversity
– Not designed to directly protect mobile species such as fish (with a few exceptions), cetaceans or birds
• A different approach to MPA
planning...placed stakeholders
central to the decision making
process
• Contrasts with approach to other
designations, where only scientific
evidence can influence site
boundaries
Marine Conservation Zone: Aln Estuary
Features
Coastal saltmarshes and saline reedbeds
Intertidal mud
Estuarine rocky habitat
Sheltered muddy gravels
New Marine Designations
• 23 New areas along the UK Coast as the latest Marine
Conservation Zones Extending Country’s Blue Belt to cover 20% of
English Waters
• Coquet to St Mary’s MCZ
• (Designated January 2016)
• specific features are protected
• and where necessary marine activities
managed
Marine Conservation Zone: Coquet to St. Mary’s
NG13
Moderate energy intertidal rock
Low energy intertidal rock
Intertidal coarse sediment
Intertidal sand and muddy sand
Intertidal mud
Intertidal mixed sediments
High energy infralittoral rock
Moderate energy infralittoral rock
Moderate energy circalittoral rock
Subtidal coarse sediment
Subtidal sand
Subtidal mud
Subtidal mixed sediments
Intertidal under boulder communities
Features
Coquet to St Mary’s
• Site protects several different types of rock and sediment on the
shoreline and on the seabed.
• The range of habitats provides a home for a large variety of life.
Coarse Sediment worms, shrimp burrowing anemones.
• Rocks in shallow water (infralittoral rocks) - a habitat for kelp and
red seaweed,
The deep water (circalittoral) rock is a habitat for cup coral, sea-
fans, and anemones, and sponges, these animals thrive in deeper
water where there is not enough sunlight for algal growth.
These complex habitats and communities support mobile species.
starfish, sea urchins, crabs, and lobsters.
Coquet to St Mary’s
• The site also supports a range of intertidal habitats, which are above
water at low tide and underwater at high tide.
• One of these habitats is intertidal underboulder communities.
Boulders create shaded areas that provide a refuge for animals to
seek food and shelter sea squirts, sea mats, and sponges .
• The undersides of the boulder provide a habitat for animals like sea
slugs, long-clawed porcelain crabs and brittlestars,
• Crabs, fish and young lobsters also seek food and shelter amongst
the boulders.
Agreements
• Example Dredge Disposal – monitoring, modelling and evidence
New pSPA’s
• Northumberland Marine SPA - Ministerial approval to go to formal
consultation so has legal protection and requires Habitat Regulation
Assessments
• Changes to Existing Terrestrial SPA’s
Coquet Island, Farne Island, Northumberland Coast
• Teesmouth and Cleveland Coast pSPA – Informal Dialogue
working with stakeholders
Northumberland Marine pSPA
• Create a new marine SPA to
include:
– little tern
– Arctic tern
– Sandwich tern
– roseate tern
– common tern
– Atlantic puffin
– common guillemot
– Seabird Assemblage
Northumberland Marine pSPA
• Protect important areas for breeding seabirds and auk species when
foraging or performing maintenance activities (such as preening
and sleeping)
• Protect foraging waters used by breeding Birds from the already
classified SPA’s
Amend Existing SPA to include existing SPA’s
• SPA Boundaries remain the same, features added
• Coquet Island SPA Internationally important Seabird Assemblage of
over 20,00
• Farne Island SPA Common Guillemot and Internationally important
seabird assemblage of over 20,000
• Northumbria Coast SPA – Artic Tern
Marine Protected Area Conservation Advice
• 1. Site Overview – feature description sub feature and supporting
habitat
• 2. Condition Information – advice on current condition of features
• 3.Conservation Objective- setting targets against identified
ecological attributes
• 4. Advice on operations- sensitivity of feature to identifiable
pressures
• 5.Site maps - Boundary, features, and supporting habitat
Advice on Operations
Advice on Operations
Management of Operations
• Fisheries, By Catch of Seabirds in Net
• Linked to type of netting location seasonality
• Tourism Bird disturbance Type and frequency of activity
• Monitoring programme will be set up by authorities to look at
impacts of fishing and recreational activities
Teesmouth and Cleveland Coast pSPA
Teesmouth and Cleveland Coast pSPA
• Informal Dialogue
• Working Closely with
Stakeholders
• Extension foraging areas for
SPA birds little Tern and
Common Tern
• Add features
• Common Tern, Eurasian
Spoonbill and Pied Advocet
• Extension brings in Little Tern
colony at Crimdon Dene and
the river Tees
Holderness Inshore MCZ
• Designated in January 2016
• Runs from Skipsea in the north to Spurn Point in the south
• Extends out to 3 nautical miles – 309km2 in total
• Area already prohibited for trawling
• Designated features:
- Intertidal sand and muddy sand -
Subtidal habitats - circalittoral rock,
coarse sediment, mixed sediments,
sand and mud
- Spurn Head geological feature
(subtidal)
Runswick Bay MCZ
• Also designated in January 2016
• Runs from just east of Staithes Harbour to Sandsend Point
• Extends out to 3 nautical miles, also a prohibited area for trawling
• 68km2 in size.
• Designated features are:
- Intertidal rock
- Intertidal sand and muddy sand
- Subtidal habitats: rock, coarse sediment, mixed sediments, sand and mud
- Ocean quahog – a long-lived bivalve
(see photo)
Flamborough & Filey Coast SPA
• Updating the existing Flamborough
Head & Bempton Cliffs SPA
• Adding gannet (photo), razorbill and
guillemot and the seabird assemblage
as features.
• Protecting the cliffs at Filey to include
20,000 breeding seabirds.
• Marine extensions out to 2km to protect
important resting areas around colony.
• Revised landward boundary to
accommodate predicted coastal
change over a 50-year period.
A possible Greater Wash SPA…
• Large area of interest between
Great Yarmouth and
Bridlington Bay
• Aerial surveys carried out
between 2002/3 and 2007/8
• Potentially being brought
forward for wintering red-
throated diver, common scoter
and little gull
• Would encompass important
foraging areas for breeding
terns, including the colony of
little tern (see photo) at
Easington - protected by
Humber Estuary SPA.
• Informal discussions with
stakeholders in 2015.
• Formal consultation
anticipated later this year.
Greater Wash draft
SPA
• Draft boundary only – subject to change.
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