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

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.