| Re: Petition Fish!
I did an assessment of the Marine White Paper (well the Chilterns will make a nice little sub-tropical seaside resort with global warming and sea level rise) – no I did it for work really.
Although it would allow the designation of statutory marine nature reserves i.e. the equivalent of terrestrial SSSIs, any proposed marine reserves will have to pass an economic test before the designation is accepted. This doesn’t happen (officially) on land where a SSSI is based purely on its scientific value. So a proposed marine reserve may be turned down if fishermen or the aggregates companies say that they want to use the area for economic gain regardless of its ecological value. This aspect of the Marine Bill must be changed in line with the terrestrial methodology.
It also creates a Marine Management Organisation (MMO), which in theory is a good thing. However, it means that all activities that need a ‘marine’ license would be licensed by the MMO rather than by the present licensing authorities e.g. Environment Agency. The main problem is that the MMO will, by law be development plan lead i.e. just like Local Planning Authorities operate now and we all know how successful that model is at protecting the environment. Further, the present proposed staffing of the MMO which will be in the region of 300 licensing staff which includes hardly any ecologists - an interesting state of affairs for an environmental management organisation. Therefore, the people assessing the environmental impact of a licence may have little idea of the ecological consequences of their decisions – again, just like the planning authorities.
So, I agree with the ethos behind a Marine Act but the present proposal may make some things worse, particularly along the foreshore where the Environment Agency will lose all of its environmental protection powers which will be subsumed into the MMO.
I’ve signed the fish as we need a decent Marine Act however, I think the Marine Bill in its present form is not yet the answer to UK Marine conservation but a small step in the right direction with some ecological dangers in the small print.
Chris  |