Scottish Offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) - fisheries management measures: equality impact assessment

Screening

Policy Aim

Scotland’s Blue Economy Vision and long term commitment is that Scotland’s shared stewardship of our marine environment supports ecosystem health, improved livelihoods, economic prosperity, social inclusion and wellbeing; that our seas are managed to meet the long term needs of nature and people. Implementing appropriate fisheries management measures in the Marine Protected Areas (MPA) designated in the offshore Scottish marine region will help to achieve this vision. Scottish Ministers have committed to delivering fisheries management measures for existing Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) where these are not already in place. This contributes to the ‘Environment’ National Outcome within the National Performance Framework, under the ‘Condition of protected nature sites’ and ‘Biodiversity’ indicators.

The purpose of the MPA network (made up of various multiple protected area designations) is to safeguard important species, habitats and geology across Scotland’s marine environment. Maintaining or improving biological diversity by having an ecologically coherent MPA network that meets a range of legislative obligations. The Conservation of Offshore Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 define how Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) should be managed and protected. The Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 has a number of provisions relating to protected features of MPAs. The 2009 act also provides the Scottish Government with devolved powers in relation to marine planning, licencing, and conservation in the Scottish Offshore region. The Fisheries Act 2020 amends the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 to allow Scottish Ministers to make orders for the purpose of conserving marine flora, fauna or habitats. The Scottish Government intends to use this mechanism to enact the required fisheries management within MPAs and SACs in the offshore region.

The Scottish Government proposes to implement fisheries management measures at 20 offshore sites; 10 SACs and 10 MPAs. Two management options are assessed and will both be subject to public consultation. Option 1 represents a zoned management approach detailing measures that have been developed with stakeholders. In this option measures focus on the distribution of the protected features within the site to a level that enables conservation objectives to be met. Under this approach measures may or may not be implemented across the full site and are determined by the level of risk to the known features of the site by certain fishing gear. Option 2, would restrict the use of gears identified as damaging to designated features from the full designated site. Damaging gears are identified from advice and evidence provided by Joint Nature Conservation Committee.

The offshore area extends from the limit of the territorial sea to the UK Continental Shelf Claim Limit. This policy proposal fulfils duties in domestic legislation (including legislation that implemented the requirements of EU Directives), as well as contributing to UK and international networks of marine protected areas. Each protected site is assigned conservation objectives for special features found within the site, these may be to conserver or recover the feature. Therefore, to ensure conservation objectives are met it may be necessary to implement fisheries management measures. The measures required will depend on the protected features and could include restrictions on certain gear types, spatial or temporal restrictions.

Who will it affect?

Under the Equalities Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Regulations 2012 the listed authority (in this case the Scottish Government) must assess and consider the impact of against protected characteristics outlined under the Equality Act 2010 when applying a proposed policy. These characteristics are:

• age;
• disability;
• gender reassignment;
• marriage and civil partnership;
• pregnancy and maternity;
• race;
• religion or belief;
• sex;
• sexual orientation

The purpose of this policy is to provide environmental protection to the designated features of offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) through fisheries management measures. This is to ensure the conservation objectives of these sites can be achieved, and to support wider ecosystems and marine biodiversity.

A resilient ecosystem provides wider benefits through the services provided by healthy, productive and biodiverse marine ecosystems, including building resilience in marine industries and strengthening food security. The Strategic Environmental Assessment undertaken on the proposed policy found that the majority of the proposed zonal management measures are assessed as having significant moderate or major environmental benefits within the offshore MPAs. It is also recognised that the increased protection brought about by the measures will provide potential future benefits to habitats and species within the sites as they will restrict new fisheries using the targeted gear type from setting up in the area.

A full Socio-economic Impact Assessment (SEIA) has also been undertaken as part of the policy development process to identify areas and assess levels of impact. This explicitly explored potential impacts on social groups distinguished by location, age, income, social grouping (such as crofters, ethnic minorities, disability or long term sick) and gender. Stakeholder engagement has been undertaken throughout the process of developing measures with fishing industry representatives

The scale of consequential negative social impacts will be in proportion to the significance of the economic and employment impacts. The commercial fisheries sector is most likely to be directly impacted by MPA management measure through employment impacts as a number of restrictions are placed on the type of vessel and gear that can be deployed within the MPA boundary, which may potentially remove access to current fishing grounds.

Total employment on Scottish fishing vessels was 4,241 in 2021 (Scottish Government, 2022). The seafood processing sector employed 7,807 employees in 2021 (Seafish, 2022). The SEIA estimates the proposed management options have the potential to put between 9 and 101 full time employment roles at risk in the commercial fishing sector and its supply chain (direct and indirect impacts) reflective of the level of management implemented. These impacts are most likely to fall on those of working age, and on men who make up the vast majority of those employed in commercial sea fishing. There could be further employment impacts in downstream activities like fish processing, which are likely to be more evenly distributed between men and women.

It is worth noting that some displacement of fishing activity is likely to occur therefore the impacts on employment are likely to be lower than the maximum estimate given above. Displacement of fishing activity refers to activity that is no longer permitted under the policy measure is then conducted elsewhere, reducing the impact. At the upper levels these impacts could generate economic and social costs for the individuals concerned and consequently for their families

What might prevent the desired outcomes being achieved?

A key challenge of this policy is supporting the fishing industry in balance with ensuring the protection and enhancement of the marine environment. The proposed fisheries management measures under both proposed options may result in changes to fishing access within offshore MPAs as measures may include restrictions on certain gear types and spatial or temporal restrictions. Proposed measures are site specific, and dependent on the site location, conservation objectives of the site and the associated risk to the features within the site.

Measures under Option 1 have been developed with industry and environmental non-governmental organisations to mitigate impact where possible. Mitigation strategies included adopting a zonal management approach to measures, enabling valuable fishing to continue where possible if there would be no impact on the conservation objectives of the sites or the level of risk to features or meeting conservation objectives were considered low.

Measures under Option 2 are likely to have a higher socioeconomic impact by restricting all damaging gear types from the full protected area.

Both options have been subject to a full Socio-economic impact assessment (SEIA) to provide quantitative (where possible) evidence to inform Ministers in their decision making. Impacts assessed include changes to fish landings and local processing (if undertaken) and the relevant findings are discussed in Stage 1 and 2 of this EQIA. The SEIA was subject to a public consultation. The consultation analysis report can be found here Fisheries management measures within Scottish Offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs): consultation analysis - gov.scot.