Nature Conservation Advice from NatureScot and JNCC: Demersal Fisheries Management Plans

6 Conclusion and recommendations

This advice has highlighted several risks to the designated features of Scottish MPAs outside site boundaries, PMFs, and UK MS descriptors, namely bycatch of protected species, reductions in prey of marine mammals and birds, physical impacts to the seafloor, and the introduction of marine litter. The role of industry will be crucial in both gathering evidence in the form of fisheries-dependent data, and in identifying practical, workable, and locally relevant solutions that can reduce pressures and mitigate risks accordingly. Government will likely need to coordinate different policy areas and delivery tools, going beyond FMPs, and to provide resourcing to develop synergies and maximise the impact of those actions instigated through FMPs. ALBs will need to ensure timely analysis of evidence supplied and the subsequent provision of robust and appropriate advice. Such an approach is essential to ensure the conservation objectives of MPAs are met or furthered, the management of fisheries make a significant contribution to the achievement of GES, and important steps towards an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management are taken.

In some cases, existing initiatives will complement the work of the FMPs, such as the UK Bycatch Mitigation Initiative, Clean Catch UK and the Scottish Entanglement Alliance; these will be important for coordinating and achieving progress beyond the regional scale of FMPs and individual fisheries stock units. In other challenging areas, such as benthic integrity to meet GES, further work to develop the appropriate vehicles to deliver strategic work at a suitable scale will be required. Government will need to consider where reductions in pressures need to occur across the fleet and to make decisions accounting for the trade-offs between industry sectors. It might be difficult to do this at the individual FMP level, and thus actions may be necessary at a programme level.