Proposed Fisheries Management Measures within Scottish Inshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and proposed Priority Marine Feature (PMF) Management Areas - Partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA)

3. Background, aims and options

3.1 Background to policy issue

The first phase of fisheries management measures for inshore sites (which included NCMPAs and SACs) was consulted on in 2014^[1] along with an accompanying Sustainability Appraisal (SA). Following analysis of responses to the public consultation, the finalised measures were implemented in early 2016 using the powers in the Inshore Fishing (Scotland) Act 1984 and Marine (Scotland) Act 2010.

The Scottish Government has developed fisheries management measures for remaining sites within the Marine Protected Area (MPA) Network that still require these, and to protect the 11 Priority Marine Features (PMFs) that are most vulnerable to demersal mobile fishing gear outside of the MPA network.

We have developed these proposed fisheries management measures options in accordance with the principles of fairness and engagement, underpinned by robust scientific evidence. The Scottish Government has engaged extensively with the fishing industry, communities and local decision makers throughout the process of developing measures to minimise the impact on the catching sector and other fishing businesses.

MPAs are areas of sea that are designated to ensure the protection of some of the most vulnerable marine animals and habitats (e.g., marine mammals, seabirds and seabed habitats such as cold water corals) and geodiversity features. The objective of management within MPAs is to ensure that sites are achieving their conservation objectives and any activities occurring within a site do not risk the achievement of these.

Introducing MPAs to meet conservation objectives often requires restricting some activities in the area. This can include reducing fishing activities, or more widely limiting boat’s access to the area. This reduction in activities can affect industries such as fishing, shipping, renewable energy developments, and oil and gas, depending on the exact nature of the restrictions in place. Although this inshore MPA policy is putting in place fisheries management measures, other activities will still need to take these management measures into consideration when applying for a marine licence.

PMFs cover a variety of habitats and species that are a priority for conservation in Scotland’s seas. While many of these are protected through the existing network of MPAs, others occur outside of these sites.

The Scottish Government is therefore considering the implementation of fisheries management measures to protect the 11 PMFs that are most sensitive to bottom contacting mobile fishing gear in Scottish inshore waters (out to 12 nautical miles (NM) from shore) outside MPAs.

The proposed PMF management areas were developed by considering the distribution of the considered PMFs in accordance with the recommendations in NatureScot’s PMF advice. These locations were then refined using the boundary setting principles, developed jointly by Marine Directorate and NatureScot, and considered:

• locations that support multiple records;
• locations with recent and/or reliable data;
• locations that reflect the full range of environmental conditions the PMF can be found in; and
• boundaries that are defined by the physical requirements of the feature e.g. maximum depth limits for maerl.

Any further refinements were made, where possible, using fishing data supplied by stakeholders and in conjunction with NatureScot, using these principles to support the policy aims for these features, as outlined in Scottland’s National Marine Plan (NMP).

The PMF management areas are proposed to protect the 11 benthic PMFs most vulnerable to demersal mobile fishing gear (trawling and dredging) therefore all these proposed areas will be full area closures to demersal mobile gear. These 11 PMFs are:

• blue mussel beds
• cold water coral reefs
• fan mussel aggregations
• flame shell beds
• horse mussel beds
• maerl beds
• maerl or coarse shell gravel with burrowing sea cucumbers
• native oysters
• northern sea fan and sponge communities
• seagrass beds
• serpulid aggregations

3.2 Purpose/aim of action and desired effect

The Scottish Government 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. This includes that Scotland’s marine and coastal environments are restored, adapted and resilient to climate change whilst being sustainably managed to achieve good environmental status.

In line with this vision, the Scottish Government has national and international commitments to protect marine biodiversity, and to take necessary measures to protect and conserve the marine ecosystem. Scotland’s MPA network (made up of multiple protected area designations) helps protect our most important natural and cultural heritage features. Implementing fisheries management measures in MPAs and key biodiversity locations outside these sites, within the Scottish inshore region will help to achieve this.

There are national and international commitments for networks of MPAs that are representative, ecologically coherent and well managed that Scotland and the UK are committed to such as those contained in or under:

• The Marine (Scotland) Act 2010
• The Convention on Biological Diversity
• The World Summit on Sustainable Development
• The OSPAR Convention
• UK Marine Strategy, assimilated into Scots law through the UK’s Marine Strategy Regulations 2010
• Conservation (Natural Habitats, &c.) Regulations 1994, the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017, and the Conservation of Offshore Marine Habitats and Species Regulations 2017
• Islands (Scotland) Act 2018

We manage the MPA network under the principles of sustainable use and by doing so we protect the natural goods and services they provide for current and future generations to enjoy. By protecting our natural capital, we protect and support the services provided by healthy, productive and biodiverse marine ecosystems, building resilience into marine industries and strengthening food security.

The PMF management areas are proposed as fisheries closures and will contribute to PMF feature policy protections as laid out in the National Marine Plan (NMP) to maintain National Status. They are part of the wider sea’s protection for PMFs and complement the protection offered by the MPA network.

3.3 Issue and why it needs to be addressed

Scotland’s marine environment provides a wide range of social, environmental and economic benefits to people. Some of these benefits are direct and tangible, for example fish for human consumption or tourism and recreational opportunities. There are also other less tangible benefits such as the important role that different species and habitats play in nutrient cycling and climate regulation.

Protecting our natural capital supports the services provided by healthy, productive and biodiverse marine ecosystems, including building resilience into marine industries and strengthening food security. The Dasgupta review on the Economics of Biodiversity highlights that our economies, livelihoods and well-being are all dependent on nature, including the marine environment.^[2]

Reports from the Green Finance Institute, World Economic Forum, and the Institute of Actuaries all show the potential economic costs of not protecting biodiversity, and the risks of biological collapse if ecosystems are not protected.^[3] The Green Finance Institute find that nature degradation could decrease UK GDP by between £150 and £300 billion by the 2030s, and the World Economic Forum flag environmental risks as the most significant global economic risk over the next 10 years. In the longer-term, the Institute of Actuaries report finds that the global economy could lose 50% of GDP between 2070 and 2095 unless policy action to stop climate change takes place.

By protecting defined areas of Scotland’s marine environment, MPAs and proposed PMF management areas will provide a significant number of supporting services. These services are the foundation for all other ecosystem services. Perhaps most significant is the support that these services provide for provisioning services, such as the protection of features, which in turn provide habitats for larval and juvenile life stages of marine species including commercial fish^[4]. The potential management measures for the MPAs and proposed PMF management areas could increase the level of several provisioning services. Gubbay (2006)^[5] noted positive species community effects such as greater complexity of food webs and increase in primary and secondary productivity in MPAs and proposed PMF management areas as a consequence of protection.

The capacity of the marine environment to continue providing these benefits to people in Scotland is at risk without the appropriate protections being in place.

Public goods – Many of the benefits associated with the marine environment have ‘public good’ characteristics, which means they are non-excludable (no one can be excluded from enjoying the benefits) and non-rivalrous (enjoyment of the benefits provided to one person does not diminish the benefits available to others). These characteristics mean that private individuals do not have the incentive to ensure the continued flow of these benefits, which can lead to their under-provision in the absence of any government intervention.

Externalities - Externalities occur when the actions of an individual leads to benefits or costs to others that are not accounted for in market prices. The environmental damage from marine users’ activities is often unaccounted for in the price of the goods they sell (for example wild fish). This means that these marine users do not have the incentive to internalise the full social costs of their actions. The protection of species and habitats in the marine environment is currently underprovided by markets as a result of these market failures. This creates rationale for government intervention to increase the protection afforded to these species and habitats.

The Scottish Government has a long-term commitment to ensure the sustainable management of the marine environment. Looking after the seas requires a range of different management approaches to ensure that society can continue to derive the many natural benefits that our seas provide. MPAs and the proposed PMF management areas have an important role to play in supporting this commitment. They enable the focused protection of habitats and species which are essential to the marine ecosystem. Beyond the benefits provided for nature conservation, these areas facilitate an increase in ecosystem resilience and recovery^[6].

The Scottish Government has committed to implementing fisheries management measures where appropriate for existing MPAs where these are not already in place and key biodiversity locations outside the MPA network. This policy proposal fulfils duties in domestic legislation (including legislation that implements the requirements of EU Directives), as well as contributing to the management of UK and international networks of marine protected areas.

The relevant domestic legislation in relation to NCMPAs is the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 which places a duty on the relevant public authority to exercise its functions in a manner that best furthers the conservation objectives of the site (or where that is not possible, least hinders the achievement of the objectives). The Conservation (Natural Habitats, &c.) Regulations 1994 require SACs to be managed in a way that maintains or restores the protected feature to favourable conservation status and SPAs to be managed in a way that maintains the population of the species referred to in Article 1 of the Birds Directive .

Under the UK Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and Marine (Scotland) Act 2010,

Scottish Ministers have a duty to designate NCMPAs which contribute to a UK network of protected marine sites, in order to meet its duty to further conservation objectives for those sites.

Policy protections for PMFs are laid out in the NMP.^[7] The NMP states that developments and activities must not result in significant impacts on the national status of PMFs.

By implementing fisheries management measures in our MPAs and key biodiversity locations outside the MPA network we also contribute to and support a number of additional national and international commitments and obligations such as:

• work towards the outcomes of the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy: Protected areas will be larger, better connected and in good condition and that natural capital will be embedded in policy making.
• contribute to the achievement of Good Environmental Status (GES) under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive through the Marine Strategy Regulations 2010.
• contribute to the National Performance Framework by supporting marine elements of the biodiversity, and protected site indicators for the Environmental National Outcomes. These measures will also support the economic objective for natural capital.
• Joint Fisheries Statement and Fisheries Act.
• help deliver the UK Contribution to Ecologically Coherent MPA Network in the North East Atlantic.
• work towards the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and Convention on Biological Diversity targets of 2030 for 30% of marine and coastal areas are “effectively conserved and managed, while ensuring that any sustainable use, where appropriate in such areas, is fully consistent with conservation outcomes”.
• and support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources).

Following the conclusion of the inshore public consultation process, Scottish Ministers will decide upon the appropriate fisheries management measures to take forward. Legislative mechanisms to implement fisheries management measures may include orders under the Inshore Fishing (Scotland) Act 1984, and the Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1967.

3.4 Options (considered so far/still open)

The Scottish Government have assessed the two following options, each presenting differing levels of management. These options have been assessed against Option 3. Please see Table 1 below. There are 23 sites where a full site restriction on gears requiring management was deemed to be the only option suitable to achieve the desired level of protection of the features, so only one option is presented for those sites. Only one management option is presented for 44 of the proposed PMF management areas. This is the case where only one option was identified as enabling the achievement of the desired level of protection for the feature in question.

For the assessment of the overall impact, the impact for these sites and proposed management areas was calculated and then added to the calculated collective impact of Option 1 and to the calculated collective impact of Option 2 measures to provide two figures for overall impact.

Gears requiring management in MPAs were identified from advice and evidence provided by NatureScot and supported by findings within the Fisheries Assessments undertaken for each site. NatureScot’s advice is presented in their Conservation and Management Advice documents for each MPA and are based on the best available science and evidence and can be found on Sitelink by searching for each individual site. Overview of NatureScot advice can be found on their website.

For the proposed PMF management areas gears requiring management were identified from advice and evidence provided by NatureScot, sensitivity of the features and outcome of 2019 public consultation: Improving protection given to Priority Marine Features outside the Marine Protected Area network - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space.

Option 1: Implement zonal feature based fisheries management measures through Inshore Fishing (Scotland) Act 1984 or Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1967.

Option 1 represents proposed fisheries management measures that have been informed with the best available evidence and advice from the appropriate Statutory Nature Conservation Body NatureScot and developed with the fishing industry and Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (eNGOs).

These proposed fisheries management measures have been developed with a focus on protecting features to achieve the desired level of protection, whilst allowing sustainable fishing activity and practices to continue alongside.

Under this option, 53 of the 76 MPAs addressed within this BRIA have proposed zonal measures for specified gears. This is the case where certain gears are restricted within the site to protect the designated features. Where possible, zoned and temporal measures are used, or measures that apply only to vessels above a certain engine power. For the remaining 23 sites, a full site restriction on gears requiring management was deemed to be the only option suitable to achieve the desired level of protection of the features, so only one option is presented for those sites.

The proposed PMF management areas do not have zonal measures as any proposed PMF management area will prohibit all demersal mobile fishing gears due to the sensitivity of the seabed features to this type of activity. Of the 90 proposed PMF management areas 46 have two options proposed. Only one management option is presented for 44 of the proposed PMF management areas. This is the case where only one option was identified as enabling the achievement of the desired level of protection for the feature in question.

The proposed fisheries management measures for Option 1, including maps, are available in the High Level Site and Area Summary and the Site and Area Proposal documents in the supporting documents of the consultation as well as on the consultation platform.

Option 2: Prohibit damaging gears from the full site under the Inshore Fishing (Scotland) Act 1984 or Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1967.

Option 2 would restrict specified fishing activity from the full MPA site. The proposed PMF management areas are all full area closures to demersal mobile fishing gear and Option 2 includes the largest closure that has been developed for each individual area.

The proposed fisheries management measures for Option 2, including maps, are available in the High Level Site and Area Summary and the Site and Area Proposal documents in the supporting documents of the consultation as well as on the consultation platform.

Option 3: Do Nothing – No Additional Management

Option 3 is the ‘Do nothing’ option; this is the baseline scenario. Under this option, there is no change to the management measures already in place, such as The Inshore Fishing (Prohibition of Fishing and Fishing Methods) (Scotland) Order 2015 and The Sandeel (Prohibition of Fishing) (Scotland) Order 2024 which came into force on 26 March 2024 and prohibits all targeted sandeel fishing within Scottish waters.

As outlined above in the Background, aims, and options section, there are legislative drivers for implementing proposed fisheries management measures in Scottish MPAs and proposed PMF management areas. On the basis of this, no additional management is not considered a viable option and will not be presented at consultation.

3.5 Sectors/Groups affected

The following activities/sectors have been identified as present (or possibly present in the future) where proposed fisheries management measures are to be implemented in inshore MPAs and proposed PMF management areas:

• commercial fisheries and fish processors
• marine tourism
• recreational activities
• Science activity by public sector
• research/education bodies

The commercial fisheries sector is most likely to be directly impacted by MPA and PMF management measures, as several restrictions are placed on the type of vessel and gear that can be deployed within the MPA and proposed PMF management area boundary. Option 1 has been developed during the last 10 years with stakeholders from the commercial fisheries sector, communities and local decision makers.

Public sector costs are related to the preparation of statutory instruments or fishing orders, and the potential need for increased resources. Further information can be sounds in section 3, public sector costs within this BRIA.

We would expect that there will be little to no adverse financial effects on tourism and research. There is potential positive effect on tourism, further information on this can be found in the SEIA Appendices E to Q.