By Esther Brooker, senior marine advocacy officer, Scottish Environment LINK
If you’re reading this blog, you probably have an interest in the sea. You’ve probably heard of marine protected areas (MPAs) – patches of the sea set aside and protected by law to safeguard wildlife and habitats. You may even have heard of global nature conservation goals, such as “30 by 30”, which aims to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030. But what about the other 70%? What happens to the wildlife and habitats in the rest of Scotland’s seas that are still important? That’s where the Scottish Government’s new proposals for protecting priority marine features (PMFs) outside MPAs may help.
These proposals will restrict certain types of seabed-contacting fishing gear from damaging small areas where vulnerable PMFs are still found in good condition.
To understand why this matters we need to go back to Loch Carron in 2017, where a scallop dredger accidentally damaged flame shell beds – a rare and ecologically rich habitat, of which most of the UK population occurs on the west coast of Scotland. The Scottish Government’s response was swift, designating Loch Carron as an emergency MPA to prevent further damage. The event was a wake-up call, showing how quickly sensitive seabed habitats can be damaged or destroyed, and how urgently Scotland needed mechanisms beyond MPAs to protect these critically important but fragile places. It also helped to sharpen the concept of PMFs – a list of 81 threatened and declining species and habitats such as maerl beds, seagrass meadows and native oyster reefs that underpin healthy marine ecosystems, but remain highly vulnerable to certain fishing gears, especially trawls and dredges.
(photo credits: Paul Naylor marinephoto.co.uk)
Until 2017, PMFs had only been protected inside existing MPAs, and even then it was only the few MPAs where fisheries restrictions had been put in place. Outside those boundaries, management has been patchy, and many of these features have been preserved either because they are not accessible to the fishing gears that damage them, or they have benefitted from indirect interventions such as fish stock management or marine infrastructure. The newly published proposals, which are expected to open for formal public consultation in November along with proposals for fisheries restrictions for inshore MPAs, are designed to help close the gap in protection. They identify areas in Scotland’s inshore waters where specific PMFs are known or likely to occur, and set out management options to reduce the impact of bottom-contacting mobile fishing gear. In plain terms, this means new measures that limit the use of dredges and trawls in the most sensitive areas – a targeted approach, rather than a blanket ban.
A small number of critics have already compared these PMF proposals to Scotland’s “highly protected marine areas” (HPMA) process, which sought to designate at least 10% of Scotland’s seas as highly protected by excluding almost all activities that extract resources from the sea. These proposals, published to consultation in 2022, were shelved by the Scottish Government following strong opposition by industry and some community groups. The recently-published PMF measures, by contrast, have emerged from a slower, more deliberate process rooted in existing legislation and scientific evidence. NatureScot’s surveys, citizen science efforts, stakeholder engagement and fisheries data have guided the identification of proposed management zones. Instead of sweeping designations, the proposals focus on protecting 11 PMFs where they are most at risk. That means a flame shell bed in one sea loch might warrant gear restrictions, while other areas with no sensitive features may see little change. It’s a finer-grained, more adaptive approach, and one which aims to protect habitats without unnecessarily constraining sustainable fishing.
The HPMA concept was about setting aside entire areas for full ecosystem recovery, effectively as marine sanctuaries. The PMF measures, on the other hand, are about risk management, ensuring that fishing practices do not damage the most vulnerable parts of the seabed that still remain. They are not new MPAs, nor do they bring sweeping prohibitions. Instead, they build on existing policy commitments in Scotland’s National Marine Plan to protect the most vulnerable seabed PMFs “wherever they occur”. In other words, this is the Scottish Government doing what it already promised to do 8 years ago, but with more transparency, data and stakeholder input.
It would be wrong to see this as a purely technical exercise. Beneath the maps and management details lies a deeper shift in how Scotland addresses conservation and sustainable use of its seas. The lesson from the HPMA process was not that protection of nature is unpopular, but that it must be co-designed and inclusive. This PMF process has sought to recognise that fishers, scientists, environmental groups and coastal communities all have knowledge that can contribute. By targeting management to where it is most ecologically justified, the hope is that conservation can proceed without alienating those who depend on the sea for their livelihoods. Indeed, the Scottish fishers recognise more keenly than most that safeguarding the habitats on which fish and shellfish depend is not just good for nature, it’s essential for the long-term sustainability of their own livelihoods.
These new measures also complement the fisheries management already in place within some of Scotland’s inshore MPAs – and must also complement those still to be put in place – helping to build a more coherent, joined-up approach to protecting habitats that sustain both biodiversity and coastal economies. Still, caution is warranted. The success of these measures will depend on how they are implemented. Enforcement and monitoring must be adequately resourced, measures should be refined with new data or local insight, and coastal communities and businesses in particular should be supported to ensure they can adjust to the new restrictions. Protecting PMFs in isolation won’t solve the pressures on Scotland’s seas – water quality, climate change and the effects of multiple human activities and developments must still be tackled. These proposals are therefore a necessary step but not the destination. If Scotland is to achieve true ecosystem recovery and resilience, future measures will need to extend more widely and account for the cumulative pressures that affect the marine environment as a whole.
In the longer view, the PMF proposals signal a maturing of Scotland’s marine policy. After years of debate over where to draw lines on maps, attention is turning to how to manage what lies within and beyond them. This approach to protecting PMFs may lack the boldness of the HPMA proposals, but it carries a recognition that healthy seas require both protection and participation, and that conservation doesn’t stop with MPAs. The new PMF measures will complement the fisheries management measures already in place within Scotland’s network of inshore MPAs, and those that are still to be implemented, helping to create a more coherent and connected system of protection across the wider sea. If Loch Carron taught us the cost of inaction, perhaps this process can show us what more careful, collaborative action looks like in practice, and why it must continue to grow in ambition over time.
Headline photo: Flame shell in maerl, Paul Naylor marinephoto.co.uk