Draft Fisheries Assessment – The Barra Fan and Hebrides Terrace Seamount NCMPA: Fisheries management measures within Scottish Offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)

4. Part C Assessment - In combination assessment

4.1 In combination assessment overview

Part C of this assessment considers the cumulative impacts, which may occur over space and time, in relation to activities occurring in the MPA. Activities assessed in this section include the following:

• Fishing activity/pressure combinations which were excluded in Part A of this assessment as not being capable of impacting the feature;
• Fishing interactions assessed in Part B but that would not hinder the conservation objectives for this site; and
• Activities occurring within The Barra Fan and Hebrides Terrace NCMPA that are not related to fishing.

Fishing activities including demersal trawls, demersal seines, and boat dredges have been identified in Part B as requiring management and will therefore not be considered in Part C. Pelagic fishing however was not considered to have a significant effect on its own and is assessed in combination with other activities occurring at the site in Part C.

4.2 Other offshore region activities screening

To determine activities not related to fishing activities to be included within this part of the assessment, a distance of 5 km was selected as suitable to capture any potential source receptor pathways that could impact the site in combination with effects of the fishing activities assessed. A 5 km buffer was therefore applied to the site boundary to identify relevant activities.

Plans and projects not related to fishing activities were identified using the Scottish Government’s marine mapping tool. The JNCC Conservation Advice package including the Management Options Paper (2024), and other resources on the JNCC Site Information Centre for The Barra Fan and Hebrides Terrace Seamount NCMPA, were also screened for activities occurring in the site that should be considered in the in-combination assessment.

The map to display offshore region activities (see Figure 5) was derived from OceanWise’s Marine Themes Vector data (July 2023 version), Crown Estate Scotland leases (September 2023 version), Kingfisher Information Services Offshore Renewable Cable Awareness (KIS-ORCA, as of December 2023 held under licence) and North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA, as of December 2023, data held under Oil and Gas Authority open licence). The Marine Themes “industrial” was filtered to show offshore region platforms, wellheads, piles, turbines, cables, and pipelines. Features marked as “not in use”, “not present”, “decommissioned”, or “removed” were excluded. The “administrative” data were filtered to only show military exercise areas which included danger areas.

4.3 Other offshore region activities occurring within The Barra Fan and Hebrides Terrace Seamount NCMPA

The screening exercise using the Scottish Government’s marine mapping tool only identified a military danger area overlapping with the site (Figure 5).

The Activities and Management section of the JNCC Site Information Centre for The Barra Fan and Hebrides Terrace Seamount NCMPA, indicated that there are no other activities occurring within the site, although oil and gas blocks licensed in previous licensing rounds did overlap the east of the NCMPA, so the site may be subject to development in the future.

Table 5 provides a list of the relevant activities, which were considered in combination with the fishing activities occurring within The Barra Fan and Hebrides Terrace Seamount NCMPA.

4.4 Potential pressures exerted by fishing and other plans or projects

The only offshore region activities occurring within, or within 5 km of, The Barra Fan and Hebrides Terrace Seamount NCMPA is a MOD practice area. Within the site is a submarine exercise area and a surface or firing danger area. Neither of these activities are likely to have pressures of concern that could overlap with those exerted by pelagic fishing and to which the protected features of the site is sensitive.

Although the disused chemical munitions disposal site (scuttled ship) is located on the seabed within the NCMPA, this was last in operation between 1945-1948, and is currently disused. It is therefore unlikely to be exerting any current additional pressures on the site and is therefore not considered capable of impacting the protected features.

4.5 Significance of effects/impacts to protected features

Subsequently, the in-combination effects of the Ministry of Defence practice area and the Chemical munitions disposal site within the site and pelagic fishing at current activity levels not considered to be hindering of the conservation objectives within The Barra Fan and Hebrides Terrace Seamount NCMPA.

4.6 Part C Conclusion

Scottish Ministers conclude that the remaining fishing activities (pelagic fishing) at current activity levels in-combination with other relevant activities do not hinder the achievement of the conservation objectives for The Barra Fan and Hebrides Terrace Seamount NCMPA.