Draft Fisheries Assessment – Darwin Mounds SAC: Fisheries management measures within Scottish Offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)

3. Management Options

3.1 Overview of management options

Management measures are being considered by Scottish Ministers and any decision as to which measures out to be taken forward will follow upon a statutory public consultation exercise. Any such decision will also be taken in line with the Scottish Ministers obligations in relation to the exercise of their functions.

The socioeconomic impacts and costs of the proposed management option (no additional measures) have been assessed within the Socio-Economic Impact Assessment (SEIA) and Sustainability Appraisal (SA) and are not discussed within this fisheries assessment. Nor are other considerations, statutory and non-statutory, which the Scottish Ministers may be required to take into account when assessing whether the imposition of a particular measures is appropriate.

This section assesses the suitability of the proposed management options in light of the conservation objectives, biological characteristics, and current activity levels for Darwin Mounds SAC.

For Darwin Mound SAC, no fishing activity was identified above requiring management measures as a result of current fisheries management in place across the full SAC. These are show in Figure 2 and described further in Section 2.2 in the sections above. Scottish Ministers consider that that no additional management for fishing activity would be sufficient to avoid an adverse effect on site integrity.

3.2 Management options conclusion

Scottish Ministers consider that adopting no additional management measures for fishing activity would be sufficient to avoid an adverse effect on site integrity.

No fishing activities were found to occur within the site during the assessment period (2015 – 2019) that were identified as incompatible with the conservation objectives of the site and could result in an adverse effect on site integrity.

Scottish Ministers consider that the current technical measures in place suitably restrict any fishing activity which could have an adverse impact on site integrity and no additional fisheries management are required.

The decision on which management option is to be taken forward will be taken in light of all relevant duties incumbent upon the Scottish Ministers in relation to the exercise of their functions and following upon a statutory public consultation exercise in which views on the options under consideration are invited.