Draft Fisheries Assessment – East Rockall Bank SAC: Fisheries management measures within Scottish Offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)

5. Management options

5.1 Overview of management options

Management measures are being considered by Scottish Ministers and any decision as to which measures ought 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 each management option (no additional management, zoned management, and full site exclusion) 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 measure is appropriate.

This section assesses the suitability of the management options solely in light of the conservation objectives, biological characteristics of protected features, and current activity levels for East Rockall Bank SAC.

5.2 Assessment of management options

5.2..1 No additional management

The assessment identified that management measures would be required to avoid adverse effects on site integrity from mobile demersal trawls. Thus the option of no management is not considered further.

5.2..2 Zoned management

Zoned fisheries management measures would be introduced to reduce/limit pressures. This would involve:

1. Zoned closure to demersal mobile gear (see Figure 6); and

2. Zoned closure to mobile and static demersal gear over areas of known cold-water coral reef (see Figure 6).

Tables 7 and 8 provide details of the reef subtypes present within the East Rockall Bank SAC and the proportion of each that would be protected by the proposed zoned management measures. In this case, 100% of the known area of biogenic reef feature will be protected from mobile demersal fishing and static demersal fishing. In total, 93.7% of reef habitat (encompassing bedrock, stony and biogenic reef) would be protected from demersal mobile gears. No static gear closures are proposed over the bedrock or stony reef feature, however these reef sub-types have lower sensitivity to fishing impacts compared to the most-sensitive biogenic reef sub-type (cold-water coral reef), as described in Section 4.2 above.

The proposed measures mean that 89% of East Rockall Bank SAC would be protected from demersal mobile gear, whilst 5% would be protected from static gear, giving a total of 94% protection from mobile and static gears within the site.

This zoned management option would therefore remove/avoid pressures from all demersal mobile and static gear across the full extent of the biogenic reef feature. It would also reduce/limit pressures from demersal mobile gear on the bedrock and stony reef. This approach would reduce the risk of not achieving the conservation objectives for the site.

It is possible that the remaining areas where demersal mobile and static gear fishing are permitted may include some areas where the distribution of reef is unknown or uncertain, and some very small areas of known reef. There would therefore be a low risk of small-scale localised impact to the structure and function of reef communities in these areas. It is likely that bottom trawlers avoid the hard substrate to prevent damage to their gear, however it is not possible to confirm this with the available spatial resolution of fishing activity for the East Rockall Bank SAC.

Potential exposure to demersal mobile and static gear would only occur in limited parts of the site, applying to 6.3% of the total reef resource (12.4% of bedrock reef and 0.3% of stony reef). Considering the small spatial extent of potential fishing activity, these activities were not assessed as affecting the conservation objectives.

The zoned management approach would contribute to avoiding the broader decline of reef features and retaining the ecological coherence of both the Scottish MPA Network and the broader OSPAR MPA Network.

The Scottish Ministers have assessed the available evidence regarding the impact of demersal mobile and static gears on the Annex I reef feature, the JNCC conservation advice package and the Fisheries Management Options Paper, and considered all of this information in light of the European Commission guidance.

Given the available evidence, the Scottish Ministers consider that zoned management measures will enable progress to be made towards meeting the conservation objectives for the East Rockall bank SAC and the proposed zoned management measures are considered sufficient to avoid an adverse effect on site integrity.

However, considering the patchy distribution of the Annex I reef feature and the relatively coarse resolution of the available fishing activity data, under this option Scottish Ministers would consider an enhanced activities monitoring plan for this site. In line with JNCC advice (JNCC, 2016), if monitoring showed evidence of detrimental effects as a result of the permitted mobile demersal gear or static demersal gear in the future, additional management may need to be considered.

5.2..3 Full site exclusion

Full site exclusion would remove/avoid all pressures associated with fishing activities using mobile demersal gear through prohibiting the use of demersal mobile gears and static gears across the whole site (Figure 7).

This option would reduce the risk of not achieving the conservation objectives for the reef feature within the site boundary to the lowest possible levels increasing the likelihood of maintaining or restoring the reef feature to favourable condition. This option would avoid the risk of an adverse effect on site integrity from fishing activities using demersal mobile and static gears.

Full site year-round exclusion of mobile demersal and static gear would contribute to avoiding the broader decline of reef features and retaining the ecological coherence of both the Scottish MPA Network and the broader OSPAR MPA Network.

Given the available evidence, the Scottish Ministers consider that full site exclusion would enable progress to be made towards meeting the conservation objectives for the East Rockall Bank SAC and this management measure would be considered sufficient to avoid an adverse effect on site integrity.

5.3 Management options conclusion

Scottish Ministers consider that no additional management for mobile demersal fishing would pose the risk of adversely affecting the site integrity of East Rockall Bank SAC.

Scottish Ministers consider that both the zoned management measures and the full site exclusion option for mobile and static demersal fishing would be sufficient to avoid an adverse effect on site integrity.

The decision on which management option is to be taken forward will be taken in the 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.