Fisheries Management Measures within Scottish Offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) - Socio-Economic Impact Assessment

Appendix F Assessment of Impacts to Ecosystem Services

F.1 Approach

This section considers the range of benefits that could arise from the proposed management options at the offshore sites. These benefits are assessed based on the implementation of the same range of assessment estimates used to consider the likely costs in previous sections (range of Option 1 estimates, higher end of Option 2 estimate).

Offshore MPAs are focussed on protecting particular features of interest and the wider ecosystem of the offshore marine environment. Those features can be geological, habitats or species. They are identified on conservation grounds, and therefore are subject to moral and philosophical arguments about the appropriateness and benefits of their protection. This analysis focuses on the economic arguments for their protection, which are regarded as distinct from, but not superior to, moral or other arguments.

This analysis of benefits adopts a natural capital approach, considering how the management options at sites will protect and/or enhance the ability of their habitats and features to provide ecosystem services. It is important to note that it aims to assess the expected changes in ecosystem services as a result of implementing management options – it is not an assessment of the total asset value or ecosystem services arising from the sites. The change in ecosystem services is assessed relative to the baseline of the expected condition of the sites habitats and features in the absence of additional management. This is a source of uncertainty, as the current and likely future extent and condition of the features, and their response to existing management measures and ongoing environmental changes, are not always well understood.

A qualitative approach has been adopted to assessing the potential impacts within each site, as described in Section 3.4. The results are reported in individual Site Reports presented in Appendix C. The benefits are reported in Table 6a, and Table 6b considers whether there are any negative changes (costs) to ecosystem services as a result of the proposed management options.

Both ecosystem service benefits and costs could arise on-site or off-site. On-site benefits are the result of management protections resulting in enhancement of site features. Off-site benefits include spill-over effects, where maintaining healthy populations of particular species (including commercial fish or shellfish species, and other protected biodiversity) inside the site supports a larger overall population and therefore increased abundance outside the site. The extent of this effect depends, amongst other things, on the size of site, impact of management options and mobility and lifecycles of the species concerned. It is discussed further in the accompanying SEA report.

Ecosystem service costs could arise on-site, for example if there are negative impacts from alternative fishing activities (using different gears such as pots) enter areas where restrictions are introduced on existing fishing activities (e.g. demersal trawls). Costs could also arise off-site due to displacement of fishing activity. The on-site/off-site distinction in Tables 6a and 6b of the Site Reports in Appendix C reflect the location of the ecosystem providing the services analysed. It does not relate to the location of people benefiting from the services.

This section firstly considers the ecosystem services likely to be affected by the proposed management options, and their valuation. It then discusses the overall benefits of the proposed measures across the sites.

F.2 Marine Ecosystem Services

Healthy marine natural capital provides a large number of benefits to people. The benefits and the beneficiaries are not uniform and cover a wide range of ecosystem functions and interdependencies. The concept of ‘ecosystem services’ is used to capture the benefits provided. Ecosystem services are the outcomes from ecosystems that directly lead to good(s) and services that are valued by people^[98]. The offshore marine environment is known to support vitally important ecosystem services^[99].

Ecosystem service analysis helps identify the range and type of benefits provided by an ecosystem. This section uses the ecosystem services terminology from Scottish Government^[100], where possible. This builds on terminology used in previous MPA assessments, which was based on the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (2010, first used in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005), which is applied in subsequent UK analysis of MPAs (e.g. Burdon et al.^[101]).

It splits the benefits provided by UK environments into the following types of ecosystem services:

• Provisioning Services – the tangible goods and associated benefits produced by an ecosystem;
• Regulating Services – the benefits from the regulation of ecosystem processes;
• Cultural Services – the non-tangible ecosystem benefits either from experience of the ecosystem or knowledge of its existence;
• Supporting Services – those services whose function underlie all other ecosystem service provision.

The ecosystem services considered in Tables 6a and 6b are a subset of those relevant to the Scottish marine environment. In most assessments, supporting services are not measured separately in economic analysis. This is because their contribution is reflected in final services (inside and outside sites) and benefits and to include their values separately would involve double-counting. Accordingly, the economic valuation framework set out in Bateman et al^[102] and UK NEA^[103] only counts final impacts on human wellbeing as economic benefits, to avoid double counting, and separates the contribution of ecosystem services to benefits from the contributions of other resource, capital and labour inputs needed for their production. The CICES (2018) framework^[104] avoids the term supporting services altogether, regarding these elements rather as structures, processes and functions.

Table F1 shows the list of ecosystem services considered for inclusion in the analysis of the impacts of management options for the 20 offshore sites. Where the services have previously been defined in work for Scottish Government (including using advice from Scottish Natural Heritage – now NatureScot), these definitions are provided. Some of these services were not included in the ecosystem services analysis, e.g. because they were not considered relevant. The reasons for this are given in the Table.

In practical terms, methods for valuing these services would generally be limited to stated preference valuations or in some case production function methods. But as Hanley et al.¹²⁵ argue, the linkages between ecosystem condition and ecosystem services “are often across ecosystems, and many linkages may be as yet unknown”. This creates a risk that the value of maintaining ecosystem health is systematically under-represented in current economic valuation studies, because we do not have the data/knowledge to construct production functions or to include full information in stated preference surveys.

The list in Table F1 has been used to provide the services for analysis in relation to the sites’ proposed management options.

*These two services are a benefit from improving the health of the marine environment, so are considered in the combined analysis, but are not considered for individual sites.

F.3 Ecosystem Services from Marine Protected Areas

Previous work^[105] linked the features in the proposed Scottish MPAs to different ecosystem services to provide a guide to the levels of ecosystem services that may be provided by the sites. This information is combined with understanding of the status and threats to site features, and the extent of the proposed management options for the designated area, in order to predict possible changes in associated ecosystem services. All this information is not always available for a significant proportion of the marine features present in the sites.

The timing of ecosystem service benefits is also uncertain. Experiences in temperate marine ecosystems indicate that recovery of seabed habitats following impacts from human pressures can occur over a range of time scales from less than one year to several decades, depending on the features affected. Recovery of fish populations has also been observed over a range of time scales, depending on the scale of impact and the life cycles of the species affected.

The majority of the management options considered for the sites restrict demersal trawls, which can have impacts on marine habitats and food webs and cumulative effects with climate change. Hiddink et al.^[106], report that trawl gears removed 6–41% of faunal biomass per pass, and recovery times post-trawling were 1.9–6.4 years depending on fisheries and environmental context. They can also damage fauna that are not removed, and habitat structure. Otter trawls (OT) caused the least depletion, removing 6% of biota per pass and penetrating the seabed on average down to 2.4 cm, whereas hydraulic dredges (HD) caused the most depletion, removing 41% of biota and penetrating the seabed on average 16.1 cm.

This information set on marine ecosystem services and MPAs remains subject to considerable uncertainty³³. In addition to a partial evidence base, the benefits analysis is mainly based on consideration of ecosystem services from protected features (due to the available information). In reality, MPAs are likely to also contain marine biodiversity features that are not designated features but which give higher levels of ecosystem services as a result of protection under site management options.

As a result of these uncertainties, a key part of the ecosystem services analysis for each site is that the level of confidence in each assessment is explicitly recorded. In general, confidence is only moderate or high for ecosystem services which are not expected to change significantly at a site. For most potential positive impacts at individual sites, the analysis of ecosystem services changes has low confidence.

Several of the services in Table F1 are hard to quantify and measure at a site level, and/or lack evidence as to how they could change as a result of management options. For this reason, some services (such as Genetic resources, and Spiritual /cultural well-being) are not included in the site-level analysis. However, there is confidence that these services will be enhanced through management options overall, and so they are discussed under combined impacts (Section 8).

A described in Table F1, other services are not considered relevant to the site management options. For example, management of fisheries impacts on offshore benthic communities such as reefs will not have an impact on natural coastal protection. These services are also not included in the ecosystem services analysis.

Some key issues in the assessment of levels of different ecosystem services in the site assessments are discussed in Appendix F. he assessment of ecosystem services impacts, following the methods described in Section 4.3, incorporates a range of information from other parts of this assessment and external sources:

• The type, and where know the extent and condition, and conservation objectives (e.g. protect, enhance) of the site’s habitats and features.
• The types of fishing present at the site, the impacts of management options on them, and the vulnerability of the site’s habitats and features to those fishing types.
• The existing level and value (where known) of the ecosystem service, and its expected size and rate of recovery following adoption of management measures.
• The size and location of the site relative to other marine areas providing the relevant ecosystem services and to people who benefit from them.

Provisioning Services

The proposed management options for the MPAs could increase the level of provisioning services. The most significant provisioning service is of fish (and shellfish) for human consumption. While the status of commercial fish stocks in UK waters are variable and not fully known, the assessment is based on the fact that UK populations of several important commercial species are at suboptimal levels. It is known that protected areas can potentially help with stock recovery, through spillover effects. Minor spillover benefits are expected for 13 of the proposed sites in the SEA report^[107].

This can result from reduction of fishing pressures, and in particular from protection of key stages (e.g. spawning, nursery grounds) in species’ life cycles. Providing spatial or species protection has been shown to boost populations, which potentially can have a benefit on fishery yields.

For mobile fish species spillover benefits are complex, and the benefits of the management options will depend on several factors, in particular the implementation of CFP reforms and UK and Scottish fisheries policies post-Brexit, which remain uncertain. The actual impact of protected areas on fish stocks is known to depend on many factors including the size of the MPA, its position in an MPA network, the size of that network, the mobility of the species, the distribution of fishing effort and so on. Detailed modelling of these issues is beyond the scope of this work.

As well as the impacts of fisheries restrictions on UK fishing, quantified in Section 6, there are also significant levels of effort by non-UK vessels at some of the sites. The gear types used are not known, but the restriction of these activities could also help to restored seabed habitats, and food webs, and therefore support recovery of commercial fish stocks, as well as other ecosystem service benefits.

Regulating Services

Two regulating services are considered in the analysis: Waste breakdown and detoxification, and Carbon sequestration. The impact of management options on waste breakdown and detoxification is generally assessed to be minimal. This is because the level of contamination, and its effects on human welfare, is low in offshore waters.

Climate regulation is a more significant services, but does not occur through primary productivity because there is no benthic vegetation in offshore sites. However, through a natural carbon sequestration and storage process, deeper offshore seas provide a climate regulation service. Carbon is fixed into Particulate Organic Carbon (POC) via photosynthesis only in the euphotic zone, up to a depth of about 100 m (Boscolo-Galazzo et al.^[108]). Carbon sequestration in offshore marine sediments is driven by the ‘Ocean biological pump’, a series of biologically-mediated processes that transport organic material (carbon and other nutrients) from the ocean surface to deeper layers that “plays a decisive role in the Earth’s carbon cycle” (Thomsen et al.^[109]). There are two main components: the organic carbon pump; and the calcium carbonate pump (Passow and Carlson^[110]). The organic carbon pump is the more ‘efficient’ (Hülse et al.^[111]).

The biological pump recycles nutrients and provides food for deep-dwelling species. It also plays an important role in the Earth’s carbon cycle, carrying carbon away from the atmosphere and upper ocean layers. Marine organisms act as a reserve or sink for carbon in living tissue and by facilitating burial of carbon in seabed sediments. Agustí et al.^[112] report “the ubiquitous presence of healthy photosynthetic cells, dominated by diatoms, down to 4,000 m in the deep dark ocean” which confirms that fast-sinking mechanisms inject fresh organic carbon into deeper waters, playing a key role in the global carbon cycle.

The pump displays complex relationships involving for example convective mixing, nutrient uplifting, and algal/diatom blooms. These processes are partly driven by atmospheric processes (Pedrosa‐Pàmies et al.^[113]). These processes may experience feedback from climate change and associated aspects of ocean biology, chemistry and structure, though at present the details of possible relationships are poorly understood (Boscolo-Galazzo et al.^[114]).

Luisetti et al.^[115] report the importance of shelf sediments for carbon storage. They analyse storage only down to a depth of 200 metres. Potential impacts from bottom trawling include altering the depth and rate of organic carbon burial and changing the seabed communities involved in bioturbation and bio-irrigation (Duplisea et al.^[116]).

Pusceddu et al.^[117] review evidence on the impacts of deep sea trawling, and present evidence on biodiversity and ecosystem function impacts from trawled versus untrawled areas in deep waters of the Mediterranean. There are two main sources of impact: sediment disturbance and removal of organic carbon, and destruction of habitat complexity. Carbon removal can represent as much as 60–100% of the input flux, which can have substantial impacts on ecosystem processes, causing “the degradation of deep sea sedimentary habitats and an infaunal depauparation” and “the collapse of benthic biodiversity and ecosystem functions, with potential consequences on the biogeochemical cycles”. Compared with untrawled areas, trawled deep sea sediments have lower organic carbon turnover and are significantly depleted in organic matter content, meiofauna abundance and biodiversity, and nematode species richness and individual biomass.

From the above evidence we can conclude that some of the sediments that would be protected by the management options are likely to play important roles in storing carbon long term, and that disturbance of the sediments could negatively impact this service. However, it is unlikely that such impacts will result in released carbon reaching surface layers and any organic carbon remobilised may resettle elsewhere in the marine environment. As identified by Wakelin et al., the main processes governing carbon sequestration off the North West European shelf edge are physically driven and management measures within the MPAs are unlikely to affect these processes.

An additional climate regulation service is provided by methanotrophic microbes in the ocean floor and waters (Armstrong et al.^[118]). These consume almost all of the methane entering the oceans through various processes such as coastal runoff, diffusion from organic-rich anoxic sediments, or through seeps, vents, and mud volcanoes emitting methane-rich fluids or methane-rich bubbles (Glover and Smith^[119]). Hence these microbial systems provide an important gas regulation service by maintaining most of the ocean volume in a state of undersaturation in methane compared to the atmosphere (Knittel and Boetius^[120]; Boetius and Knittel^[121]). Again, we would not expect the current flows of this service to change as a direct result of the management options, but they could prevent future reductions in service under hypothetical future fishing or other pressures.

Overall therefore the available evidence does not suggest the impacts of the site management options on the stock of stored carbon or on the flows of regulating services will have a significant value in relation to the overall costs and benefits of site designation and management. However, this should be kept under review as further research is ongoing in this area.

Cultural Services

Cultural services are the least well-understood group of final ecosystem services from the marine environment. The significance of the management options has been assessed for research and education, and non-use benefits. It can be argued that the sites produce a range of other cultural values. These include direct use values such as the maintenance of traditional fishing communities. Marine cultural ecosystem services include more indirect values such as meaningful places or socially valued landscapes, symbolic benefits (aesthetic, heritage, spiritual), and philosophical, inspiration values. However, there is little conclusive evidence on the likely impacts of offshore management options on these issues.

For research and education, the ecosystem service benefit from management options is higher when: a larger area and number of features is protected, and when the state of features at a site is known. Note that many features extent and / or condition are uncertain, which makes it harder to assess potential benefit, and results in some sites having lower Research and Education value, as less can be learnt on features response to management if their state pre-management is unknown.

Non-use cultural value relates to values people have for knowing that the marine environment is being protected, even though they never directly plan to make use of it. They may be motivated by altruism, bequest and existence value motivations, but the exact drivers of individual’s values can be hard to distinguish from the values they may hold for other marine ecosystem services. These values are discussed further under Values of Benefits, below.

Marine tourism and recreation ecosystem services can be very significant, but are predominantly concentrated in inshore areas. This service is not assessed for individual offshore sites. However, in improving the health of Scotland’s seas, and the presence of distinctive fauna, the management options could collectively contribute to enhancing this service. This issue is discussed further in the cumulative assessment.

Supporting Services

MPAs provide a significant number of supporting services. These services are the foundation for all other ecosystem services. This includes notably the support that these services provide for provisioning services such as the protection of features which provide habitats for larval and juvenile life stages of marine species. Broadscale marine habitats provide important intermediate (supporting and regulating) services such as the formation of species habitat and physical barriers^[122].

Supporting services are not assessed separately due to risk of double-counting.

Ecosystem Services Costs

The above discussion relates to Tables 6a and 6b in the Site Reports in Appendix C, which considers ecosystem service benefits and costs, respectively. Ecosystem service costs that might arise from displacement of fishing effort (off-site) and use of alternative fishing gears (on-site). Displacement is only considered under the lower end of the Option 1 estimate for consistency with SEIAs of other proposed MPA management measures.

As Option 1 and the associated displacement generally has very low impacts on fisheries activity, there are very few potential ecosystem services costs associated with it. If displacement of fishing effort to other areas does occur under the higher end of both management options, this would result in additional landings that would offset the loss of landings from the MPA areas, and therefore reduce the size of the impact on the fishing sector. The higher end of estimates for both Options are assumed to have no displacement, and hence higher direct impacts on the fishing sector.

If fishing effort is displaced rather than lost, it could have detrimental effects on the ecosystem services provided by the areas it is displaced to. However, these effects would be expected to be less than the benefits in the sites because:

• The areas displaced to would overall be expected to have less sensitive and/or significant marine conservation features, as this should be the basis for site identification.
• Protection of the MPAs from fishing pressure may be expected to increase fish populations and reproductive output, potentially improving fisheries elsewhere whether through direct export of fish or through greater larval output and settlement elsewhere. It is not possible to quantify these potential impacts, but in any case the existing demersal fishing pressure is low so we can assume that both these impacts, and the threat of displacement, are limited.

In general, the potential ecosystem services costs from the management options are judged to be minimal or low.

F.4 Values of Benefits from Designation and Management in MPAs

As discussed above, the proposed management changes could influence some ecosystem services thereby creating changes in a variety of benefits to people. An attempt can be made to identify the economic value of these benefits. However, the valuation evidence base has very significant gaps and is highly uncertain. Four requirements for the economic framework to be applied can be identified^[123]:

i. Methods to identify and paramaterise direct and indirect links between human welfare and the functionality and extent of ecosystems;

ii. Methods to estimate how ecosystem service supply will change when there is a change in the functionality and/or extent of the ecosystem;

iii. Methods to identify how this change in ecosystem service supply will affect the flow of direct and indirect benefits, once behavioural responses to the change in ecosystem service have been taken into account; and

iv. Methods for measuring the monetary value of this change in benefits (Bateman et al.^[124]).

The uncertainties in the economic value evidence and over the levels of ecosystem services changes, prevents accurate valuation of the full benefits of the management options in this assessment. The timing of realisation of benefits is also uncertain.

There are two main options for valuing some benefits from offshore marine ecosystems. These are:

i. production function methods, linking deep sea functions and services to the delivery of final services that can be valued;

ii. stated preference methods relating to protection of the deep sea habitat and its associated functions.

Gaps in scientific knowledge make it hard to quantify the effects of changes in offshore ecosystem management on the delivery of intermediate and final ecosystem services. This prevents the use of production function methods for economic valuation.

There are some stated preference valuation studies relevant to offshore MPAs, but the evidence is hard to interpret. For example, Folkersen et al.^[125] present a meta-analysis of the limited (they identify 15 studies) deep sea valuation literature. They report that: “the studies included in this systematic review are so varied that it is impossible with any confidence to estimate the (total) value of the deep sea in monetary terms, let alone determine how much (or how little) is known about the economic value of the deep sea as an ecosystem.”

Provisioning Services

By their very nature provisioning services are those services most closely tied to the market economy. Goods (fish, shellfish, oil, gas) from marine ecosystems are sold in existing markets and so have a market value: the total value of Scottish fish landings was £488 million in 2020, of which approx 30% (£149 m) was from demersal species caught by the fisheries subject to the restrictions in the management options^[126]. Such market values do not include the externalities of extracting the good from the ecosystem.

Protection by the proposed management options of features in MPAs that are important for fish and shellfish lifecycles could increase the health and size of stocks, the age and size of individual fish, and therefore their reproductive output. This could benefit commercial fisheries in surrounding areas.

Regulating Services

Marine regulating ecosystem services provide some essential functions. For example, carbon sequestration and storage in the marine environment helps regulate the global climate. Marine regulating services are generally difficult to quantify in scientific terms and therefore are difficult to value in monetary terms.

As discussed above, we lack the data needed to establish any link between changes in management arising from the designation and changes in the regulating services. Some changes could occur, and would likely be positive, through reduced disturbance of sediments and enhanced habitat protection generally. However, this impact is likely to be limited, in light of the currently low demersal fishing pressures in the areas.

The benefits of protecting the areas against potential future fishing pressures could be significant, but this hypothetical future fishing is speculative. Consequently, although the UK has official unit values with which we could value carbon sequestration services^[127] we lack the physical data to estimate any change in the rate of flow of these services arising as a result of the designation.

Cultural Services

The majority of cultural services from the marine environment are dependent on the quality of the marine environment, which is likely to be enhanced (or is less likely to be degraded) by the proposed management options. However, the extent of this improvement is very hard to predict.

Cultural services and non-use values are classified in different ways in different marine ecosystem services studies. The main evidence available relates to non-use value for biodiversity (see below) and use values for recreation, therefore the following analysis looks at these two areas in detail. Other cultural services, such as the value of research and education, are hard to quantify or value either in total or in terms of the expected changes from management options. However, they could be significant if sites are subject to long-term research studies.

Total Economic Value

As the discussion above indicates, there is very limited evidence on the individual value of different ecosystem services, other than for fisheries. There are, partly as a consequence of the lack of physical data, a few studies that attempt to estimate the total value of the protection of the marine environment. These mostly relate to the whole value of protecting the marine environment via some form of proposed protection measures over a specific area and are therefore in principle well suited to the case of appraising MPA management options, but they are reliant on respondents understanding the choices presented to them.

An international study by Brander et al.^[128] concluded that the benefits to people of expanding MPAs generally outweighed the costs. They considered the benefits of protection based on a meta-analysis of values. Their meta-analysis function could be used to estimate the overall benefits of the whole Scottish MPA network, but not of the specific value of the proposed management options being assessed.

McVittie and Moran^[129] derived a primary estimate of benefits from the implementation of the nature conservation measures in the draft Marine Bill, specifically, Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs). They identified UK households’ aggregate willingness to pay (WTP) of £487 million to £698 million per year. This figure represents a total economic valuation for the MCZ provisions. Due to the nature of the MCZ outcomes, it is suggested that a high proportion of this value will be non-use value. However, the data did not allow the study to categorically isolate this component of value.

A median value for halting the loss of marine biodiversity (which includes, but is a wider objective than MCZ provisions) had an aggregate UK value of £1,171 million per year. This value is based on median estimates, and is recommended as it avoids the influence of extreme values and represents the amount that 50% of respondents would be willing to pay.

The values generated within this research were based on the best ex ante assessment of the anticipated environmental gains from the UK Marine Bill Marine Nature Conservation Zones, using a hypothetical network scenario. Because of uncertainty, there is potential for disparity between the policy benefits estimates presented here and what is actually realised as the policy is implemented. It is also important to note that no assumption has been made for the timescale over which these benefits arise.

It is interesting to note that the average values per household for halting loss of, or increasing, UK marine biodiversity in the McVittie and Moran study were lower in Scotland than in England or Wales. Nevertheless, the average household values in Scotland were significant and positive. Also, these values relate to average country household values for all UK waters, implying that English and Welsh households will value improvements in biodiversity in Scottish waters. There is also more general economic evidence of the Scottish populations’ positive willingness to pay to conserve designated marine sites^[130]. The extent to which the non-use values identified in the McVittie and Moran study are relevant to the proposed management options in MPAs is related to the contribution that the measures will make to halting marine biodiversity loss.

Jobstvogt et al. ^[131]; used choice modelling to estimate the WTP of the Scottish public for protecting biodiversity in Scottish waters by restricting fishing and/or oil and gas activities. Results showed that Scottish participants supported the idea of deep-sea protection and despite limited knowledge, were able to participate in the valuation process. WTP results were similar for the option value of finding products with pharmaceutical applications and for the protection (non-use value) of deep-sea species, with a combined WTP of £70-£77 on average. However, Hanley et al. ^[132] note that “there was no examination of how much people understood what kinds of wildlife they were bidding to protect, nor the consequences of not protecting it”.

Börger et al.^[133] found that respondents were willing to pay £4.19 per year on average for a 10% increase in species diversity from excluding trawling from 25% on the Dogger Bank. Their average WTP for a 25% increase from excluding on 50% was £7.76. This illustrates that the UK public hold significant values for environmental benefits generated by conservation measures in an offshore location, but at a declining rate. Values for the protection of charismatic species exceed those for general species diversity.

Brouwer, et al. (2016)^[134] aimed to identify people’s values for deep sea (likely offshore) areas. Overall, this paper found that the average household is willing to pay 0.25% more in taxes in order to restrict access to hypothetical North Sea MPAs for fishing and economic uses. The majority (70%) of those surveyed were willing to pay for the creation of an offshore MPA – this can be interpreted as representing a non-use value, where many respondents wish to preserve assets because they feel it is important rather than any specific vested interest.

Overall there is no way to transfer any of the above figures directly to value the management options being considered. However, they do suggest that the Scottish population hold significant values associated with protection of offshore environments. This is not based on full understanding of the systems and their services. The values include components of non-use value and of option values for protecting services against uncertain future damage.

In large part, this conclusion is due to the uncertainties in how ecosystem services will change with respect to management options.

F.5 Conclusions

The assessment of benefits has focussed on a review of the limited evidence that is available for offshore ecosystems and services. While the sites undoubtedly support a considerable range and value of ecosystem services, evidence on the expected changes and values to ecosystem services as a result of management options is uncertain. The range of valuation evidence reviewed above gives indications of which ecosystem services that are impacted by management options may be valuable to society. The important potential changes include fisheries services, both direct and indirect, climate regulation, and non-use values.

Consideration of different groups of services does not produce any valuation data that can be used with confidence to value the changes expected from sites. The uncertainty associated with the quantification of ecosystem services, as reflected in the evidence reviewed above, reinforces the necessity for a largely qualitative approach to the assessments of benefits at a site level.

That said, the evidence does suggest that members of the public are likely to hold non-use values for offshore marine protection, associated with the protection of vulnerable species and habitats. While we do not place any particular credence on specific values estimated in the literature, they are nevertheless a clear indication that such values exist. In this context it is worth considering that the estimated cost to fisheries, of approximately £8.8 million of lost landings, and £5.4 million of lost GVA per year under Option 2 and much less in the others, represents a small amount (approximately £4/£2.35 per year) per household in Scotland. Without seeking to be specific, it is proportionate to consider that the average WTP for conservation of the offshore MPAs under consideration could be greater than this figure.