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

3. Approach to the Assessment

Introduction

The methodology applied has built on previous marine socio-economic assessments for MPAs, particularly the assessment of Scottish Nature Conservation MPAs^[33], the draft assessment of phase 2 fisheries management measures in inshore MPAs, the assessment of four new Nature Conservation MPAs^[34], and the assessment of a proposed deep sea marine reserve ^[35]. It is consistent with Better Regulation Executive guidance on impact assessment, the Green Book methodology^[36] for economic assessment and Scottish Government guidance on Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA)^[37]. An overview of the approach is shown in Figure 2.

The methodology covers:

• General project assumptions;
• Establishing a baseline against which impacts can be assessed;
• Assessment of costs and benefits for each site; and
• Combined assessment.

General Project Assumptions

A number of key assumptions were developed in consultation with Scottish Government which have informed the progression of the study.

The proposed management measures have been developed for the purposes of the assessment by Scottish Government. These take into account the sensitivity of features proposed for designation in relation to the scale and intensity of pressures associated with human activities, but do not anticipate final advice on management measures, nor do they reflect the management measures that may be adopted by the Scottish Government for individual sites.

Figure 2. Economic and Social Analysis Process

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ALT Diagram showing the economic and social analysis process. This starts with site analysis (site features and status, activities present and baseline, pressures (by sector) and management measures). This flows in to the socio-economic analysis for each site, covering economic, social and environmental costs and benefits. The total socio-economic analysis for all sites feeds in to the cumulative impacts including discounted economic costs, environmental/ecosystem service impacts, and in the context of Scottish economic data and network effects.

Lower and upper estimates for each management option have been calculated to assess the potential range of impacts. They are based on the proposed management measures from Scottish Government. Within each estimate, assumptions are incorporated around potential for displacement of fishing activity to result in landings that compensate for the landings lost from the site (see Section 3.4), but which may have additional impacts. An overview of the assessment estimates is provided in Table 3.

The detailed assumptions used for each estimate and each site are documented in Appendix C. Impacts have been assessed for the two management options compared to the ‘do nothing’ option, i.e. not to proceed with the proposed management measures.

It has been assumed that management measures will be introduced in 2024. Costs and GVA impacts are expressed in 2022 prices using the latest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) deflator data^[38].

It is noted that the recent fuel price rise could result in a change in fleet structure, and changes to food prices and consumer spending power could affect demand and supply for seafood. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could have an impact on whitefish markets. Net zero and decarbonisation policies could also affect fleet structure/gear type use. It has not been possible to take into account these potential but unknown future effects on the sector.

The assessment period for considering the impacts of designation is 60 years, in line with HM Treasury Green Book guidance. Within this timeframe, costs to industry are quantified and valued over a period of 20 years. This is regarded as providing a reasonable time period within which the main impacts are likely to occur. Present values are calculated as the sum of discounted impacts over 20 years. For the quantification of impacts, the 20-year time period is used because:

• Over a period of 20 years, all sectors will have time to adjust to management measures, and this will lower longer-term costs. For example, fishing needs to reinvest in capital (e.g. repair and replace boats), and this will enable different fishing methods to be adopted over time, such that after 20 years, the costs of the management measures will reduce;
• Habitat and fish stock recovery would be expected to occur over 20 years, such that beyond 20 years the fishing sector could have different fishing opportunities;
• In general, uncertainty of impacts increases over time, and unanticipated changes could arise that alter the costs and benefits of the policy; and
• This provides consistency with previous policy appraisals (a 20 year time period has been used in previous socio-economic appraisals for Scottish Government, dating back to at least 2014).

Longer-term socio-economic effects and environmental impacts, beyond this time period (i.e. from 20 to 60 years), become less certain. Although they are quantified where possible, they are mainly assessed in qualitative terms. For socio-economic effects, this is due to technological changes and the ability of industries to adapt (e.g. as capital depreciates and is replaced), amongst other things. For environmental impacts, environmental responses are harder to predict based on current knowledge and due to external influences (e.g. climate change).

Monetary impacts have been discounted over the assessment period using a 3.5% discount rate in line with the Green Book. Employment impacts have not been discounted so that the full impact on employment is clear.

The assessment has sought to ensure consistency between estimates used in the SEIA, and those assessed in the SEA.

Establishing a Baseline

Baseline information is required to inform the ‘do nothing’ option against which one or more intervention options can be compared. Assuming management measures are introduced in 2024 and an assessment covering a 20 year period, a baseline has been created covering the period from 2024 to 2043.

A range of baseline information was collated, including:

• Information on the current spatial distribution of fishing in the marine environment, its intensity and economic value (turnover, GVA);
• Information on ecosystem service values associated with the marine environment and how these may change over the assessment period (in the absence of the intervention).

Economic and Social Baseline Information on Commercial Fisheries

Baseline information on commercial fisheries landings taken from the proposed management areas was obtained from:

• Processed Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) data for fishing vessels over-12 m in length, by gear type for the period 2015–2019 (provided by Scottish Government);
• ICES rectangle landings data for fishing vessels over 12 m in length, and 12 m and under for the period 2015–2019 (provided by Scottish Government).

The Covid-19 pandemic impacted on the fishing sector, resulting in depressed market prices, reduced exports and vessels tying up. As a result, 2020 data has been excluded from the assessment, and the five-year period preceding this (2015-2019) has been used.

Information on the overall value of the fisheries sector (turnover and GVA), employment in the fishing sector, and information on the seafood processing sector (turnover, GVA, employment) in Scotland were compiled to provide the context for the assessed impacts.

The value of landings made by vessels by registered home port district were obtained from the above datasets to understand the context for any potential changes in employment by home port district.

Total value of landings by port were also obtained, to provide the context for potential changes in landings to ports.

This information provides inputs to the baseline for the assessment of social impacts. This also takes into account wage levels and the distribution of employment within affected sectors and locations, and other information, such as the geographical location of and range of economic opportunities within, affected communities.

Ecosystem Services Baseline

For the assessment of impacts on ecosystem services, this evidence is generally not available at a site specific level, and so is drawn from wider understanding of the current levels of ecosystem services in Scottish/ UK waters (e.g. National Ecosystem Assessment^[39] , see Appendix F for more details).

Ecosystem services are determined by the state of marine natural capital – i.e. the condition of the marine environment. For some sites, there is some evidence on overall condition, and/or the condition of specific features – as stated in the site assessments and summarised in Tables 1 and 5 in Appendix C. Where this evidence is unknown for sites, it is drawn from wider understanding of the current state of the marine environment.

Other Information Requirements

In addition to baseline data, a range of additional data and information has informed the assessment. In particular, information on the cost of management measures has been required to estimate cost impacts for fisheries, together with information on enforcement, surveillance and monitoring costs to estimate impacts on the public sector. Such information has been obtained from specific stakeholders where required.

Information management

All incoming data was checked for validity and accuracy prior to acceptance within the project in accordance with internal quality procedures. Available spatial data was held and managed within a project-specific spatial database (ArcGIS).

Assessment of Potential Impacts (Costs and Benefits)

Impacts on Commercial Fisheries

Step 1: Estimating the costs arising from proposed management measures – value of landings affected. Due to the differences in data availability, this was carried out separately for under-12 m and over-12 m vessels.

For over-12 m vessels, Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) ping data were linked to daily logbook landings records by Scottish Government. Recorded landings in a day were averaged across all VMS fishing pings on that day, where a ‘fishing ping’ is defined as one where the average speed since the previous ping is greater than zero and up to and including 5 knots for all gear types. The data provide estimates of landings value by area of capture. Where landings were recorded with zero value, the value was inferred from the volume using an average price per species from the dataset. The ping data were then intersected with the management areas to calculate the value affected for each gear type.

Under-12 m vessels were only considered where there were landings recorded by these vessels from the ICES rectangles that overlap each site – Firth of Forth Banks Complex MPA, Solan Bank Reef SAC and Pobie Bank Reef SAC. The likely spatial distribution of fishing activity within the ICES rectangles was considered in relation to the MPA location, using information from Scotmap or Shetland important shellfish grounds, and used to pro-rata the baseline ICES rectangle landings data.

For both under-12 m and over-12 m vessels, landings values were uprated to 2022 values using predicted GDP deflators^[40] and averaged over five years (2015-2019) to provide annual average values over the period.

The datasets used included all UK-registered vessels. Impacts are attributed to Scottish vessels and Scottish ports through the analysis of home port district (for employment impacts) and port of landing (for impacts on ports and downstream processing sector). This port of landing data enables identification of impacts on island communities, and remote rural mainland communities, both of which could face different consequences from these impacts due to their geographical locations.

There are potential impacts on non-UK vessels that fish in UK waters, because all the sites extend beyond 12 nautical miles (NM) (noting that Solan Bank Reef and Pobie Bank Reef SACs also overlap the inshore area). Potential impacts were assessed based on VMS ping data, likely gear type, time associated with pings in the site, and number of vessels by country. Further details on analysis and results for non-UK vessels is provided in Appendix D.

Step 2: Displacement test. The assessment of the potential for displacement of UK fishing effort used the criteria in McLeod (2014)^[41], which applied three steps by vessel length group (under-12 m and over-12 m) and gear type. This test was developed by Scottish Government as part of the first tranche of inshore MPA management measures, to help put the fishing activity affected into context of the fishing activity for that fleet segment in the surrounding, and wider, region:

• Test 1 – If the proportion of activity affected is less than 10% of activity in the MPA (for that gear type and vessel length), then it is likely that this activity can be absorbed by other existing fishing grounds in the MPA. If the threshold of 10% is exceeded, proceed to Test 2;
• Test 2 – If the proportion of activity affected is less than 10% of activity in the whole ICES rectangle(s) where the MPA is found (for that gear type and vessel length), then it is likely that fishing grounds outwith the MPA, but within the surrounding ICES rectangle(s), can absorb the displaced activity. If the threshold of 10% is exceeded, proceed to Test 3;
• Test 3 – If the proportion of activity affected is less than 1% of activity in the region (see Figure 3) (for that gear type and vessel length), then the region is capable of absorbing the displaced activity. If the threshold of 1% is exceeded, implementation of that management approach has the potential to result in significant adverse environmental effects, and should only progress if it is essential to achieve the conservation objectives. It also indicates that the fishing activity affected is a significant proportion of the activity for that fleet segment in the surrounding area, and displacement of effort to other existing grounds may not be possible, resulting in loss of landings and economic impacts to the fleet.

Where a specific fleet segment (gear type for over-12 m or under-12 m vessels) did not pass the three displacement tests, it was assumed that the effort would not be able to be displaced, and would result in a loss of the value of landings affected. Where the displacement test was passed, it was assumed that the affected effort could be displaced without significant environmental or socio-economic consequences, and compensatory landings would be made from other nearby fishing grounds, therefore the impact on landings was reduced to zero under Option 1 taking into account potential displacement.

The Clean and Safe Seas Evidence Group (CSSEG) regions used for the displacement assessment are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. CSSEG regions and ICES rectangles

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ALT Map of Scottish waters showing the locations of offshore MPAs under consideration, ICES rectangles, and CSSEG regions (Bailey, Clyde, East Scotland Coast, East Shetland, Faroe Shetland Channel, Fladen, Forth, Forties, Hatton, Hebrides, Irish Sea, Minches and Malin Sea, Moray Firth, North Scotland Coast, Rockall, West Shetland)

Step 3: Convert value of landings to direct GVA impact. The average annual value of landings affected was converted to direct GVA for each fleet segment using segment-specific ratios of GVA as a proportion of fishing turnover calculated from Seafish economic data (Seafish, 2021)^[42] and STECF (2020)^[43] (Table 4).

Step 4: Calculate indirect and induced GVA, and employment effects. The reduction in direct and indirect GVA (i.e. reduction in GVA generated by the sector and its supply chain) was estimated by applying the Type I GVA multiplier for sea fishing from the Scottish Government's Supply, Use and Input-Output Tables ^[44]. The reduction in direct, indirect and induced GVA (i.e. reduction in GVA generated by the sector and its supply chain and the knock-on impacts of a change in household consumption) was estimated by applying the Type II GVA multiplier for sea fishing from the Scottish Government's Input-Output Tables⁴². Reductions in direct and indirect employment, and in direct, indirect and induced employment, were estimated by applying the Type I and Type II employment effects, respectively, for sea fishing from the Scottish Input-Output Tables and Multipliers.

Notes: Based on UK Seafish fleet segments, attributed according to Northern North Sea and North Western Waters areas, and under-12m and over-12m vessels.

Step 5: Calculate the present value of impacts over the assessment period. The average annual value of landings affected is assumed to be constant throughout the 20-year period of the assessment. Costs are calculated in 2022 prices, discounted over the assessment period at a rate of 3.5%^[45].

Step 6: Disclosure analysis. It is not permitted, for reasons of confidentiality, to disclose data on annual landings values for fewer than five vessels. For sites (or ports) where the landings per gear type affected derive from five vessels or fewer, it has not been possible to disclose annual average landings. In these cases, the value of affected gear types were aggregated together for presentation of results. In one site (Anton Dohrn Seamount SAC), fewer than five vessels were affected by the proposed measures, therefore the value affected has not been presented, and the value has been excluded from the totals (although the value affected is negligible, less than 0.1% of the total).

Step 7: Identify and document other non-quantified costs and benefits. Other costs and benefits that may arise from the management measures, but that have not been quantified, were identified and recorded in the Site Reports (Appendix C). This includes impacts relating to displacement of fishing effort.

Another supply chain that is highly relevant to commercial fishing vessels is that which the vessels input to, that is, the supply of fish to processing facilities and to the wholesale and retail trades. Impacts on this sector are explicitly considered in the site assessments where relevant. The potential impacts on GVA and employment in the processing sector have not been quantified separately. This is because the relevant multipliers link the sector back to its inputs, which include the commercial fishing sector. Therefore, estimating the reduction in the processing sector would also estimate the reduction in the commercial fisheries sector as an indirect effect and hence would result in double counting.

Distributional Analysis and Consequent Social Impacts

Social impacts are effects on individuals, communities and society. They can vary in their desirability, scale, extent or duration (temporal and spatial), intensity and severity, as well as the extent to which they affect particular groups or are compounded by cumulative effects.

The social impacts generated by the proposed management options will be strongly connected to the nature, scale and distribution of the economic impacts (on both income and employment). Any significant change in employment, for example generated as a result of restrictions on fishing activity, can have significant social impacts (e.g. on health, crime). Economic and social impacts have been assessed through a distributional analysis.

Employment is recognised as being a particularly important generator of social benefit. It is the key means by which individuals fulfil material wellbeing, as well as being central to social linkages, individual identity, social status and an important contributor to physical and mental health. Conversely, unemployment can be detrimental to physical and mental health and a key cause of deprivation and associated issues of community cohesion.

The distributional analysis has focussed on the commercial fishing sector and the fish processing sector. The analysis quantifies the estimated economic costs of management options (on output, GVA and employment).

The distribution of impacts on employment in the fishing sector has focussed on the registered home port districts of the vessels affected. The distribution of impacts on the fish processing industry has focussed on the ports of landing of the affected vessels’ catches.

The focus of the distributional analysis was predominantly on groups in Scotland, as this is where the majority of impacts are expected to occur. This has included impacts on specific locations (including regions, districts and ports) and on specific groups within Scotland’s population (including, for example, different age groups, genders, minority groups, and parts of Scotland’s income distribution). Table 5 summarises the list of groups that have been considered in the distributional analysis.

The social impact assessment presented in Section 6 identifies the potential social impacts of the proposed management measures for the commercial fisheries sector, where designation is expected to have GVA and employment impacts. The tables identify the potential distribution of economic impacts and are then combined with relevant quantitative (e.g. potential employment impacts) and qualitative information to assess whether social impacts are likely to occur, and if so, their potential significance.

The significance of the social impacts has been assessed using the following definitions:

• - - -/+++: significant negative/positive effect; This is defined as where it is probable that an impact will be noticed and is potentially significant;
• - -/++: possible negative/positive effect This is defined as where it is possible than an impact will be noticed;
• -/+: minimal negative/positive effect, if any. This is defined as where it is probable than an impact is unlikely to be sufficiently significant so as to be noticeable, but that some possibility exists that a negative/positive impact could occur; and
• 0: no noticeable effect expected.

The assessment of social impacts against these definitions takes account of:

• The total size of the economic impacts of proposed management measures (total catches potentially affected, and total employment effects);
• The relative size of the economic impacts for the home port districts and port of landings affected; and
• The socio-economic context of the locations in which those impacts occur – recognising that some communities (e.g. in remote areas or on islands) may have fewer alternative employment opportunities.

The social impact assessment is conducted for each offshore MPA. The results of the social impact assessment for each site are reported in Appendix C (Table 4 for each site).

Impacts on the Public Sector

The Final Regulatory Impact Assessment for the Marine (Scotland) Bill (Scottish Government, 2009) identified various costs to the public sector associated with the designation of Nature Conservation MPAs. Some of these costs have already been incurred (for example, site selection, survey costs, work to develop management options and consultation on site proposals), and the preparation of Designation Orders. These are therefore ‘sunk’ costs and do not need to be considered in this assessment.

Additional costs will be incurred in relation to the implementation and enforcement of fisheries management measures and for ongoing monitoring of the condition of features within designated sites, although this monitoring effort will relate to the assessment of the impact of all management measures and not just those associated with commercial fisheries.

Public sector costs were therefore estimated for the following broad areas based on discussions with Scottish Government and drawing on experience from previous assessments:

• Mechanisms to implement restrictions on fishing activity in offshore sites; and
• Monitoring and control of fishing activity.

Estimates of the cost impacts to the public sector have been based on information from Scottish Government. These agreed assumptions have then been used to estimate costs to central government for each area. Further information is provided in Appendix B.

Impacts on Ecosystem Services

The biodiversity features of an MPA contribute to the delivery of a range of ecosystem services. Management of the MPAs may improve the quantity and quality of the beneficial services provided, which may increase the value (contribution to economic welfare) of them. Impacts on the value of ecosystem services may occur as a result of the management and/or achievement of the conservation objectives of the MPA.

The ecosystem services analysis provides a qualitative description of the potential changes in ecosystem service provision associated with the implementation of management measures to support the achievement of conservation objectives for individual features. The ecosystem services analysed are based on the list of final ecosystem services used in previous Scottish MPA impact assessments, but updated to reflect the evidence and terminology used by NatureScot (C. Leakey, pers. comm.) and relevance to offshore sites. Those impact assessments do not consider supporting services due to a risk of double counting their value with final services.

The list of ecosystem services that have been considered is described in Appendix F.

The analysis of changes to ecosystem services has considered both on-site and off-site impacts of management options. Off-site impacts could be positive (e.g. by supporting healthier fish stocks in the area) or negative (e.g. due to the impacts of displaced fishing vessels). On-site costs could arise as a result of alternative fishing gears (e.g. creels, nets and lines) being deployed in MPAs where management measures have excluded mobile demersal gears. Examples of these impacts are discussed in Section 7.

In assessing impacts, we have sought to clearly link the management measures (‘Option 1’ and ‘Option 2’) to changes in ecosystem services and the economic value of these. The analysis has been summarised in an assessment table (Tables 6a and 6b in Appendix C), similar to that used in previous impact assessments of MPAs in Scottish, English and UK waters.

In addition to the summary of anticipated ecosystem services benefits under the two management options, the assessments include four parameters to clarify qualitative understanding of the changes in ecosystem services arising from the proposed management options (see Tables 6a and 6b in the Site Reports in Appendix C):

• Relevance: Relating to the amount of ecosystem goods or functions arising from site;
• Value weighting: Categorisation of how valuable the amount of ecosystem goods or functions from the site is in providing benefits to human population;
• Scale of benefits: Consideration of actual potential to deliver benefits (for example considering location of benefits, delivery to human population, etc.);
• Confidence: Level of confidence in our current knowledge of all other categories (in other words, scale of benefit, level of improvement, etc.).

The qualitative level of each of these parameters, and to the changes in ecosystem services, are assigned a level, defined as shown in Table 6. Based on the assessed changes in ecosystem services using these parameters, an overall level of impact on each ecosystem service has been defined with its own confidence level. An overall level of total benefits has also been defined. The approach provides a qualitative summary of the expected ecosystem service benefits to ensure all relevant impacts are captured in the analysis.

Valuation of Ecosystem Services

There are limited valuation data for marine ecosystem services provided by MPA features. The National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA)^[46] included a synthesis of data available up to 2010 for marine ecosystem services^[47], and there have been subsequent reviews by Potts et al.^[48] and Burdon et al.^[49], expanding it to encompass additional features.

To gauge the value of ecosystem services accruing from marine protected areas, relevant valuation literature has been assessed including a review prepared as part of the NEA Follow-On project^[50] Marine chapter and Turner and Schaafsma^[51]. There is data for market goods (e.g. fish) that allow quantification and valuation of some flows of services. However, monetary valuation evidence for the value of protecting offshore ecosystems and for many ecosystem services are scarce. These data limitations impose significant constraints on the extent to which changes in ecosystem service provision can be quantified, and necessitate a largely qualitative analysis of the value of ecosystem service impacts.

In addition, there are studies that use economic valuation techniques to assess the impacts of marine conservation measures, such as designation of and implementation of management measures in protected areas. There are a small number of such studies in the UK (e.g. McVittie and Moran^[52]; Kenter et al ^[53]), and some further information is available from the NEA Follow-on Project^[54] and from eftec et al.^[55] This evidence helps understand the potential size of monetary values (e.g. Kenter et al.⁵¹) and their distribution (Armstrong et al., 2020^[56]), but do not support monetary valuation of the impacts of specific MPA designations.

Approach to Assessing Cumulative and Combined Impacts

The proposed management options across all sites are considered together. An additive approach has been adopted for assessing cumulative impacts.

The scale of the fishing and seafood processing sectors in Scotland has been used to provide context for assessing the significance of impacts. Information has been drawn (where available) from the Scottish Government’s Economic Strategy^[57], or from industry data. The significance of impacts has been assessed taking account of the scale of the impacts incurred and the relative importance of the sector to the Scottish economy (now and in the future). The impacts are also considered in relation to wider socio-economic impacts and trends, such as the increase in fuel prices, Brexit, Covid-19 and the cost of living crisis.

For impacts to the public sector, a top-down approach has been used to assess costs, using national assumptions, applied at site level.

For the social analysis, the assessment of impacts has taken account of the distributional analysis to identify whether specific local communities or groups may be affected by designations. Where there is the potential for multiple impacts, a qualitative assessment of the combined impacts on these communities or groups has been provided.

For the environmental impacts, part of the rationale for an ecologically-coherent network of MPAs is the concept that the value of the network is greater than the sum of its parts. However, scientific understanding of the relationships between particular offshore habitats and the wider network is limited, and it is therefore difficult to provide any quantification of the combined benefits.

The potential offshore management options have been developed by Scottish Government based on advice from JNCC and discussions with stakeholders, with the aim of achieving the conservation objectives for each site. Scottish Ministers have a duty to designate MPAs which contribute to a UK network of protected marine sites, The Scottish MPA Selection Guidelines (Box 3, Scottish Government et al^[58]) include a number of elements that relate to the wider benefits of a network, for example, replication supports resilience and connectivity supports linkages between marine ecosystems. These benefits have been reflected in Table 5 of Site Reports in Appendix C.

Value Transfer techniques have been used to interpret existing valuation data for MPAs and offshore environments to the proposed management options. This uses a similar approach to that applied for the Nature Conservation MPA assessment^[59] and drawing on further information published as part of the UK NEA Follow-On Project^[60].

The ecosystem services impacts have been considered separately for the assessments of each individual site, and for the combination of all sites.

In-combination assessment

An in-combination assessment has given consideration to how the significance of these impacts might vary when taking account of the total impact as a result of all MPAs and current or planned renewable energy generation development to date, particularly where there is overlap or potential for interaction between these and proposed offshore MPAs. Qualitative commentary is provided on whether this context might increase or decrease the significance of the impacts considered within this assessment. This analysis has drawn on information contained within:

• the Scottish Nature Conservation MPA assessment^[61];
• the socio-economic assessment for the draft plan for offshore wind, wave and tidal energy^[62];
• monitoring of the impact of the implemented measures (2016) in inshore MPAs^[63];
• the SEIA of four additional proposed Marine Protected Areas^[64];
• the SEIA for the Sectoral Marine Plan for offshore wind^[65];
• announcements on the Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas Decarbonisation (INTOG) leasing round^[66].

This information helps to provide context for the additional impacts estimated to occur as a result of implementation of the proposed management measures, particularly where these additional impacts will affect activities and communities that will or are experiencing impacts as a result of earlier decisions on MPAs or offshore renewables developments. There may be in-combination impacts on some vessels, ports and communities from the forthcoming inshore MPA measures which have not been taken into account in this assessment. For ecosystem services, the context of the proposed measures in the wider network of MPAs is important, as one benefit relates to resilience and supporting services, that help maintain the services provided by the wider network.