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

7. Impacts to Ecosystem Services

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).

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, on-site or off-site. Details of the qualitative approach adopted is described in Section 3.4, and a discussion of the evidence considered is provided in Appendix F. 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.

Healthy marine natural capital provides a large number of benefits to people. Ecosystem service analysis helps identify the range and type of benefits provided by an ecosystem.

The ecosystem services included in the analysis of the impacts of management options are listed here. The reasons for analysis of these services are given in Appendix F:

• Fish & shellfish;
• Genetic resources;
• Carbon storage & climate regulation;
• Waste breakdown & detoxification of water & sediment ;
• Non-use cultural value of the natural environment;
• Knowledge and education;
• Tourism and recreation.

Several of the services listed here 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).

Previous work^[90] 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. The key issues in the assessment of levels of different ecosystem services in the site assessments are discussed in Appendix F. The 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 we 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 options;
• The size and location of the site relative to other marine areas providing the relevant ecosystem services and to people who benefit from them.

All this information is not always available for a significant proportion of the marine features present in the sites. Uncertainties, scale and timings of effects on habitats and features and subsequently ecosystem services (ES). 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.

However, there is good evidence from which to conclude that the impact of restricting demersal trawling will be to restore marine habitats and ecosystems, and have a positive impact on ecosystem services. There may also be ecosystem service costs that arise from displacement of fishing effort (off-site) and use of alternative fishing gears (on-site). In general, the potential ecosystem services costs from the management options are judged to be minimal or low.

The range of monetary valuation evidence reviewed in Appendix F 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. A largely qualitative approach is required for the assessments of benefits at a site level. That said, the available monetary 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. 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 lower values under Option 1, represents a small amount (approximately £4/£2.35 per year) per household in Scotland. It is reasonable to think that the average willingness to pay (WTP) per household for offshore MPA protection could be higher or lower than this figure.