Partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (Northern North Sea) - Fisheries Management Measures within Scottish Offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)

Benefits

This section assesses the estimated benefits for each policy option. The benefits that are expected to arise under option 1 and 2 are primarily in the form of ecosystem service benefits. The term ‘ecosystem services’ relates to the direct and indirect contributions that ecosystems provide to society. The concept of ‘ecosystem services’ is used to capture the benefits provided. Ecosystem services are the outcomes from ecosystems that directly lead to goods and services that are valued by people^[8] and the benefits and the beneficiaries are not uniform and cover a wide range of ecosystem functions and interdependencies. The offshore marine environment is known to support vitally important ecosystem services^[9].

The majority of benefits to arise from implementing fisheries management measures can be classed under ecosystem services. Although it has not been possible to monetise the expected ecosystem service benefits arising from this option, there are a number of relevant studies that have assessed the extent to which people value the protection of species in offshore waters. Previous work^[10] 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.

An international study by Brander et al^[11] concluded that the benefits to people of expanding environmental protection from MPAs generally outweighed the costs. Another study by McVittie and Moran^[12] derived a primary estimate of benefits from the implementation of the nature conservation measures in the draft Marine Bill (specifically Marine Conservation Zones). They identified UK households’ aggregate willingness to pay in the range of £487-£698 million per year (high proportion of this value could be non-use value). Börger et al. 2014^[13] found that people held significant values for the protection of species in an offshore MPA in English waters.

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. Though there is uncertainty associated with the quantification of ecosystem services, evidence does suggest that members of the public are likely to hold non-use values for deep sea protection, associated with protection of vulnerable species and habitats^[14].

Longer term benefits may be recognised by the fishing industry 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. There is evidence that fishers catch near a MPA can be larger than in other areas ^{[15] [16]} which will benefit commercial fishers utilising areas around the protected areas. The extent and time scale of this effect depends, amongst other things, on the size of site, impact of management options and mobility and lifecycles of the species concerned.

For research and education, the ecosystem service benefit from management options is higher when a larger area and number of features are protected, and when the state of features at a site is known. It is important to note that for many features the 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 pre-management state is unknown.

Marine tourism and recreation impacts can be very significant, but are predominantly concentrated around inshore areas. These services are not assessed for individual offshore sites. However, by improving the health of Scotland’s seas, the management options could increase the abundance of distinctive mobile fauna (e.g. seabirds, cetaceans) which use offshore and inshore areas. These species can attract significant recreation and tourism activity. Therefore, the management options could collectively contribute to enhancing this service. This is supported by a study by the European Commission looking at the economic benefits of MPAs, which found that MPAs deliver concrete benefits for the tourism industry in a number of case studies due to the additional environmental protection^[17].

For genetic resources, these are poorly measured for marine ecosystems, but are relevant - for example, Potts et al.^[18] identified medicines and blue biotechnology as an important marine service. Their future value cannot be quantified, but preserving them in Scottish waters is positively valued (Jobstvogt et al. ^[19]). There is potentially a significant option value to preserving the genetic resources in offshore habitats, including where the extent and condition of habitats and species are poorly understood.

In general, there is moderate uncertainty on the extent of ecosystem service impacts, although this varies across services. The management options would provide protection to a wide range of seabed features from fishing gear identified as damaging, and therefore protect and enhance their role in food webs. This could result in improved ecosystem health, and provide benefits by supporting commercial fish stocks, carbon storage in seabed sediments (although this is highly uncertain) and through the cultural value to people in Scotland of managing a healthy marine environment. There is high uncertainty in the monetary valuation of these benefits, and robust values are not available to support cost-benefit analysis.

Option 1 Benefits: Implement zonal based fisheries management measures under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009

Option 1 represents fisheries management measures that have been developed with the fishing industry and Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (eNGOs).

These measures have been developed with a focus on protecting features to enable conservation objectives to be met whilst allowing sustainable fishing activity and practices to continue alongside. Under this option, measures may or may not be implemented across the full site.

Table 3 presents a summary of the assessment of ecosystem service benefits under Option 1 detailing the level of anticipated benefit, and the level of confidence in the estimation for each site based on the current available evidence. The classifications for level of benefit were nil, minimal, low, moderate, high (detailed in Table A 1). Further information on how the level of benefit has been estimated is available in Annex A.

Under this option, all sites were identified as having beneficial impact on non-use cultural value, with one site classified as having nil-low impact, four sites having a low impact, and five having a low – moderate impact. Six sites were identified as having a beneficial impact on fish stock recovery, one classified as nil – low impact, three having a low impact, and two having a low – moderate impact.

For seven of the ten sites there is ‘low’ confidence in the evidence used to draw the relevant conclusions. For the remaining three sites the confidence was ‘moderate’.

Option 2 Benefits: Prohibit damaging gears from the full site under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009

Implementation of fisheries management measures under a full site restriction would also support the achievement of site conservation objectives. Gears identified as damaging to the relevant protected features would not be permitted within the site. It is expected that the benefits realised under Option 1 would be realised under this option but to a higher degree. The level of this cannot be quantified using current evidence.

Table 4 presents a summary of the assessment of ecosystem service benefits under Option 2 detailing the level of anticipated benefit and the level of confidence in the estimation for each site based on the current available evidence. The evidence used to assess the level of anticipated benefit for seven of the ten sites was categorized as having a low confidence rating. For the remaining three sites, there is moderate confidence in the evidence used to draw the relevant conclusions. This remains the same as the level of confidence assessed in option 1.

In regards to level of benefit, nine of the ten sites presented the same results as Option 1. Turbot Bank is estimated to have a low level of impact for fisheries, cultural and research values, in comparison to a nil – low impact for the same criteria under option 1. Further information on how level of benefit has been estimated is available in Table A 1.

Option 3 Benefits: Do nothing

No additional benefits are expected to arise from this policy option.