Fisheries management measures within Scottish Offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs): consultation

3. Part 1 Fisheries Management Measures in MPAs of the Scottish offshore region

3.1 MPA Fisheries Management Measures

The Scottish MPA network is underpinned by a variety of different legislation depending on whether the site is located in the inshore or offshore region, and the types of features they protect. Sites designated for nature conservation purposes should be managed as needed in a way that conserves the habitats and species for which the sites have been designated.

The Scottish Government has a long-term commitment to ensure the sustainable management of the marine environment. Fulfilling this involves a range of different management approaches to ensure that society can continue to derive the many natural benefits that our seas provide. As part of this, the Scottish Government has committed to implement fisheries management measures for existing MPAs where these are not already in place.

In this consultation, site specific spatial restrictions are proposed to manage the fisheries activities that can take place within each protected area. The aim of this policy is to manage sites in a way that conservation objectives can be achieved and support sustainable use of our marine environment.

By implementing fisheries management measures in our MPAs we also contribute to and support a number of additional national and international commitments and obligations such as:

• work towards the outcomes of the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy outcomes: Protected areas will be larger, better connected and in good condition and that natural capital will be embedded in policy making;
• contribute to the achievement of Good Environmental Status under the UK Marine Strategy;
• contribute to the National Performance Framework by supporting marine elements of the biodiversity, and protected site indicators for the Environmental National Outcomes. These measures will also support the economic objective for natural capital;
• Scotland’s National Marine Plan;
• Joint Fisheries Statement and Fisheries Act 2020;
• help deliver the UK Contribution to Ecologically Coherent MPA Network in the North East Atlantic;
• work towards the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and Convention on Biological Diversity targets of 2030 for 30% of marine and coastal areas are “effectively conserved and managed, while ensuring that any sustainable use, where appropriate in such areas, is full consistent with conservation outcomes and;
• support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources).

This consultation is on proposed fisheries management measures for 20 sites (10 SACs and 10 NCMPAs) within the Scottish offshore region (Figure 2). Collectively referred to as ‘MPAs’.

Following the conclusion of this consultation process, Scottish Ministers will decide upon the fisheries management measures to take forward. It is intended that, ultimately, orders under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1967 will be the legislative mechanisms used to implement those measures. Once in place this will mean that infringement of the management measures will be a criminal offence.

It is intended that a scientific exception will be included in the orders to allow relevant and appropriate scientific survey work to be carried out within the sites as required. It is also intended that the measures will include a minimum transit speed of six knots for vessels operating restricted gears and a requirement that restricted fishing gear is lashed and stowed when within areas subject to relevant fishing restrictions.

3.2 Overview of sites and definitions

There are 27 protected areas either wholly or partly within the Scottish offshore region. Of these, 23 sites have been identified as requiring fisheries management measures for nature conservation purposes. Twenty of these sites are being taken forwards within this consultation. These are listed below in Table 1 and shown in Figure 2. Three Special Protection Areas (SPAs) that have been identified as requiring measures but not addressed in this consultation are, Seas off Foula SPA, Seas off St Kilda SPA and Outer Firth of Forth Banks Complex SPA. These sites are designated across the boundary between the inshore region (0-12 nautical miles) and offshore region (12-200 nautical miles). The measures for these sites are being taken forward as part of the programme of work identifying measures for inshore MPAs and are therefore not included within this consultation.

Four wholly offshore sites which are not considered as requiring further fisheries management measures are Hatton Bank candidate SAC, Hatton-Rockall Basin MPA, Turbot Bank MPA and North-west Orkney MPA. This is because there are already suitable fishing restrictions in place. These sites are therefore also not included within this consultation.

Proposed measures were developed for Turbot Bank MPA in which it was proposed that targeted sandeel fishing across the full site would be prohibited. In 2023 the Scottish Government consulted on a closure to all fishing for sandeel in all Scottish waters. As a result of this consultation the Scottish Government has prohibited fishing for sandeel in all Scottish waters. The Sandeel (Prohibition Of Fishing) (Scotland) Order 2024 came into force on 26 March 2024 ahead of the 2024 fishery season and applies to all vessels (UK and EU) fishing within Scottish waters.

Subsequently, we are no longer proposing site specific measures for Turbot Bank MPA and therefore measures for this site are not included within this consultation. The site will still feature within the package of consultation documents as removing the site from the documents is not considered practical at this stage. This is because in addition to site specific assessments, overall assessments have been undertaken for the impacts of implementing measures as a full package.

Throughout this consultation the measures and advice refer to categories of fishing gear. These categories have been defined based on how the gear interacts with the seabed and are outlined below.

3.3 Gear categorisation

Demersal mobile gear is defined as: trawled or towed gear that makes contact with, or has potential to make any form of contact with the seabed.

The gear types classified under this definition are: trawl, demersal towed gear, bottom trawl, bottom pair trawl, beam trawl, Scottish or Danish seine, pair seine, boat dredge, mechanised dredge, hydraulic dredge.

Demersal static gear is defined as: gear that makes contact with, or has potential to make any form of contact with the seabed, including gear anchors and weights.

The gear types classified under this definition are: pots, traps and creels, floated demersal longlines and set/static nets (including trammel, gill and entangler nets).

There are no proposed fisheries measures for pelagic fishing gear as the protected features of these MPAs mostly reside on the seabed. Pelagic measures were considered for each site designated for mobile species however they have been assessed as not required (for more information please see the site proposal document).

3.4 Conservation Objectives

Each MPA has specific conservation objectives for the features the site is designated to protect. For SACs these conservation objectives are either to ‘conserve’ or ‘recover’ a feature to the desired state (or quality). For NCMPAs the conservation objectives will be to ‘restore’ or ‘maintain’ to the desired state (or quality).

If the feature is currently considered to be in unfavourable condition within the site, the objective is to ’recover’ or ‘restore’. If the feature is shown to be in favourable condition, the objective is to ‘conserve’ or ‘maintain’.

3.5 Fisheries Management Advice

Statutory nature Conservation Bodies (SNCBs) Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), supported by NatureScot (for sites which are partially inshore) have produced scientific advice for each site. This advice outlines the risks to protected features and the risk to achieving site conservation objectives. The advice is presented as a Fisheries Management Options Paper, one of which is produced for each site. These papers have been produced by undertaking an extensive literature review to establish how different fishing gear may affect protected features.

The Fisheries Management Options Papers provide site specific advice on the risk to features and the conservation objectives. This advice is given under three levels of fisheries management: no additional management, reducing or limiting pressures, and removing or avoiding pressures. “Pressures” in this context refers to the specified fishing activities. The full management advice and evidence used to develop that advice can be found for each site on the JNCC website’s Resource Hub.

You can find more information in the Site Proposal Document about how advice is developed and how the levels of risk to conservation objectives and protected features are established.