Marine Conservation Zones ins and outs

[Charlton]

Hi all
a little bit of history for you, further to my previous e mails, a survey was put into tackle shops along the North East, and East Coast, asking about angling activities, without anglers being told why, and what for. I sent an e mail to Martyn Howett, Natural England NE asking why and what the information was for, having had dealings with the old English Nature on many occasions and have a great deal of mistrust of them. To date this e mail has still not been answered, make of this what you will. So I contacted a Jamie Davies, a contact from an e mail sent to me by Leon Roskili, he put me in contact with Audrey Jones , Acting Senior Fisheries Advisor , Marine Policy Team. We talked on Monday afternoon when I hoped to get answers to anglers questions about MCZ's and what the information in the surveys would be used for. On the attachment is Audrey Jones summarising what we talked about, then a little comment from her and my reply to that comment and then the answers she gave me to some direct questions I put. Please take time to read the whole article. We all know that MCZ's are coming and as stakeholders we should have our say, but I am very sceptical as to why Natural England want to know where we dig bait, as they do not know all the places used, there reasons are in the article, it is entirely up to you to make your own mind up. I would appreciate if you would pass this information on to all your contacts, and post it on your web sites, it is imperative that all anglers get to know the ins and outs of the MCZ's and their implications.

Alan


It was good to chat to you on Monday and sorry for not getting back to you until now.
I offered to write an e-mail summarising what we talked about which was:
1. A description of what Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) are and how they will be designated
2. The purpose of Natural England's recreational sea angling questionnaire
3. The importance of anglers being involved in the MCZ process.
1. In the Marine and Coastal Access Bill currently going through parliament there are proposals for a new type of marine protected area, called Marine Conservation Zones. The purpose of these MCZs is to conserve rare, threatened and representative marine flora and fauna within England and Wales - so in very basic terms to protect whats special and in some cases unique to England and Wales, but also ‘everyday’ wildlife and habitats, which are equally important parts of the marine environment. (Scotland has its own Marine Bill which has slightly different proposals than those for England and Wales).The MCZs could be located within 0 to up to 200nm offshore.
The proposal is to designate them through a bottom up, stakeholder led process. Four projects are being set up to achieve this - North Sea, Eastern English Channel, Finding Sanctuary in the South West and Irish Sea. Finding Sanctuary has been running for a number of years now and it might be worth having a look at their website Home » Finding Sanctuary to get a better idea of the work they are undertaking. As I stressed on the phone Natural England is helping to set up these projects in terms of finding partner organisations who would be willing to host the project and where necessary helping with the process to recruit a Project Manager, they are however not our projects. The projects will be independent and have their own identities and will draw up the recommendations for where the MCZs should go. Guidelines on what features are of interest and the amount that needs to be designated are being produced to help the projects and an independent science advisory panel will be established to oversee the process and recommendations.
Socio-economics and recreational interests will be taken into account when determining where the MCZs will go, with the idea, wherever possible to minimise the impact of these areas on other users of the sea. In order to achieve this its essential that the regional projects have the best and most accurate data that they can get on the activities occurring and where they occur as well as the science on the habitats and species. Anglers by feeding in this information could have some places protected from damaging operations which could result in better angling opportunities or if appropriate could potentially avoid having some areas included if by protecting them it could significantly effect the angling opportunities.
You asked me on the phone whether they will be used to restrict or stop angling activity. The simple answer is no in some instances and yes in others. This is because it will depend on what the MCZ is being put in place to protect. In some areas it could be considered that some activities are damaging e.g. bottom trawling, but others e.g. angling or potting are not. In other areas it could be that the scale or the timing of the activity is potentially damaging so limits could be put in place on numbers or the seasonality of the activity. And in some cases the interest features could be considered to be highly sensitive to all activities so no activities will be allowed to occur.
On the whole it is likely that recreational sea angling and the MCZs are going to be potentially compatible with gains seen for both the sport and marine nature conservation in terms of bigger and better fish.
The Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities are going to be the bodies that manage fishing within the MCZs. These are new organisations being proposed in the Marine Bill which will formed from the existing Sea Fisheries Committees.
2. The purpose of the work that Natural England has commissioned Cefas to undertake on our behalf which includes the questionnaire is to:
a) Undertake a literature review to determine the geographic extent of different species of fish that are likely to be of significant interest to recreational sea anglers, and the habitat types in which those species are most commonly found and targeted as well as methods commonly used for their capture.
b) Undertake a pilot survey of anglers, to verify the literature review, as well as to gauge whether there is an awareness of MCZs amongst anglers and to establish if any sort of management restrictions might be acceptable if they allowed access to the MCZs. The survey has only been undertaken in the East and North East so far, if it is felt to have produced useful results then we may take it to other regions later in the year.
The information is going to be used to help the projects build up an understanding of what angling takes place in their areas and what habitats the species that are caught are associated with. The idea is that this will help engagement with anglers, because as you know there are over a million of you who are all part of different associations and groups so it is not immediately obvious which groups and who are the best people to approach. It is hoped that the work will help the projects have a better understanding of angling and therefore focus their engagement in the right way. I am more than happy to send you a copy of the report when it is completed.
3. Having input from anglers into the MCZ process will obviously be the best way to capture knowledge and information on angling so it can be used to help determine where MCZs should or should not go. Without this information then areas that you would like to see better protected for angling or not protected at all can not be considered, as there importance to anglers will not be known. The project in your area is the North Sea project and I have forwarded your details onto the person co-ordinating the project until the Project Manager is in post. Details on all the projects can be found at: The England MCZ Project
The most important thing to stress is that if anglers don’t get involved with the regional MCZ projects then they will have no say in where MCZs are located and they could end up being ‘imposed’ on them rather than being agreed to by them. So if anglers feel that current designations that they had no say in have affected their operations e.g. bait digging. Then this is your chance to have a say about where these new marine protected areas go to ensure that your interests are taken into account.
I hope this helps clarify the situation, but please give me a call if you need further information
The only comments that I have on your e-mail is that it comes across as still being very negative towards the process and focussed on bait digging. The area being looked at by the MCZ projects will stretch from 0 to up to 200nm offshore so will include a lot more issues than bait digging.
Regards
Audrey
Audrey Jones
Acting Senior Fisheries Advisor
Marine Policy Team
My reply to Audrey’s point Q & A follow, with the answers I was given
Hi Audrey
just read through your e mail, I don't particularly think I am negative about MCZ's, I just raised points that anglers had been asking and had not got answers for, my e mail to Martyn Howett, Natural England, has still not been replied to. On the bait digging side, yes everything was mostly based around that, regardless of how far anglers go off in boats fishing, no bait no fishing, bait digging is integral to angling. And my main worry still is that local members of Natural England and The Natural trust use this to put in place bait digging bans, I know you have assured me this should not happen, but I have dealt with the old English Nature many times and have a great mistrust of them, as have most NE anglers.

Just on one point, when I first asked you about possible bait digging bans or fishing bans within MCZ's you gave a definite No, until pushed later on when you said there could be a possibility or restrictions, yet in the paragraph below you now say yes there could be, a little change from the answers you gave to the questions below. I will add this to the end of your comments.

You asked me on the phone whether they will be used to restrict or stop angling activity. The simple answer is no in some instances and yes in others. This is because it will depend on what the MCZ is being put in place to protect.

Alan



Below is a list of Q’s and A’s from my conversation with Audrey Jones, Acting Senior Fisheries Advisor, Marine Policy Team, and some of my personal views from the conversation, I hope you will read my views and what Audrey Jones has to say and make your own mind up.
Personal views
I get the impression that the powers that be mean well with certain areas being designated Marine Conservation Zones (MCZ’S) and are trying their best to include all stakeholders in discussions. My only reservation about the designation is the possibility of restrictions, and I emphasise the possibility of restrictions, coming about is if there is a certain area (sand dunes, gravel banks etc) or if a certain type of rare animal is present, that the anti angling jobs worth conservationists within some organisations doesn’t take the designation of an MCZ because of this, that they can start banning any activity within the MCZ using the flora or fauna as an excuse. One example of this is, that a certain bait bed in Northumberland has a few sea cucumbers living there that have been washed in shore from there main habitat well out to sea where there are literally thousands, but the Natural Trust would still like bait digging banned there because of the few that live unharmed within the bait bed.
Within MCZ’s there is the possibility, again I emphasise possibility that anglers could lose quit a bit, whether through restrictions on bait digging or fishing and gaining very little. In the North East I would like to see that if anglers are going to give up more voluntarily, than they have had taken off them with legislation, that a bit of give and take, to show good faith, that Budle Bay would come into the equation, although I would suspect that Natural England would be strongly against this. Having talked to Audrey I can see a few benefits for anglers
Benefits
The only benefit I can see is, if commercial boats are stopped fishing within certain MCZ’s, that there could be a possibility that fish stocks would benefit the Recreational Sea Angler (RSA) but this would only happen if the fish stayed within that area.

Disadvantages
Any further restrictions on bait digging would have a crippling effect on the RSA, prices would increase, and anglers would stop fishing, which would have a knock on effect.

If a MCZ was designated in a certain area where no boat fishing was allowed, depending on the size of the MCZ, this could have a great effect on private and charter boat fishing, especially if the MCZ was near your home port, anglers would have to go further a field, and at greater expense, especially to charter boat anglers, for their days pleasure.

If permits where required for certain bait beds within an MCZ this could effect nearly every RSA in the country. As we all know, we travel far and wide for different types of bait and at different types of bait, there is a possibility you could end up needing a permit for each location.

Giving away locations of smaller bait beds that only a few dig, has great implications, making more anglers aware where these bait beds are, as well as letting the conservationists know and they may come and find some weird creature or plant and they could ask for restrictions to be placed on that site.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
“I must emphasise that everything within an MCZ is open for discussion”
Q Will the MCZ’s negate “the right of fisheries enshrined in the Magna Carta and proven in the high court in the Anderson V Alnwick DC?
A The Marine Bill backs MCZ’s, whether this would over come the decision in the Anderson v Alnwick DC is open to conjecture.
Q Why have the implications to sea anglers both boat and shore, if any, not been publisized in angling mags and local newspapers.
A Agreed that better information could have been sent out to avoid the confusion and mistrust anglers have for Natural England (English Nature)
Q Will there be bait digging or sea angling bans within the MCZ's
Restrictions could be possible
Q Will there be a limit the numbers bait digging/sea angling within the MCZ'S
Restrictions could be possible
Q Will there be a limit to the area being dug in a bait bed within MCZ’s
Restrictions could be possible
Q Will there be a limit to the number and size of species of fish caught
Restrictions could be possible
Q Will there be any bans on catching of certain species within the MCZ's
A No
Q Will a licence be introduced within MCZ’ for bait digging
A A permit system could be introduced to manage the area
Q Will there be any restrictions on boat fishing within MCZ’s
A there could be restrictions
Q What about little bait beds within MCZ’s that only a few know about and want to keep secret, will not be happy disclosing their location to either other anglers or to natural England
A These areas could be kept confidential

[Charlton]

see you are all interested 35 views and not a single comment

[northeast1]

Ok i be the 1st.

My view is one way or the other it's comming and will hit all of us shore boat and coms, i get the feeling they just testing the water to see how far they can push before they say ok we stop at the below......etc

[The Great Wallsendo]

People are interested Alan...prob is it's a page long of heavy duty stuff...will read and pass comment at some point today

[KeithB]

[phil185]

From what i can gather reading the correspondance from A.Jones is that there has been little or no involvement of RSA's up to this point (other than the so called Questionnaire) , this would leave me to believe that much of the planned regulations/restrictions/quota's will leave very little for RSA's to have a say on. My only question is how far along are these plans?

Fingers crossed we do get a say in how these MCZ's are implemented, otherwise the above (KeithB's respose) could be true

[Davyred]

Good post Alan.

I agree with Northeast1, its coming and the points you made in your emails to Audrey Jones highlight just what may happen.

From reading what she said, she knows that if they decide that an area is made out of bounds to anglers, there is very little we can do about it.

Its annoying to say the least that people like this could, in reality, affect the livelihoods of many people involved in the sea angling business. What would make it even more hard to take is if an area is deemed out of bounds through some kind of flora or fauna. If they ban sea angling sea angling for that reason, would they ban walkers/ramblers as well? I very much doubt it.

[mark]

haven't read through it all, but can pass on what I know about the general plan for marine COnservation Zones, assuming that the plan will be the same nationwide

a few years back the country's first MCV, also referred to at the time as a marine national park, was being preposed for the lower sound of sleat/ardnamurchan peninsula in scotland

we we're up there a lot at the time, and some of my pals up there took me a long to a few meetings. On of which included memebers of the Mallaig & North West Fishermen's Association.

Scottish National Heritage, the Nature Conservancy council and DEFRA were there as well

one of the proposals was a ban on all fishing in that area, at first I assumed that was meaning commercial activities and asked for clarification

SNH made no bones about it. They wanted a total ban on all fishing, including angling, from both small boats and the shore line along the whole coastline of the proposed MCV

needless to say there was outrage. It would of ended almost 60% of the employment in Mallaig, and from a tourism point of view put a huge dent in that as well.

Its sort of fizzled out a bit, and I'm not sure wether it was dropped or just tucked away on the back burner to be sneaked in at a later point.

I suspect, from the discussions at one of those meetings, the desire to have questionnaires from anglers is to give them ammunition to use against us, just as a lot of the numbers that were published about RSA activities in the licencing debate are probably being used against use now. The way these people work, if they see a statistic that says there's x number of thousand anglers in a particular stretch of coastline, they will then use that to support their wish to protect the area

and FWIW, the proposal up there also included the forshore up to Hi Water Springs - so no bait digging, collecting of crabs shellfish - anything at all

[northeast1]

Time to shout up and have your say, 1000s of us and very few kicking up about it.

Think alot still have there ehad in the sand and hope it blows over.....i for one have over 2k of rods and reels, 12k boat, and about 1k of other bits and bobs as well themain thing...its my way of kicking back and having fun doing what i most love.

If they ban angling for 5 years, all the companys and tackle shops would either rely on game and fresh water sales to keep them going or go under..the lata i feel would happen./....come the end of the ban...no tackle, no shops left and would take a while to recover our sport.

[snatcher]

I will have to read it a few times to take it all in Alan.Having too many "senior moments" these days !!!!!!

I have copied and pasted it to other forums though.

[Stores]

I've read it a few times now and every time it takes on a more political answer, in the sense that it rules little in and nothing out, for either the shore or boat fishermen. Do I think this is an accident? Of course not. It ranks alongside any political parties manifesto which says "we'll do this unless something else happens and we have to change our minds and policies" What isn't clear (to me anyway) is who is pulling the strings hardest.
Thanks for the time and trouble Alan. It's enough to make you pull your hair out. Luckily you've got plenty of hair to pull lol

[Red5]

MCZ's have been discussed for years and all major economies in the EU and around the world have agreed to implement them over the coming years. So we all sit back dig our heels in and say NO, whilst all the other interested groups say 'right we want this, this and this'. Whilst all these other groups make and accept compromise to come to a common conclusion, by putting forward relevant information to give their argument support. We as anglers say, we will not move as it is our right as it was written down over 1000 years ago to do as we please....it all sounds like the argument of the commercials, who have no intention of listening to scientific advice.
So some areas may be out of bounds.....Why do we think that may be.....If you look at a scientific experiment, you need differing examples to prove that something works.....I.e. an area where there is a complete ban (will show that the ecosystem recovers), an area where there may be only RSA (the ecosystem will show a near full recovery) and an area where it's the normal 'free for all' (where the ecosystem continues to decline).

So how do the scientists get the data from anglers to show as we keep saying that there is a major decline.....Thru a questionaire.....Or alternatively as has been suggested use catch reports from magazines or websites....Well we all know about the cod boom we are experiencing as reported in a 'not to be mentioned' magazine...So there's not a problem in shore angling as far as the science understands from these reports....Or websites....Look back only a few years back on NESA and we have catch reports from the boats on the Tyne of 200-300 cod.....so again the data the scientists would have paint a rosy picture.

Or they listen to the commercials who say the sea is ful of fish!

The trouble is MCZ's are coming wether you are for or against them, unless you put your point forward and give your views on what you are or are not catching, then they will be implemented anyway, as they will believe that everything is tickety boo in sea angling.

[Charlton]

Good post Alan.

I agree with Northeast1, its coming and the points you made in your emails to Audrey Jones highlight just what may happen.

From reading what she said, she knows that if they decide that an area is made out of bounds to anglers, there is very little we can do about it.

Its annoying to say the least that people like this could, in reality, affect the livelihoods of many people involved in the sea angling business. What would make it even more hard to take is if an area is deemed out of bounds through some kind of flora or fauna. If they ban sea angling sea angling for that reason, would they ban walkers/ramblers as well? I very much doubt it.

as far as I can gather it is not very far along, but apprently about 250 anglers filled in the questionaire, quite a few of those thought it meany that commercial fishing was going to be banned within the MCZ's and never thought of anything else, as i pointed out and they agreed very little info had been given to anglers. No bird watchers and walkers would not be stopped, in discussions with NE on other matters they have been deemed not to be descructive flora and fauna, otherwords thye are part of the anti angling lot

[Charlton]

I've read it a few times now and every time it takes on a more political answer, in the sense that it rules little in and nothing out, for either the shore or boat fishermen. Do I think this is an accident? Of course not. It ranks alongside any political parties manifesto which says "we'll do this unless something else happens and we have to change our minds and policies" What isn't clear (to me anyway) is who is pulling the strings hardest.
Thanks for the time and trouble Alan. It's enough to make you pull your hair out. Luckily you've got plenty of hair to pull lol

not after this David, have a mail box full of page long e mails, my brain is hurting

[davem2005]

I recieved this thread in the form of an email from Alan and wrote a reply accordingly. The easist thing for me to do is to paste that reply here. One thing I forgot to mention in the reply is that the collection of data on RSA's is an EU requirement with or without the possible threat of article 47, the marine bill or any other changes to the way our sea are run.

Dear Alan,

Many thanks for sending me a copy of this and I am pleased to see that someone else is finally taking an interest in matters that could have far reaching implications in the future.

The topic of MCZ and NTZ has been on the agenda at every meeting I have attended down south from the first one to the last one in Decenber.

Every angling organization has been asking the same questions right from the first announcement in the Marine Bill White paper…What are they? And where will they be ? As far as I am aware there has been no definitive answer.

The closest to getting an answer was at a presentation given by the Finding Sanctuary team at the NFSA Conservation group meeting in December down in Devon. They are employing people to collect data on activities in all regions and this includes RSA activities. This data will be broken down into 1km areas so the data can be analyzed to assess the activities taking place in each region.

It was made very clear that they are not interested in “mark X” as a hotspot for bait digging, only that bait digging takes place within the 1km area that includes mark X.

The implications of this are that if, for example, the RSPB were to identify a rare or endangered species of bird nesting close to mark X it would apply for the area to become a MCZ and the data collected would be used to do an impact assessment on the creation of a MCZ. If they don’t know about mark X they will not be able to do an impact assessment with regard to the socio economics’ of bait digging and therefore bait digging will not be considered when the decision is made as to whether to make a particular area a MCZ.

A similar scenario could be applied as to areas where bass are being caught. Most people who catch them are very vague about where and yet there is potential for the creation of bass nursery areas, but without the information from anglers how are the authorities going to decide where these locations should be.

I have always been very vague about the locations of some of my catches, however it is my personal opinion that the information being asked for by CEFAS is not to create a website where someone can click to find out the best bait digging spots, its designed to create a database that can be used to help improve and protect our sport. A couple of examples, would be to prove how many anglers fish within the Northumberland EMS and use that information to get trawling banned within that region, or to prove how many anglers fish a particular beach in the winter and get a netting ban at certain times of year.

Finally you may like to take into considerations the implications of the Northumberland EMS which stretches from Fast Castle head down to Alnmouth. It is my understanding that EMS’s will automatically become MCZ’s and if this is the case anglers do need to be included as stakeholders in the decision making process. The current management Group do not have any angling organization within their members. ( I have however been asked if I would attend the next management group meeting)

It is proposed that the Northumberland EMS and Northumberland AONB join together and create a new management group and as such RSA’s need to be represented on that group and have accurate information available to enable us to ensure we get the best deal possible for anglers and the only way we are going to do that is by being able to prove the economic benefits of RSA with minimal environmental impact.

Have a look at Berwickshire & North Northumberland Coast European Marine Site and Northumberland Coast AONB - Home for further details.

I have an invite to attend a forum to discuss the management of these areas and have asked if any other people can be included in that invite. I will be attending as the SACN rep however if possible it would be nice if other organization such as Northern fed and AT could be included.

Sorry for the long reply but you have raised many questions in your enquiries with NE and many that have been raised before on a national basis “down south”.

Please feel to forward this email to those you have circulated the original email to if you feel it is relevant. Like you I am skeptical about providing too much information to Defra etc however it is very obvious that it will prove almost impossible to get things improved for RSA’s without data to back up the claims we are making regarding the worth of RSA to the country with minimal environmental impact.

As Leon keeps reminding me over and over again “ If we are not sat at the table , we will not have any say in the final outcome”

Regards
Dave