Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Scenario
% of
OSPAR
species and
habitats
included
% of UK
marine
landscapes
included
Network
size (1000
km
2
)
Additional criteria
G
60
10
156
Commercial fishery species spawning
and nursery areas preferred to protect
areas essential to life history stages
J
60
10
147.2
Locked-out sites licensed for aggregate
extraction, dredging, and dredge
disposal activities.
The final selection of MCZ sites is unlikely to map onto any of these networks. This is be-
was for
indicative
networks. Between November 2009 and September 2011 there was a
stakeholder consultation phase which was to guide final MCZ locations, moderated by sci-
entific appraisal of the extent of ecological coherence of the proposed networks, i.e. large
enough, and close enough together, to support functioning communities of marine wildlife
and threatened and representative habitats.
with MCZ designation, in policy terms it was a necessary stepping stone so as to test the
validity - in economic efficiency terms - of proceeding with the legislation that permits
MCZ designation. But the need for stakeholder input to any policy measure is critical and
I return to this discussion below.
The more general policy context was that any UK policy measure above a certain
threshold is subject to an impact assessment - previously termed a regulatory impact as-
sessment (BERR,
2008
). This typically entails a strong element of (quantitative) economic
cost-benefit appraisal, although there is scope to add qualitative assessment. The ecosys-
tem approach was adopted in the sense that benefits were the additional level of ecosystem
service provisioning from with-policy (MCZ designation) versus BAU.
