Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
a network of protected marine areas. The directive refers to the
measures taken in the past with good reason, namely with the Habitats
Directive and the Birds Directive. Europe is methodically building
measures to protect the environment. These measures question some
practices (even some State policies), first and foremost with fishing, as
it is mentioned several times. The keywords of the directive refer to
the state of the environment: namely, marine ecosystems and healthy
ecological state. In order to define the health state, some indicators are
cited in the appendices, and the member States are required to quickly
report on the quality of their waters. Seabed (the issue of fishing
methods by trawling transpires here). Furthermore, the first article of
the directive urges for the States to “take all the necessary measures to
achieve or maintain the marine environment in a healthy ecological
state by 2020 at the latest”. The areas are marked broadly as the north-
east Atlantic, the North Sea (in the broad meaning of the name
including the Channel and Kattegat), the Celtic seas, the Gulf of
Gascogne (Biscaye) and the Iberian coasts. The “bio-geographic zone
of Macaronesia” is actually the only time it evokes a biogeographical
region, as if the other ones were not. The States are required to
provide a report and to present conservation measures: scientific
research is thereby the basis of the policy. It is relatively logical but
faces the specialized scientific world with its responsibilities:
coherence in practices is not the stronghold of the scientific
community, which is often more closed than we would think to the
diffusion and discussion of its contributions. However, the directive is
implicitly implementing a more integrated management system in
which the scientific community can find its place. Life sciences and
natural sciences lie at the heart of the writing of the text as appendices
I and III list the (11) qualitative indicators to a healthy ecological state
along with a very detailed although “indicative” of the forms of
pressure and impacts. A healthy ecological state is based upon the
marine trophic chain that needs to be better known: it is even the
biggest challenge of this directive that innovates in taking broad
ecosystems as the basis for the management of the seas. This notion
remains in need to be defined more specifically. By targeting human-
driven eutrophication (indicator 5), the integrity of the seabed
(indicator 6), pollutants (indicators 8 and 9), and finally fish stocks, it
is the fishing activity that is in the limelight. This is likely to create
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