ENVIRONMENT AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
Ross Finnie MSP
Minister for Environment and Rural Development
Pentland House
47 Robb’s Loan
Edinburgh
EH14 1TY
29 September 2006
Dear Ross
Public petition 799 by the Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST)
As you know, the Environment and Rural Development Committee considered this petition at its meeting on 20 September. The petition seeks the Parliament’s support for COAST’s proposal that Lamlash Bay should be a marine protected area.
The Committee has had the opportunity of visiting the area and has been able to consider the substantial correspondence relating to this petition, in addition to hearing oral evidence from a full range of interested parties on 20 September.
The Committee is aware that there has been some difficulty in the past in securing consensus from all interested parties on the proposal and that this may have hindered its progress. However, it appears to the Committee that its meeting on 20 September stimulated a mood from all key parties that there is scope for early agreement on a way forward which would allow for development of COAST’s proposals.
The Committee recognises the concern (particularly expressed by fisheries interests) that this proposal should not lead to an unco-ordinated development of similar projects around the country. The Committee also recognises the importance of the longer-term goal of an ecologically coherent network of marine protected areas as part of a wider system of marine management.
Although it appears to be widely agreed that Lamlash Bay might eventually form part of that network, the Committee notes that the establishment of this wider system may be some years in the future. The Committee considers, therefore, that the COAST proposal could be an ideal candidate for some sort of trial or pilot project – not least because there appears to be relatively little fishing with mobile gear in Lamlash Bay at present and because the development of COAST’s proposals seems to represent a very successful model of community engagement.
At the meeting, the various parties indicated that they are at the early stages of an agreement which would allow COAST’s proposal for a statutory no-take zone and an area protected from mobile gear to go ahead, with the addition of co-operation on developing the seeding of scallops in a geographically adjacent area (probably to the North or South end of the Bay). The Committee is persuaded by SNH’s evidence that such a set of proposals would be a useful scheme and would complement (rather than cut across) other initiatives, such as the establishment of inshore fisheries action groups and a scallop strategy etc..
The Committee is persuaded that a voluntary agreement – even if it could include all the relevant stakeholders – is not a suitable approach as it always allows the potential for the scientific value of any monitoring of the area to be undermined by one party or outside interest failing to abide by the agreement on even one occasion.
The Committee considers that some form of statutory protection for the area is necessary. The Committee acknowledges SNH’s advice that the area does not appear to meet criteria for protection as a Natura 2000 site. However, the Committee understands that a number of other possible approaches to statutory protection exist – for example, under fisheries management legislation such as the Inshore Fishing (Scotland) Act 1984 or the Sea Fisheries Shellfish Act 1967 - and requests that you consider how this might be achieved.
The Committee considers that it is important that a properly considered and funded scientific assessment and monitoring should be established for any scheme in Lamlash Bay. Evidence was presented that none of the various existing marine protected areas around Scotland have been subject to coherent ‘before and after’ study, and so whether they fulfil the purposes for which they were set up has never been tested. The COAST proposal would be an ideal opportunity to rectify this.
SNH confirmed to the Committee that it is “keen both to advise on the nature of that monitoring and to fund it, although [it] would have difficulty funding it on its own”. Your officials also confirmed that “we would be willing to help and to contribute … the FRS would certainly be interested in a project such as that under discussion”. The Committee, therefore, requests that you consider how the Fisheries Research Service and other research and scientific resources available to the Executive could be deployed to support such a study.
In the light of these comments, the Committee requests that you view the COAST proposal in a positive light. The Committee requests that the Executive uses the remainder of 2006 to establish urgent negotiations with interested parties to develop the proposal, with a view to implementing a scheme in 2007. The Committee agreed that it would keep the petition open until it is able to consider your response.
The Official Report transcript of the oral evidence is now publicly available on the Committee's web-page at:
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/committees/environment/or-06/ra06-2601.htm
Yours sincerely
Sarah Boyack MSP
Convener