MPAs: your questions answered

Marine Protected Areas are like underwater national parks, acting as sanctuaries for plants, animals and ecosystems. They're a vital tool in safeguarding our ocean's future and making sure vulnerable species and habitats are protected.

Yes. Marine Protected Area (MPA) is an 'umbrella term' for an area of the sea that is designated to protect marine habitats and species.

MPAs can take many forms, depending on what they are designed to protect, for example, flora, fauna, historical or cultural features.

Some Marine Protected Areas are specifically designated to protect seabed habitats, such as seagrass or deep sea corals.

Examples of MPAs include:

• Special Protections Areas (SPAs) with marine habitats for birds
• Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) with marine habitats or species
• Marine Nature Reserves (MNRs)
• Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs)
• Nature conservation Marine Protected Areas (in Scotland)
• Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) with marine features
• No take zones (NTZs)

There are currently 377 Marine Protected Areas covering 38% of UK seas. If all of these were properly managed, the UK could easily achieve its target to protect 30% of UK waters by 2030.

Offshore MPAs are protected areas of water that are more than 12 nautical miles from the coast. Inshore MPAs are coastal areas that extend up to 12 nautical miles from land.

Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) are a type of Marine Protected Area (MPA) which offer the strictest possible environmental protections.

That means that only non-damaging activities, such as swimming, kayaking or scuba diving, are allowed. Any activities that take something from the marine environment (such as fishing, dredging and mining) or that put structures or materials in the water (such as fish farms or dredging soil) are prohibited to give these areas the best chance of recovery. 

'Closed areas' are specific parts of the UK coast where certain types of fishing are prohibited to protect fish stocks or marine features. They may be permanently closed or seasonally closed, for example to protect juvenile fish stocks.

Out of all the UK’s Marine Protected Areas, just 6% currently ban bottom trawling and dredging (and only in inshore waters less than 12 nautical miles from our coasts or in the very deep waters to the far west and north of Scotland protected with a deep-sea trawling ban through the EU).

Communities and livelihoods around the UK depend on fishing. Governments need to do more to support fishers to move away from the most damaging forms of fishing towards lower impact practices. This will allow coastal communities to thrive while protecting our marine environment.

Managing an MPA means making sure that damaging human activity does not take place within certain sites, like bottom trawling in protected areas with vital seabed habitats. Other damaging activities must also be managed, such as pollution, aggregate extraction and port developments.

Fishing boats must be GPS tracked using Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM) technology, regulations must be enforced through policing activity and penalties must be introduced for those breaking the rules.

Some MPAs are huge areas, which makes monitoring and enforcing protections challenging and costly. The Dogger Bank MPA is about four times the size of the Lake District and the West of Scotland MPA is larger than Scotland itself.

Another part of the challenge is that different organisations manage fishing in different parts of the sea and need to work together to ensure adequate protection. Heavy industries other than fishing are generally more proactive at doing environmental impact assessments inside MPAs before their activities occur.

Government conservation bodies, such as Natural England, Natural Resources Wales and NatureScot, carry out surveys to determine which habitats need protecting and identify boundaries for MPAs within territorial waters (within 12 nautical miles of land). The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) is responsible for identifying and providing conservation advice on Marine Protected Areas in UK offshore waters (more than 12 nautical miles from the coast). This conservation advice from these experts helps the law makers understand how human activity may be disturbing species and habitats and what specific measures are needed to protect them.

Local authorities, harbour authorities, the Environment Agency and Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities (IFCA) have powers to protect their marine environment on a local level in England. English offshore areas are managed by the Marine Management Organisation (MMO). Marine Scotland manages marine conservation, fishing and other activities that need a marine license in all of Scotland’s waters, which amount to 62% of UK waters. In Wales, 139 MPAs covering 69% of inshore waters are managed by Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales.

The UK Government is responsible for managing fishing in English waters, the Scottish Government in Scottish waters, the Welsh Government in Welsh waters and the Northern Irish Government in Northern Irish waters. In England, IFCA (Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities) manages inshore areas. MMO (Marine Management Organisation) manages offshore areas. Some MPAs overlap the two. Marine Scotland manages all fishing and marine conservation in Scotland's waters. In Wales, fishing activity is managed by Welsh Government.

Our inshore MPAs have never been under EU jurisdiction, so they have been easier to protect.

Since leaving the EU, we now have more freedom to protect our offshore waters. The vast majority of Marine Protected Areas are offshore, so this allows us to protect and monitor a much larger percentage of our seas.

Since January 2021, the UK has consulted on measures to ban mobile bottom trawl and contact gears in four offshore Marine Protected Areas in England:

• Dogger Bank SAC (100km off the northeast coast)
• The Canyons (200km southwest of Cornwall)
• South Dorset MCZ (off Dorset)
• Inner Dousing, Race Bank and North Ridge SAC (off the Wash).

In Scotland, the following sites have been designated:

• West of Scotland MPA
• Sea of the Hebrides MPA
• Northeast Lewis MPA
• Shiant East Bank MPA
• Southern Trench MPA
• Red Rocks and Longay urgent MPA (to protect flapper skate egg-laying site)
• 12 marine bird Special Protection Areas (SPAs)

However fisheries management measures are still awaited for the remaining inshore MPAs (after the tranche of most vulnerable sites had management measures put in place in 2016) and most offshore MPAs shallower than 800m.

The vast majority of our data comes from government sources. We add to this with research from our own projects, such as Seasearch in inshore diving range and seagrass mapping. There are also a large number of other data sets we have used to influence government action, including data on fishing activity from Global Fishing Watch.

A byelaw is a piece of legislation introducing specific rules in a specific area. The Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and Fisheries Act 2020 give the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) the powers to make byelaws to prohibit or restrict certain activities in order to protect Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).

These four byelaws will prohibit damaging fishing activities in order to protect important habitats within four MPAs. Disobeying a byelaw is a criminal offence.

Byelaws set out restrictions or prohibitions on certain activities.

These MMO byelaws (as of 13th June 2022) protect the designated habitats in the following MPAs:

• Dogger Bank Special Area of Conservation (SAC)
• Inner Dowsing, Race Bank and North Ridge SAC
• South Dorset Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ)
• The Canyons MCZ

The byelaws ban the use of bottom-towed fishing gear (including trawls, dredges and demersal seines) over areas of sensitive seabed habitat including reefs and sandbanks. Two of the byelaws also ban netting, longlining and potting over particularly sensitive areas including cold water coral and biogenic reefs.

These restrictions will protect important habitats from damage, and will support nature to recover in our seas.

The MMO will monitor fishing activities and ensure the byelaws are being followed in line with our Compliance and Enforcement Strategy.  This means using a mixture of vessel monitoring system (VMS) data, surface and aerial surveillance to take an intelligence-led, risk-based approach to target resources to where they are needed.

The majority of fishers want to - and do - comply with regulations. Our first role is to support this, including helping fishers understand what they need to do to comply.

If restrictions aren't being followed, the MMO has a range of options, up to criminal prosecution.

These byelaws follow a detailed assessment of the impact of all types of fishing in these MPAs. Where we've found fishing activities are compatible with the protection of these MPAs, they're allowed to continue. Activity which damages MPA habitats are prohibited or restricted through a byelaw.

We'll continue to closely monitor fishing activities at these sites and review our byelaws regularly in light of any changes or new evidence. If required, we can amend or replace these byelaws to ensure the sites are protected.

Other activities are managed through different routes. For example, most marine developments are managed through the MMO Marine Licensing system.

These byelaws represent the first stage of the MMO's programme to introduce appropriate management for fishing in our offshore MPAs by the end of 2024.

The next stage is a call for evidence on the use of bottom towed gears in 13 further offshore MPAs.