Hansard

I am delighted that the Marine (Scotland) Bill is well on its way to success. Indeed, I might venture to say that nobody examining the bill could accuse the Parliament of being all at sea concerning matters marine. I am sure that I speak for my Scottish National Party colleagues on the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee in acknowledging the considerable debt owed to both the committee clerks and the bill team, who are a patient group of human beings indeed. I will not list all the other organisations that contributed, as Elaine Murray and Liam McArthur have already done that, so let me simply agree with what they said.

I am particularly delighted that the cabinet secretary accepted the need for an ecologically coherent network of marine protected areas and that section 68A now requires Scottish ministers to designate MPAs in such a way as to form a network of conservation sites that contributes to the conservation or improvement of the marine environment in the United Kingdom. The committee has been assured that science will remain the primary consideration when identifying MPAs for inclusion in the network and that socioeconomics will be taken into account only when choosing between locations that would make an equivalent contribution to the network. I believe that that is an important assurance. In the final analysis, if the science is not correct and if the conservation measures are not correct, long-term economic stability will be unobtainable.

For the MPAs to be accepted and for them to work, they must have local support. Those who might be affected need to understand clearly why an area has been designated as an MPA and what activities are prohibited. Such prohibitions should be made on the basis of their conflicting with the aims of the MPA. If fishing or other economic activity does not impact negatively on the aims of the designation, such activities should be permissible. At stage 2, I lodged three amendments to make that clear. I was happy not to press them on the assurance—which the cabinet secretary subsequently confirmed in writing—that the Government would provide guidance on the process of designation and the information to be published with the designation orders and that the information would give an indication of possible damaging activities.

It is vital that MPAs are properly monitored to check whether their objectives are being met. Climate change might well change ecological communities, so it might be necessary to move MPAs in order to achieve their aims. As an example of the impact of global warming, the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science announced in 2008 that, since 1960, there had been a 70 per cent reduction in the biomass of zooplankton in the north-east Atlantic. The cold water zooplankton Calanus finmarchicus is progressively being replaced by the warmer-water species Calanus helgolandicus. Therefore, I welcome the Government's acceptance of the need to assess the extent to which the stated conservation objectives of any nature conservation MPA have been achieved.

As a result of Peter Peacock's amendment 101, the bill requires that the Government and public bodies

"must act in the way best calculated to further the achievement of sustainable development, including the protection and, where appropriate, enhancement of the health of that area, so far as is consistent with the proper exercise of that function."

The need for enhancement of health is clear when examining the Clyde, which has an appalling history of overexploitation. I have referred to this before, but it bears retelling. The Inshore Fishing (Scotland) Act 1984 repealed most of the remaining protective legislation and allowed fishing by all methods within the 3-mile limit. Since then, there has been a significant decline in biodiversity. Some 20 species of fish are at the point of commercial, if not ecological, extinction. The decision to agree to amendment 101 is a positive step that should ensure that we do not see any other ecosystem collapsing into a monofishery. It will, I hope, foster the recovery of the Clyde.

Having welcomed amendment 101, I remain of the view that, when we consider the health of the sea, we should take into account the resilience of the ecosystem. The word "health" may be ambiguous. Would seas be considered healthy only if there were no economic use—clearly, that would be unacceptable to our many communities that rely on the sea—or only if the economic use were considered "sustainable"? The latter definition may appear appealing, but it has its own problems. Obviously, I would argue that the Clyde estuary is not a healthy ecosystem, but its nephrops fishery is sustainable. Therefore, under the second definition, the Clyde could be regarded as being healthy.

On several occasions, I met officials from the Scottish Government's marine bill team to discuss improvements to the bill. At my last meeting, I suggested a definition of "health" that would incorporate ecosystem resilience. That would not only solve the definition problems that I have discussed but would, in effect, account for chemical alteration of the sea, because the chemical balance of the sea can affect ecosystem resilience.