Hansard

Our coasts and seas provide food from fisheries, energy and mineral resources, routes and harbours for shipping, tourism and recreation opportunities and sites of cultural and historic interest, meeting many economic and social needs, particularly in rural and island areas. At the same time, they contain distinctive and important habitats and support diverse species that we need to protect, conserve and enhance.

The sea is suffering. Human intervention in that vast ecosystem has led to devastating effects on the environment, and evidence of pollution and overexploitation abound. Fish that once seemed an inexhaustible resource are now in decline almost everywhere. Globally, 90 per cent of large predatory fish, such as tuna, swordfish and shark, have gone. In estuaries and coastal waters, 85 per cent of large whales and 60 per cent of small whales have disappeared. Many smaller fish species are also in decline. Indeed, most familiar sea creatures, from albatrosses to walruses and from seals to oysters, have suffered huge losses.

All those losses happened fairly recently. Cod was caught off Nova Scotia for centuries, but its systematic slaughter began only after 1852, and its biomass is now 96 per cent depleted. The killing of turtles in the Caribbean started in the 1700s, and their numbers are down by 99 per cent. Shark hunting in the Gulf of Mexico, which began only in the 1950s, has depleted the number of sharks by 45 to 99 per cent, depending on variety.

The marine bill will contain a section to reform the Conservation of Seals Act 1970, which is generally agreed to be ineffective and unenforceable. The shameful act of Jimmy Stewart, who clubbed 21 grey seal pups on Shetland, merely shows a blatant disregard for marine wildlife and maintaining the ecosystems of Scotland's oceans. Seals should have the same status as other piscivorous marine mammals such as otters, dolphins and porpoises.

The UK Marine and Coastal Access Bill provides the tools that are needed to designate and protect a network of marine conservation zones. It places a duty on the UK to exercise powers to establish a network of sites to assist in the conservation or improvement of the marine environment. The Scottish equivalent is the marine protected area. The co-ordination of MCZs and MPAs between the Scottish Government and the Westminster Government will form an ecologically coherent network of protected sites.

MPAs will enable better protection of the marine environment. They can be established for a multitude of reasons—for example, to protect a certain species, to benefit fisheries management or to protect full ecosystems, rare habitats or nursing grounds for fish. They can even protect historical sites such as shipwrecks. In other countries, MPAs can be very large, such as the Great Barrier Reef, or very small, such as the Dry Tortugas in the Florida Keys. They can help to conserve the diversity of rare or threatened representative species and habitats, such as the rare fanshell and the ocean quahog clam and seagrass and maerl beds.

No-take zones are MPAs with specific restrictions. In them, fishing is banned to allow ecosystem regeneration. NTZs enable the local ecosystem to recover from the effects of overfishing and other damaging activities such as scallop dredging. Scotland's first no-take zone was created in Lamlash Bay, on the Isle of Arran, in my constituency. There, scientists will investigate biodiversity and the benefits of leaving the seabed to regenerate naturally without disturbance.

The Community of Arran Seabed Trust—COAST—worked for 13 years to build bridges between islanders, fishermen, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Scottish Government's marine directorate. COAST was formed to redress the dramatic collapse of marine life around Arran's shores and in the Firth of Clyde, drawing on positive examples of similar schemes from around the world, including those in the Isle of Man, Lundy island and New Zealand. The NTZ seemed a final step in that endeavour, and the cabinet secretary played a fundamental part in its delivery. However, there remain concerns that management of the NTZ and the MPAs will be in the hands of inshore fisheries groups, with conservation no longer at centre stage. I seek assurances from the minister that erosion of the conservation imperative will not happen.

The Arran NTZ will have long-term benefits for marine wildlife, research and the tourism economy. Protected populations of commercial species such as lobsters and scallops will also help to replenish the stocks in surrounding areas, thus benefiting fishing communities. The inhabitants of small rural and island communities often depend on several sources of income to survive, and the level of income is generally much lower than in the cities. Few towns and villages depend wholly on fishing, but small, often single-handed, fishing businesses are part of the fabric of local communities. Although not exclusively, those businesses tend to be the creel boats and divers who collectively offer the most sustainable and environmentally friendly methods of fishing. With the strategic siting of no-take zones taking into account local knowledge, those fisheries will benefit from zoning.

Most of our understanding of the oceans and seas has been gathered during the past 50 years, and it is vital to include that knowledge and understanding in marine planning. In order to bring our systems up to date, the plans and frameworks should consider the welfare of both wild and farmed animals. The plans must also include no-take zones, highly protected marine areas and fishery protection zones, which include no-take zones. With 130,000 square miles of sea soon to be under Scottish control, there is room for a strong fishing industry and a number of strongly protected marine areas.