Download 1 - Aberdeenshire Council

Item: 21
Page: 3
APPENDIX 1
Summary of Proposals within “Scottish Marine Regions: Defining their boundaries – a
consultation”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1.
Marine (Scotland) Act 2010
1.1
Measures contained in the Act
The Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 provides a framework which will help balance
competing demands on Scotland’s seas. The main measures include:
1.2

Marine planning: a new statutory marine planning system to manage
the increasing demands on our seas in a sustainable manner, and
provision of powers to create Scottish Marine Regions (SMRs) and to
delegate marine planning functions in relation to regional marine plans;

Marine licensing: introduction of a simpler licensing system;

Marine conservation: improved marine nature and historic
conservation;

Seal conservation: improved protection for seals and a new
comprehensive licence system;

Enforcement: a range of enhanced powers of marine conservation and
licensing enforcement; and

Sea fisheries: provides for modifications to the Sea Fish
(Conservation) Act 1967
National Marine Plan
The powers within the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 extend from the Mean High
Water Spring (MHWS) tide to the seaward limits of Scottish territorial waters
(12nm). Through the UK Marine and Coastal Access Act 2010 executive
devolution of marine planning, conservation, marine licensing and
enforcement from 12 – 200nm allows Scottish Ministers to manage Scotland’s
seas from 0 – 200nm. It is the intention that the National Marine Plan will
extend from 0 – 200nm.
In addition to meeting national interests, the National Marine Plan will also
deliver international responsibilities. A UK Marine Policy Statement created
and adopted by the UK and devolved administrations will facilitate an
integrated approach to marine planning across the UK. This will guide the
national Marine Plan which will, in turn, guide the regional marine plans.
The National Marine Plan will provide direction on what Scottish Ministers wish
to achieve for the marine environment and in key areas such as renewable
energy, fishing, aquaculture, conservation, recreation and tourism, ports and
harbours and fishing etc. Nature conservation and historic designated sites will
also be identified within the plan.
Item: 21
Page: 4
APPENDIX 1
Summary of Proposals within “Scottish Marine Regions: Defining their boundaries – a
consultation”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1.3
Regional Marine Planning
The Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 provides powers for Ministers to create SMRs
through secondary legislation and to delegate planning powers to the regional
level. It is intended that regional planning functions will be delegated to Marine
Planning Partnerships which will develop regional marine plans.
Marine Planning Partnerships will comprise representatives from a wide range
of stakeholder interests, including public authorities and representatives
reflecting the commercial, recreational and conservation interests of that
region. The Marine Planning Partnerships will be required to create regional
marine plans which will be appropriate for that area, taking into account the
National Marine Plan, and any specific directions from Ministers.
Marine planning will be the core function of the Marine Planning Partnerships
involving stakeholder engagement, collection of data, preparation of plans,
consulting on draft plans, reporting and review. The regional plans are likely to
be more spatially detailed than the National Marine Plan, reflecting the
increased marine activity that often occurs in the coastal zones. Integrated
Coastal Zone Management will also be a large part of the Planning
Partnership role, recognising the potential interactions of coastal activities with
both terrestrial and marine environments.
2.
Existing Spatial Designations in the Marine Area around Scotland
2.1
Existing designations
There are a range of existing EU/international and UK regionalisation schemes
for the marine environment established for a variety of purposes:

Fisheries management areas: Used by the EU to manage marine fish
stocks. Based on marine areas which have been developed using
groupings of rectangles established by the International Council for the
Exploration of the Seas for recording fisheries statistics.

OSPAR regions: The OSPAR Convention is the international
mechanism to protect the marine environment of the North East
Atlantic. Five regions have been identified, broadly on environmental
grounds. The UK marine area is within two regions: Region II (Greater
North Sea) and Region III (Celtic Waters).

JNCC Marine Nature Conservation Review (MNCR): Initiated to
provide a comprehensive baseline of information on marine habitats
and species, to aid coastal zone and sea-use management and to
contribute to the identification of areas of marine natural heritage
importance throughout Great Britain. It has resulted in the development
of a set of geographical divisions of the coastal areas that reflected the
differences in environments and associated flora and fauna.
Item: 21
Page: 5
APPENDIX 1
Summary of Proposals within “Scottish Marine Regions: Defining their boundaries – a
consultation”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2.2

UK Marine Monitoring and Assessment strategy: One of the
functions of this strategy is to prepare periodic reviews of the status of
the marine environment in UK waters. Ways in which to regionalise the
information were developed, however due to the range of data involved
this regionalisation is complex and also gives considerable emphasis to
offshore areas.

Water Framework Directive – Area Advisory Groups: Created in
response to the EU Water Framework Directive these have been drawn
up primarily on the basis of river catchments, however the Water
Framework Directive extends 3nm out to sea therefore quite a
significant portion of coastal and marine areas are included within the
River Basin Management Plans.

Inshore Fisheries Groups: Non-statutory industry led groups whose
principal purpose is to develop management plans for the inshore
fisheries in their area. The original IFG areas were selected using
natural geographical demarcations based primarily on habitat
distribution.

Local Coastal Partnerships and Regional Policy Areas: The Local
Coastal Partnerships grew out of an SNH initiative “Focus on the Firths”
which resulted in the creation of 5 LCPs. Two further LCPs have
subsequently been formed so that much of the Scottish coastline is
covered by LCPs. The Scottish Coastal Forum consider that the
Scottish coast should be divided into 11 Regional Policy Areas, which
would be based on the existing LCPs but would require the creation of
three new areas to cover Orkney, Shetland and the north and west
Highlands.
Seaward Limits of Scottish Marine Regions
The Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 provides that the Mean High Water Spring
(MHWS) tide mark forms the landward limit of any marine plan. In contrast
there are a number of considerations around how far out into the sea from
MHWS is appropriate for a regional plan.
The usual basis for any seaward measurement is the national baseline (this is
line from which the seaward limits of a State's territorial sea and certain other
maritime zones of jurisdiction are measured. Normally, a sea baseline follows
the low water line of a coastal State, however when the coastline is deeply
indented, has fringing islands or is highly unstable, straight baselines may be
used.). This baseline is different to MHWS although the practical difference
between the two is limited in the east and north coasts and in the Northern
Isles. On the west coast the difference between MHWS and baseline can be
significant and would mean that using baseline would result in west coast
regions planning for very large areas of sea. The longer term vision is that
marine regions will plan out to baseline plus 3 or 6nm although it is
questionable whether this is sensible for the first regional plan.
Item: 21
Page: 6
APPENDIX 1
Summary of Proposals within “Scottish Marine Regions: Defining their boundaries – a
consultation”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In the short term an approach based on MHWS may be appropriate for
regions on the west coast that may incorporate large areas of internal waters.
As most marine activities occur within 3nm of the coast this is a crucial area for
planning. At the minimum the seaward limit should be 3nm from MHWS
although it could be 6nm.
2.3
Strategic Sea Areas
Using MHWS plus 3 or 6nm, as set out above, may not deliver integrated
management of important water bodies such as the Pentland Firth, the
Minches and the mouth of the Clyde. While regional marine planning is
evolving it is proposed that integrated management of these key marine areas
is achieved by designating them as Strategic Sea Areas. During the initial
development of regional marine planning the National Marine Plan will provide
the basis of integrated management of these areas. Over time, as the west
coast regions become more familiar with marine planning and grow out to
baseline plus 3nm or 6nm, this will be resolved.
3.
Possible Approaches to Identifying Scottish Marine Regions
3.1
Physical/ecosystem characteristics
A wide range of principles have been used in developing different
regionalisation structures for marine waters around Scotland. In general the
underlying purpose for the regionalisation has strongly influenced the
outcome.
From a purely environmental point of view there is considerable attraction in
an ecosystem approach that uses aspects of the physical characteristics of the
coastal waters as a base. However, a pure ecosystem approach is not
practical as a tool to define meaningful regions around the Scottish coast.
Ecosystems can be defined on a very wide range of geographical scales
depending on the organisms or ecosystem functions that are of primary
interest. Any system developing SMRs for planning purposes will have a
geographic scale of hundreds of kilometres and will necessarily have to take
account of sets of ecosystems which lie wholly within the region boundary,
which overlap the regional boundary, and those which operate on much larger
scales and need coordination at national or international scale.
One approach that might deliver some of the benefits of the ecosystem
approach is to focus on physical characteristics. Using this approach regions
would be defined by large scale geographical features such as island groups
and large Firths. While this approach is not the same as the ecosystem
approach it is likely that the broad geographical features of an inshore area will
generate a reasonably coherent set of ecosystems around that geographical
feature.
Item: 21
Page: 7
APPENDIX 1
Summary of Proposals within “Scottish Marine Regions: Defining their boundaries – a
consultation”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Using this approach, marine regions based around island groupings, such as
Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles and the major firths (the Solway,
Forth, Clyde, and Moray) would be straightforward to define using
characteristics such as headland to headland or river to river. However such
an approach would leave areas outwith the major physical features
undifferentiated and treated as a single region e.g. the west coast from Mull of
Kintyre to Cape Wrath, the east coast from above the Forth to Rattray Head,
and the north coast. While the north coast might operate as a single region,
the east and west coasts may seem rather large to operate as regions in their
own right.
3.2
Existing Administrative Models
There are four main coastal management units around the Scottish coast:

Area Advisory Groups established for the purposes of the Water
Framework Directive ; these have been drawn up primarily on the basis
of river catchments;

Inshore Fisheries Groups for the management of inshore fisheries:
these areas were selected using natural geographical demarcations
based primarily on habitat distribution;

Local Authorities which act as planning authorities on land, and also
for aquaculture developments in coastal waters;

Local Coastal Partnerships - created to deliver Integrated Coastal
Zone Management initiatives by engaging with their membership of
diverse marine and community interests. They have clear-cut
boundaries along the coast although their landward limits are flexible
and may depend on the nature of the coastal management issue under
consideration.
Choosing any one existing administrative solution creates an immediate
mismatch with other administrative boundaries.
4.
Options for Defining the Boundaries of Scottish Marine Regions
4.1
Option 1 – Physical Characteristics
This option would result in 10 marine regions. Of these, the coastline of
Aberdeenshire would be covered by the Moray Firth region and the East Coast
region, which would run from Rattray Head to Fife Ness.
Item: 21
Page: 8
APPENDIX 1
Summary of Proposals within “Scottish Marine Regions: Defining their boundaries – a
consultation”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Advantages




Islands and firths are distinctive and readily identified by stakeholders;
It would ensure one marine plan for the whole of that firth;
The areas tend to match in broad terms the existing administrative
boundaries of the Inshore Fisheries Groups
All of the major Firths already have coastal partnerships.
Disadvantages

4.2
Some water bodies are too big to have an effective community element.
It may well be that the east and west coast regions are too big to be
effective regions.
Option 2 - Existing Administrative Boundaries
Under this option the marine regions would coincide with either the boundaries
of the Inshore Fisheries Groups (IFGs) or the Area Advisory groups (AAGs). If
the IFG boundaries were used there would be 12 marine regions, although this
may change as the IFGs are currently subject to review. Using the AAG
boundaries would result in 10 marine regions.
The use of IFG boundaries would result in Aberdeenshire being covered by 2
marine regions: the Moray Firth and an east coast region from Rattray Head to
a point south of the existing local authority boundary with Angus.
Using AAG boundaries to define marine regions would result in the majority of
Aberdeenshire being included in a marine region extending from the River
Spey to the Bervie Water. The part of Aberdeenshire south of Bervie would be
included within a Tayside marine region.
Advantages


Both groups have stakeholders actively involved in planning for inshore
fisheries or for area management plans and are thus experienced in
working together, albeit not in marine planning;
Using an existing set of administrative boundaries will avoid creating
another new set of boundaries.
Disadvantages


The IFGs and AAGs do not have identical boundaries and extend
different distances out to sea. Choosing one set of boundaries over
another creates an immediate mismatch with the other;
Stakeholders from both groups should be represented in the Marine
Planning Partnerships but neither group provides a ready made and
comprehensive solution to the question of appropriate representation
for marine planning.
Item: 21
Page: 9
APPENDIX 1
Summary of Proposals within “Scottish Marine Regions: Defining their boundaries – a
consultation”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4.3
Option 3 – Physical Characteristics with the west coast split into 2 regions and
the east coast boundaries varied.
This option is similar to Option 1 but seeks to address one of the possible
weaknesses of option 1: the very large regions on the east and west coasts.
11 marine regions would be created using IFG, AAG or Local Authority
boundaries, depending on which was considered most appropriate. The east
coast would be split into 3 regions covering the Moray Firth, the eastern
seaboard from Rattray Head to a point in Angus, and the south east of
Scotland from Angus to Berwickshire incorporating both the Firths of Tay and
Forth.
Advantages / Disadvantages
The advantages of this option are considered to be the same as option 1, but
designed to address the major disadvantage i.e. the large regions on the east
and west coast.