You can't help me, everyone. Welcome to the 22nd meeting this year of the Rural Affairs Climate Change and Environment Committee, before we move to agenda item 1, I'd like to remind everyone presents, switch off mobile phones and other electronic devices, except people like Clarks and witnesses who may use digital devices for the benefit of their contribution i ddodiadau i'n iawn. Rwy'n meddwl i'n gwrs Carahilton, ond mae'r agenda item one today is Scottish Government's designation of marine protected areas. That will allow the committee to take evidence from stakeholders in a round-table format on the Government's designations. The sound is dealt with automatically for those of you who do not know, so you do not need to press any buttons. It will be noticed if you wish to identify yourself to speak. Stick your hand up and we will put you on the list. Try and bring in as many people as possible. I'll ask people to introduce themselves in a minute but I would like to say that unfortunately Professor Lawrence Me, the director of SAMHs, and the United Nations has been taken very badly ill and will not be here today. And we have sent our condolences, we only found that information yesterday, We are sorry that he is not able to take part as that is an important element in the discussions from a scientific point of view. If we can go round the table and introduce ourselves, starting with Lloyd Austin, who can tell you who he is. Thank you, convener. I am Lloyd Austin. I am head of conservation policy for RSBB in Scotland. I am Nigel Don, MSP for Angus North and Dumynts. Professor Bob Furness, I retired about three years ago from Glasgow University, although I'm listed as Glasgow University on the paper. I now work for MacArthur Green, Environmental Consultancy and I'm also a member of the board of SNH. I'm Claudia Beamish and I'm South Scotland MSP and Shadow Minister for Environment and Climate Change. I'm Mike Tatley, representing Will and Dolphin Conservation and also a new IUCN task force on marine ground and protected areas. Dave Thompson, MSP for Skylark Aberyn, Ben Nugger. Morning convener, morning everybody. I'm Mick Ball, I'm the Environment Director with Oil and Gas UK. We are the representative body for the upstream oil and gas industry in the UK. We represent 460 companies, including operators and supply chain. Good morning everybody. Callum Duncan, Scotland programme manager for the Marine Conservation Society, and convener of Scottish Environment Links Marine Task Force. Good morning Alex Ferguson, MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries. Good morning, I'm Jenny Hogan, I'm the Director of Policy at Scottish Renewables. Morning also, Jim Hume MSP for South Scotland. I'm Phil Hammond from the University of St Andrews, attached to the Sea Mamor Research Unit. Good morning, I'm Angus MacDonald, MSP for Falkirk East. I'm Ross Dugo, vice-president of the Scottish Fisherman's Federation. Good morning, I'm Graeme Dey, I'm the MSP for Angus South and the deputy convener of the committee. Hello everybody, I'm Rob Gibson, MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross and the convener of the committee. I'm going to kick off this morning thinking about the way in which the MPAs have been selected and designated that process, particularly if stakeholders are content with the selection and designation process and the timing of the implementation of the NPA network. Would anyone like to kick off with that, please? First of all, I would say that Scottish Renewables continues to support the development of an ecologically coherent network of marine protected areas, so it's a positive process as far as we're concerned. We have had some concerns with the way that it's been developed, but I'd rather focus my comments today on where we go from here. More on timing, I would say that offshore renewable energy is at a critical stage of its development right now. We've got some serious issues facing the industry around electricity market reform. We're looking at very competitive allocation rounds that we're now going to be going into there with very limited budget, much lower than we expected. There's still a huge drive towards cost reduction for the sector, and wave and tidal technologies in particular still have some major technological challenges ahead. Given that, in the timing of the process, we feel is unfortunate with all those various pressures facing us, and we have some remaining concerns around the next steps of the process, which I'm happy to go into now or, if you'd rather, come to that. I think that we might begin to find that out as we ask more detailed questions, but you said how the process was evolved. You'd better give us a short idea of what you meant. It's important to say that the industry, along with most of the other stakeholders, have had a great deal of input and discussion throughout the process. In that respect, we've been pleased with it. In terms of the decisions, the main area of concern that we had was around the First and Fourth Banks complex. We highlighted in our consultation response that there were other sites that we felt were similar and that could have been chosen instead of, so we were disappointed to see that that decision had been made and that those other sites were designated in addition to the First and Fourth Banks complex. That's the main concern that we've had with the decision that's been made. Thank you, Jenny. Mick Borwell. Continue to support the NPA process, the consultation process towards designation. We were very pleased with it, it was very good. We're also pleased that almost the entirety of the network was presented to us in one go, rather than in tranches that has been done elsewhere, which makes the level of uncertainty. Greater. On the designation themselves, the issue for us is that possibly because much of the evidence base has come from oil and gas surveys of the seabed, the NPAs are placed around oil and gas current activities and we have something like 5% of the UK oil and gas production within the Scottish NPAs. We have challenges to come, so we'll talk about those at the appropriate point. Okay, I mean obviously the issue about the network's coherence and so on is something which no doubt people will dwell on. Lloyd Austin. Thank you, convener, and we very much welcome the move towards designating a network of ecological coherent protected areas. We welcomed the announcement. We, like some of the previous speakers, we felt that the consultation and the involvement and discussion process was comprehensive. We see the announcement as a first step because, as you've suggested, there's more to do in terms of deciding the management, but there's equally more to do in terms of ensuring that the full range of features are represented in the network. We'll probably come back to that. I think the key part of the process for us might be some of the descriptions of the criteria that have been used in terms of the exclusion of mobile species and seabirds from the NPA selection process, so that is I think the process point that gave us some concern in terms of a network. I think it's important to recognise that a network must include both the internationally and the nationally important sites, so I think it was a positive move from the Cabinet Secretary to announce the draft SPAs at the same time as the NPAs so that the network as a whole could be seen. Of course we think that there's further steps to go, but that's another part of the process that was positive. I want to broaden this out at the moment because we have to set a context that, just as the RSPB has said, particular species of seabird have shown sustained declines since 1986 when those were measured, not just in the last four years since Marine Scotland was created. Getting that in context and thinking about the process and the timing, do you think that those factors have been taken on board? Is Bob Furness going to say something there? Yes, thank you very much. Different seabirds have seen different trajectories. Some of our seabirds have declined very dramatically and Arctic Skiow has gone straight from the green list to the red list because of a decline of more than 50 per cent. On the other hand, gannots are still increasing, so there are different pressures on different species. Clearly Scotland has internationally important populations of seabirds. We have something like one-third of all of the seabirds in the European Union nesting around Scotland, and several of our seabird species are predominantly found in Scottish waters, so they are very important to us as a feature of the natural environment. It is absolutely essential that we consider the SPA provision alongside MPAs, because while MPAs only give protection to black gillimots among seabirds, SPAs that are yet to come through the system are intended to provide protection for forging areas of some species. That is crucial and something that we need to progress. Graham Day, I was struck by the fact that we have four proposed MPAs that are specific to black gillimots. Are they under such threat that that is required? Black gillimots are doing moderately well compared with some other species, so they are not the most threatened of our seabirds, but they are at risk. For example, they nest on their boulders on beaches, and they are at risk from mink predation and from other malls. They are quite subject to human disturbance. They are very inshore seabirds, so they are rather different from the seabirds that are predominantly way out at sea. The reason that black gillimots are included within the MPA suite is because they are not included in SPA features because they do not migrate, and there are only seabirds that do not migrate. All of our other seabirds are, to some extent, protected by SPAs as migratory species. Black gillimots are not. Others might want to come in. I was going to point out that Sam's suggested that there is clear evidence of degradation of marine habitats, although its severity varies from place to place, providing good opportunities for conservation. That phrase, I think, homes in on some of the particulars that we need to be looking at with urgency in the MPAs, and I wondered if you thought, as I said, about the selection, designation and timing that these particular ones, apart from what Lloyd Austin pointed out particularly about seabirds, had been taken account of. In terms of timing, protection for our marine environment is 40 or 50 years behind terrestrial environments. We would concur with what Sam's is saying about the denuded baseline that we are working from. I do not think that we would ever be in a position where developers of all kinds would have the degree of certainty that would enable everybody to be absolutely content right off the front. I would just say that we support the process that arrived at the sites. We think that the right decision was made to follow the statutory nature of conservation bodies advice. We support sustainable industry, appropriately located. I would say that the First and Fourth Banks was unique in the North Sea, so it was absolutely right to protect that. In terms of wider ecosystem health, Scotland and UK waters are amongst the most pressurised in the world. The Scotland's Marine Atlas clearly shows that there are concerns and declines across most of the seabed and intertidal seas. The Scottish Government's own least damaged, more natural, tranche of work as part of the Scottish MPA process clearly showed that most of Scotland's seas are not least damaged, so they have some damage. A piece of work by Sam's corroborated that further, with experts thinking that there is unlikely to be any pristine habitats left on the continental shelf. Where there are good examples, they are often relics that have been protected by topography or other infrastructure. It is saying that the marine protected areas, we support them being set up on the principle of sustainable use. Those are not no take zones at all, but there is an imperative there to protect and improve the health of many of our seabed habitats when we hope that the network would help to do that. Claudia Beamish wants to spread out. Some other people might want to comment. Thank you very much, convener. In fact, one of my quick points was to actually following on from what Callum Duncan has said about the issue of the degree to which the MPAs which have been designated will enable our marine environment to be enhanced and also to recover. That's something I'd like to put into the mix for the panellists to come back on. Then following on from the convener's first question about how all relevant species and features have been included, which is quite a challenging question, I suppose, within the marine environment. For instance, as a sea trout champion, I'm concerned about the sea trout and I think issues have been raised about that just to give an example. Equally importantly, to come back to the points already raised about the fourth banks, I would like to ask very specifically if the scientists in the room consider that the fourth banks protection for sandeals should have identified the sandeals as an actual feature. You know, there's been a lot of talk about the fourth banks in, out, in, out, and they're in, but should we have the sandeals as a particular feature? Okay. Sandeals. Anyone like to talk about that? Yes, Lloyd. In relation to Claudia's three questions, I think in terms of the last one, sandeals are obviously, as many people all know, one of the key food sources for our seabirds and changes in the sandeal population has been one of the drivers of the seabird decline that you referred to, convener. And with the importance of the further forth and nearby seabird colonies, you know, we would very much support the idea that sandeals should be a feature of the further fourth banks and we think that is one of the changes to the features that we would like to see happen in due course. And I know the government have got in place this next stage of looking at search areas for sandeals and we'd like to see that progressed as quickly as possible because it's, it's key to the seabird ecology. In terms of the features and species, I mentioned that before and I just reiterate that we think migratory species and seabird should be included in the SPA, in the MPA network and sea trout are obviously one of those migratory species. I think, whilst I agree with everything Bob Fynness said about Black Gilimot being in the MPAs because they are not, don't qualify as an SPA species, I think the fact that internationally important concentrations of seabirds are covered by SPAs is not a reason to not include seabirds as a feature of MPAs because there are nationally important aggregations that could be protected under the MPA side of things. Finally, on the enhancement and recovery point, I would agree with Claudia that this is key to the, there's no point in having MPAs if you don't set conservation objectives, you have to know what you want to do with them and setting conservation objectives for your designated features that simply maintains the status quo. As Callum said, the marine atlas clearly indicates that the status quo isn't what we want to achieve, so therefore enhancement and recovery has got to be one of our objectives in management terms and so greater use of recovery objectives I think is crucial. Now, Jim, who wants to come in and out of this area, but we've got two other witnesses as well, would you add to this? It was really following up on something Mike Burrell mentioned about survey. We had to come back in and so was Phil Hammond. Sure, thanks very much, convener. It was more on the data and the surveying. Mike Burrell mentioned that most of the surveying had been done around about where oil and gas exploration had been happening and we also, when we hear from regarding fisheries and mackerel and cod, etc, we always hear that data is poor, so it would be interesting to hear other views or just bring in to the mix what others think of the data that we actually do know regarding the number of embeds. Wait a minute, I'm going to bring you back in later, Jenny. I've got one to add a wee bit to it, but Mike Burrell and then Phil Hammond and then Jenny Hogan. Thank you, convener. I think it's worth pointing out at this point that all developers of the seabed are subject to environmental impact assessment processes and the NPA has become just part of that process. So it really actually doesn't matter whether it's migratory species, seabeds, whatever it is, we take account of it in the EIA. What the NPA does to a certain extent is perhaps increase the robustness of the EIA that you do. On the data, the EIA process continually provides new data. It's the baseline work monitoring afterwards new data. Phil Hammond? Yeah, thanks, convener. Just to add briefly about sandeals, as well as being important to seabeders, they're essential for many species of marine mammal. We're not here talking about seals, but seals eat a lot of sandeals. But the marine mammal species that we are concerned about, minkie whales, for example, maybe not rysers dolphins that will come to maybe later about the proposed NPAs, and other species in Scottish waters. One piece of evidence, large-scale long-term surveys have shown that harbour purposes have moved from the northern North Sea down to the southern North Sea over a decade old scale. The likely reason is that sandeals have declined a lot in the northern North Sea, and they're all moving south whether something to eat. So I would just have my voice to the importance of sandeals in this whole process. Jenny Hogan, you talked about the concern that you had from a renewables point of view about the fourth banks. How much does that impact on the actual process of developing offshore wind in those areas? You were wanting to come back, so let's hear what the effect is. Well, just briefly, firstly, the reason I was coming back was just on the back of the comments of Jim McBurr. We'll just to say that, similarly, offshore renewables obviously have created a huge amount of understanding from the survey work that the sector has done, and also just to highlight which links to your question, that also does create a risk of data bias in NPA site selection. In other words, you protect the areas that the developers have surveyed because you have data for them, not necessarily because they're important sites. So that's just a concern that we've had throughout the process, and it particularly is linked to our concern about the fourth banks. To come back to your question, there is already a huge amount of work that the developers are doing to try to mitigate their impacts. For example, moving further from shore, reducing capacity, reducing turbines and so on, but actually in the social, economic impact assessment itself, it did highlight that the management measures in particular are likely to have quite a significant impact on projects and actually potentially projects going forward at all. So that's really where our concern lies, and for the fourth banks it's one of the main areas. I'll have to come back and say what management applications? Management measures are the things that will be put in place in order to try and avoid any kind of impacts. That's something that's really coming on to our concerns for the next step, is where we have some concerns and we're keen to make sure that we continue to speak with Marine Scotland and others to get a bit more clarity on what they are. I think that's the crux of our concern, because you don't have clarity on them. Graham Day, we'll see how that goes. Thank you. I take a very parochial interest as MSP for Angus South with proposals for wind farms off the coast of Angus that would be involved in this. Are you saying that you have some concerns or are you saying that genuinely that this process may lead to the loss of proposed offshore wind farms? Yes, I'm saying that, but actually the social, economic impact itself said that, so in other words, don't just take my word for it. It was in that assessment itself that these could be substantial impacts. I can explain a bit more about the economic benefits that the sector is bringing when we're talking about millions of pounds of investment. We've already seen over 190 million pounds of investment from the Scottish wind farm industry without any scalable projects in the water so far, so these are huge investments, thousands of jobs that we're talking about. Really though it comes down to what those management measures are going to be in practice and we've yet to see clarity on that, so that's the next step that we need to focus on. I don't want to be rude here, but the industry would say that, wouldn't they, potentially? So can we drill down into this? Is there a genuine threat to the four proposals for that sector of the sea? Is there a genuine threat to any or all of those proposals? I think that the short answer is yes. Thank you, convener. I'd like to just come back to something that Professor Phil Harding said there about the sandeals and about a potential decline in the north. I was born and brought up in Lossymouth and I'm very familiar with seeing sandeals in the river Lossy and around the shore and everything else. They're beautiful wee fish. I'm also the sandeal champ, so I feel obliged to speak about them anyway. I would just wonder, why do you think there has been this decline in sandeal in the north? Because they're not a fish that we fish for as such in the UK to any extent. I just wonder if you have any ideas as to why you think they've moved from the north to the south, because most folk are saying that as the waters warm up, fish tend to be moving north to the cooler waters, maybe they're just like a hot boss, I don't know. Very briefly, probably the people are better equipped to answer this. Probably large-scale oceanographic changes over long-time scales have changed the environment. We know there's good evidence for that, that the fish assemblages have changed, and I suspect that the declines in sandeals in the northern North Sea are part of that. Remember that the water comes across the North Atlantic, goes around the top and then comes into the North Sea from the top, so actually the world is kind of reversed in the North Sea, so the shifting of species to the North generally, in the North Sea it's, it may actually work the other way around simply because of the way the water flows, but I think it's large, it's not overfishing, it's not necessarily habitat destruction, I think the best evidence is that it's large-scale oceanographic changes over a long time scale. Callum, and then Bob, and then Angus MacDonald, so we'll try and draw this section to a close with those three, so first of all Callum Duncan. Thank you, just to quickly support what Lloyd was saying about sight objectives to be ambitious and just to remind us all that the legislation requires objectives for the sights. We're only seeing objectives for individual features, so we'd like more holistic thinking about sights to pick up on Claudia's point about features. The network has to be ecologically coherent, that's quite a complex topic, but the most graspable element of that is it has to be representative, so represent the full range of biodiversity, so I'd just like to take the opportunity to flag some other gaps. The advice from SNH made, included spiny lobster, burrowing sea and enemy aggregations, and heart cockle aggregations as being worthy of NPA protection, and they didn't find sufficient evidence, so they didn't find NPAs for those, but that doesn't mean if evidence arises we shouldn't have NPAs for those, so it's just to flag that. Support what Claudia was saying about sea trout, they are in decline, they spend a lot more time around the mouths of the rivers that they return to, so they merit protection. In terms of evidence, there is an awful lot of evidence in shore. This point gets, I think, overstressed a lot of the time. There's a lot of evidence in shore, particularly our sea lochs, in terms of supporting their proposals, and we supported the scientific advice on that. In terms of offshore, I don't think that it always is a case of data bias. For example, one of the protected features for the First and Fourth Banks is that it's a shelf bank and mound. There's only so many of those in the North Sea, and we know that clearly from topographical mapping. I would just back up what the advisers were saying about First Banks being unique, and there aren't options for that. I just wanted to return to the question of why sandeals have declined. It is undoubtedly very complicated. There is clear evidence that sandeals spawn less in warmer sea conditions. Warming conditions probably are a part of the story, but there is now an understanding that there are several different stocks of sandeals in the North Sea, not simply one stock over the whole North Sea. There's a separate stock around Shetland as well, which has been long recognised, but there's now considered to be about seven different stocks of sandeals in the North Sea. There are other species of sandeals as well, and the ones that you find in the river mouth and on the beaches are a different species from the ones that are the subject of the fishery. Amiditis marinas is the major sandeal that is found offshore, which is the main food of seabirds and which is the focus of the Danish sandeal fishery. There is evidence now from Norwegian fishing on sandeals in the northern North Sea that fishing can deplete sandeal stocks and that they can take many years to recover on particular sandbanks. There's been serial depletion of some of the sandbanks in the northern North Sea, which the Norwegians now recognise. There was evidence of a fishery impact off the east of Scotland, and that's why the area was closed to sandeal fishing. The closure did result in a recovery of sandeals to some extent, and it did recover the breeding success of kittywicks, which was one of the features that was related to that. So, just to reiterate that it is complicated, but there's evidence both for fisheries impacts and for climate impacts, and probably there are predator impacts as well and increases in stocks of adult herring, for example. Herring are a major predator on larval sandeals, and possibly the decline in the northern North Sea may partly relate to predation from predatory fish, which are a more important influence in the northern North Sea than in the south. So, there's very strong grounds for arguing that sandeals are a key feature in the northern North Sea of huge importance to seabirds, marine mammals and to predatory fish, and therefore should be something that we're very concerned about protecting. Dave Thompson had a quick point in this before we come back to Angus. Ross wants to have a point in this, and then Angus, yes. Thanks very much, convener. A very interesting point there about the fishing for the sandeals by the Norwegians. Obviously, that's a matter for the EU, because the EU are the ones who negotiate the overall fishing. I'm not sure if the Norwegians are fishing in their own waters or in Scottish waters, but it sounds to me as if there's an EU-wide need to ensure that there are plenty sandeals and that we shouldn't necessarily be fishing for them at all, maybe. Other people pick up that point. Ross, welcome. Just to convener, thanks for that. Talking about the sandeals, it is recognised that there are distinct populations, and the fishing advice, the quota is split into distinct areas in the North Sea. You can't just catch all your quota in one area. The UK stroke Scottish fleet is not involved in sandeal fishing. It hasn't been for some time. I know one boat, X-barra, five or six years ago was the last time they went to it, and the quotas were so small. However, because of the biology of the sandeal, the quotas are only decided in year. It's not a case of saying that you've got a recruitment. We can see it coming into fishing in two, three years' time, like Harwick. Sandeals are season to season quota that's set out, and what they do is almost like an exploratory trial fishing. Then, under the results of that, they then set the quotas for the current year. It is recognised that it is a pressure stock. Thank you for that.  I think it's McDonald's. Thanks, convener. Clearly, we could devote half the meeting to sandeals by the sound of it, but it is fascinating. I've certainly been interested in the sandeal issue since the Danes were coming over to the wee banky in the 90s and hoovering up the sandeals for the biomass factory in my constituency. It's just an observation that we should be thankful that the Danes are no longer coming over and hoovering up the sandeals in the wee banky. Indeed. The difficulties of spawning sandeals reminds me of pandas, but I think we better keep away from that subject. Alec Ferguson's got our next question. Yes, the Scottish Conservative representative on the committee. I think we should move on from pandas, if I may suggest. The earlier in the discussion Jenny Hogan mentioned socioeconomic impact of these proposals. I just wondered whether we might have a little useful further discussion on that. We know that Marine Scotland did quite a lot of work in trying to identify and mitigate, if they might be called the worst impact of the proposals. I just wondered whether the members around the table are content that, basically, the socioeconomic impact have all been identified, where they've been identified, whether they have been mitigated through the proposals, and generally any comments on that that anybody might wish to make. Calum Duncan, first. Just as a response to the phrase, mitigate the worst impact, I mean, I know you're trying to do shorthand of what these MPs might mean just to take the opportunity to say that we should be looking at these a lot more positively. They're not about just protectionism and ring fencing features for their own sake. These mosaics of habitats, particularly a lot of the invertebrate species and the habitats they create are the building blocks for the marine ecosystem. Everything that we enjoy from the sea derives from all these pieces of the puzzle working properly and efficiently. The paperwork for the consultation made clear that the socioeconomic benefits, if you factored in all societal uses and values, outweid the quantifiable costs to the range of industries. That itself was an underestimate. A piece of work that was done for the national ecosystem assessment actually estimated that the, well it was a subset of the network that the study did, 20 sites would provide an estimate that 67 to 117 million pounds in annual recreational benefits and a protection would generate a total one-off non-use value of 125 to 255 million pounds. Then there's also a wider question of if we do sustainably manage these sites there's a lot of sustainability benefits to be derived from that in terms of sustainable tourism, sustainable fishing and sustainable energy use etc. It's about win-wins if we get it right and it's not just a bit cost, there's a lot of benefits there. Ross Tugol, and then I'd like to follow up some of these points. No, it was one of our earlier concerns, I mean that the Scottish versions federation was involved in a lot of the early work in MPAs and some of our concerns were in general they've all been addressed now, that was under the legality of what was being done and the quality of evidence and SAMS have obviously done a good job there but the MPAs are there to protect features that are evidenced, it's not an anti-fishing measure and in the socio-economic impacts the information coming forward was very late, I should have perhaps said this earlier when you're asking about the process, the process was rushed, I mean to get the three big consultations all at once just the staffing required in Marine Scotland simply wasn't there to handle that quantity of work and we're still working through it, the federation has been involved in a lot of the management measure and displacement surveys, coastal meetings, they've helped to refine the location of the features based on evidence and fishing evidence has been provided in addition to what the oil and gas have done in terms of the bottom, so the management measures are the really important thing and that's what's going to take up the time for this next year and we're heavily involved in that and all we would say is equity of management measures with other seabed users, now I do know that renewables have a particular problem and certainly down about the fourth banks but one of the features which is not in the MPA is actually one of the proposed renewable sites, Motion Quahog, one of the main concentrations that's actually outside the MPA, so go figure setting where MPAs are. Indeed, interesting, Lloyd and then Jenny. Thank you, convener, on the question of socioeconomic implications I just wanted to reiterate and remind everyone of the process point that was debated at the time when the act was passed and that is that it was agreed and you may remember there was a correspondence between the Cabinet Secretary and the then convener of the predecessor committee related to this issue of how the selection and the designation of sites would be on a purely scientific basis and it would be management measures that would be where the implications of socioeconomic impacts were taken into account and in relation to the difference between MPAs and SPAs and SACs the way in which the Cabinet Secretary and the Government take into account socioeconomic implications is different that's the difference between the international European protection and the national domestic protection provided by the Marine Act but in both cases socioeconomic implications can be taken into account and that is the discussion as Ross says we're going into in this in this coming phase but I think it is important to make sure that we don't that we do distinguish between taking into account socioeconomic implications in management measures and taking them into account in selection and designation which we all agreed at the time the act was passed we should not do okay and Jenny and then Mick yeah just to come back on i think all of those points that have been made that yes it is the management measures that's absolutely the priority for us now and that's where the the risks may still lie but hopefully the opportunities that we can all coexist just to say as well about the the costs that were identified in the socioeconomic impact they were an underestimation in terms of the impacts on the renewables sector so they were identified as potentially very significant could make some projects unviable but still an underestimation of of costs of things like delays for example and draft SPAs have been mentioned a couple of times just to highlight that similarly we have similar concerns basically for the draft SPAs but I don't want to go too off topic and lastly just to point out that the our other concern is just about how the NP network will actually be reviewed so and then similar issues there about you know what the impact might be on on socioeconomic opportunities Mick okay thanks convener this is about economics but I'm going to start at the environmental impact assessment one of the issues that we've identified is that the screening process that has to go on when you want to undertake an activity inside the NPA requires you to demonstrate that you you're not having a significant impact we don't know what that means and nobody can explain that to us we're at the forefront of science here we don't we don't know what it is the result of that it forces you into what we call a habsreg assessment or an appropriate assessment which is much more rigorous the implication is that you are having some impact the the end of the process in european marine sites is invocation of the europei process and within the europei process somebody has to make the balance of the socio-economics against the impact on the environment we've no rules on this and the uncertainty that that can provide will affect investor confidence and so there's a there's a circle there okay um alec did you want to can i just make one one point maybe and i understand i think i understand what everybody's been saying which i think is basically that the devil's going to be in the detail if if it is a devil the devil's going to be in the detail of of the proposed management agreements that have worked out but i i absolutely understand the need for sustainability and perhaps i should have if i could rephrase my first question instead of saying the worst impact i might use the phrase negative impact because i think they were the word negative impacts raised during the consultation period but i might just pose a little question if i may and because i understand the importance of of sustainability in all of this um and i would just pose the question of can you achieve sustainability across the network if if the network itself is not ecologically coherent as some people have suggested it won't be without the addition of further mba's across it and we want to quickly answer that point just now about sustainability if there's not yes calm i mean i suppose the short answer to that is no well that's fine then yeah you know we we need we need the network of sites in in the context of a a marine planning system that that also considers the the wider 80% of the sea as well as sam's was saying in their written submission um but you know sustainability is all about keeping the sea working and improving the the biodiversity and health of it which is a legal requirement and we would say is a an ecological requirement as per the examples i gave earlier okay um i think we've kind of got to the end of that point just now yeah i think we should look at the management principles next and creme day is going to lead on that thank you to you know i've got a series of questions was kick off with your views on whether any and all public authorities and regulators whose decision making might impact upon mba's are they equipped with the necessary skills to determine what posing significant risk to the conservation objectives of the mba's might look like and again broaden that out as one of the panel's understanding is of how land use changes which might increase pollution through run-off be taken into account and whether cumulative impacts are going to be monitored and assessed okay who's up for that then yes mic thank you that's convenient loaded question that one start perhaps at the end um and i would also cumulative effects assessment is a thing that we surely have to get to grips with very quickly and it's another one of these things that nobody knows how to do so the plea is that we work with the sncb's with the regulators to come up with a methodology for cumulative effects assessment the are they are the the the regulators and advisers equipped there at the forefront of their knowledge as well and one thing that we note do notice south of the border as well is that because of this lack of knowledge and experience you get an iteration of questions when you're trying to develop something you present your evidence they then find that that evidence might not be good enough you've got to go through another cycle another cyclist and it that's very difficult for a developer to deal with so standards of evidence is is an important thing that we we need to land you did was there someone else who wanted to comment on this it seems to me you know that the guidance and skills to determine the significant risks in the agencies you know why are you sanguine i think to some extent i agree agree with mick that many of the regulators and agencies and indeed all the participants in this round table are sometimes at the edge of our our knowledge and we're moving towards a new system we haven't had a planning system in the marine environment before so clearly we have we we don't know how to run it yet because it's just coming up and running but in that sense i think it's important to put the mpa's and the spa's in the context of that wider marine planning system because as uh callum indicated uh the 80 percent of the seas will not be in protected areas and what's how those are managed will impact on protected areas and vice versa uh so that's a reason for hoping that the marine plan that was consulted on at the same time as the mpa's makes in progress as quickly as possible and that the agencies and the regulators get up to speed with with implementing that i think graham you've identified many of the key issues that we would ask questions about um that the implication of on land activities affecting coastal and inshore marine areas is an important one and that's the reason why the marine plan and the terrestrial plans and the river basin management plans which do span the coastal strip needs to work in harmony with one another and the different agencies responsible for those different plans working together and liasing coordinating the activities okay for us do yeah just one general point i mean the level of science required is not there and the funding for it more importantly is not there and with budget restraints all around when we see this in fish biology for instance apart from anything else sipa are supposed to take care of the water and runoffs and i know that a aquaculture has sometimes problems getting projects done because sipa say well that's the local council deal with that when it should be sipa going on to your point about the fact that there's a lot of water which isn't in mpa's displacement comes into this we see that and that's one of the reasons why we've been working so hard if you like to to refine fishing activity within the mpa's so that only the features designated are actually protected because the worst case scenario is that you displace people into other areas and that will have a bigger impact for instance the on the announcement of the mpa's the the Scottish fishing industry came up with some voluntary management measures in 11 sites within three mpa's pending the full discussions that are going to take place over next year because it was recognised that those features needed immediate protection once the mpa's were announced otherwise i think it could be problems for the Scottish Government it could be an infraction procedure so industry is working to try and do things but there is got to be a balance so that fishing can exist okay Nigel Don I'm trying to say what I'm trying to say without anybody taking offence so because I don't I don't mean to be in any sense rude or disparaging about what's being said but I get the impression I get the impression that if we were sitting here again in maybe 10 years time we'll recognise this is very much the beginning of a process where say without being too unkind we don't really know what we're trying to do or if we do know what we're trying to do we're not sure how to do it and we don't have as much information as we'd like actually you never do have as much information as you would like and we're not really quite sure what the tools are and we're not actually sure what the implications are but and I think this is the important bit we recognise we've got a problem to solve we actually have to get on with it and therefore maybe all the industries and activities represented here just need to understand that somewhere other we're going to go up a learning curve and we've got to make this work right ten Lloyd Austin and then Callum Duncan quickly I think in response to that I agree that there is a steep learning curve to go and many of the agencies and the government itself have got to develop learn and and get the process working the one thing I would slightly disagree with is we don't know what we're trying to do I think we know what the outcome is we're trying to reach and that is a fully functioning marine ecosystem that supports all the industries and things that benefit on that on that ecosystem as well as the components of that ecosystem in terms of species and habitats so that outcome we know and we know that a ecologically coherent network protected areas within that wider ecosystem managed through an overall planning system is a means to do that where we get the learning curve comes into effect is how we implement the components that I've just described of that outcome so we know the outcome we know what many of the components are but how we operate those components is the challenge where there is a big learning curve and as somebody said the need for more science is that I was just trying to distinguish between knowing what outcome we're trying to achieve and how we achieve it thank you my second point was as as Lloyd said you know we just to emphasise that we do know what we want to achieve we want to protect all these component parts and there's discussions to be had about how ambitious that protection is and those are to be done on a case by case basis I would say that it's clear that we need to be more ambitious than what was put out in some of the management options as part of the consultation but again it's about sustainable use on a case by case basis and just to go back to Graham Day's question about the terrestrial marine link just to highlight quite an interesting case study where maybe 10 years ago there was a proposal to put a I'm getting quite specific here but illustrates a point to put a sewage outfall in North Lamblash Bay there's a big mural bed there the environmental consultants went and surveyed the area they weren't told to have looked for murals they didn't record murals according to them there wasn't any mural it was up to local divers citizen scientists trained in sea search to actually convince the authorities that there was murals there and lo and behold they were correct so at least now we're in a position where people know that such a thing is murals as well as flame shells and horse muscles and cold water corals and deep sea sponge fields and all these fantastic habitats and I think collectively we agree that it's very important for Scotland to protect all these component parts okay Graham Day finally on this point yeah thanks give me just to kind of wrap this up I just want to be satisfied that every everyone around the table buys into the notion of maybe they don't that what we're trying to achieve here is an environmentally responsible coexistence of all the component parts and that we don't get into a situation where there is a push to simply oil and gas renewables and fishing all removed all together that we are looking for a balance here is that right and we would all buy into that people are nodding ross I'll just I'll make it one sentence mpa management plans should not be seen by stakeholders as a mean to resolve non-nature conservation issues and I think that is the point that you're making great thank you Claudia Beamish will take your point next right thank you convener really following on from my colleague Graham Day's point the mpa management policy is set out in detail in the draft handbook and I understand that there are five overarching management principles and those that know them better than I will bear with me if I very briefly outline those before asking some questions to set the scene for this part of the panel discussion we have that the management of mpa should be integrated with wider marine management which we have touched on already that additional powers such as marine conservation orders or mco's will be available where necessary that the best available scientific information will be used to select and manage mpa's that uh fourthly as understanding improves um and I emphasize this point but I would as a shadow minister for environment and climate change um and and as the environment changes there may be a need to select additional new mpa's um alter boundaries or remove designations um i future proofing and lastly the mpa's will be subject to a range of protection levels depending on the conservation objectives and there will be an assumption of multiple use of a site and the last part of that fifth point is that however activities which are not compatible with the conservation objectives of an mpa will be restricted so um on the basis of that we've already heard from um from mike and from Lloyd um and others about um the the whole range of so sorry it's at the wrong angle I do apologize my mistake um about the the talking about the broader issues around uh scotland seas and with 20 percent of scotland seas they understand it specifically protected um is marine planning and the wider marine in um management regime sufficient to ensure adequate protection of the remaining 80 percent and although um Sam um Sam's isn't able to be here today they have highlighted this issue and express concerns about it um so as well do the mco's provide the appropriate structure to achieve conservation objectives and resolve conflicts in a site where there are multiple uses and I take the point that fisheries aren't included as I understand it in in the mco um possible orders and lastly are the circumstances where Scottish ministers do not have exclusive competence some cause for concern right thank you okay who wants to kick off from that then respond right mick um it actually comes back to something we touched on and it's about the remaining 80 and it's my point that the remaining 80 is still subject to environmental impact assessment by developers within that environmental impact assessment there is a legal requirement to undertake a cumulative impact assessment looking at what other industries might be on the same patch we're just not very good at it at the minute how you uh reinforce that I don't know we work we the process is now in place where we understand what wind uh our offshore renewables are going to be in an area they understand where we are and we're again it's a start of that process so I think from a developer's side that remaining 80 percent is is well covered okay thank you Lloyd Orson thank you convener um I think generally speaking we support the five principles they are generic and um uh and aim for the kind of integrated management regime that I think we we support um I think uh I'd reiterate what I said before about the need to get the marine plan up and running I think the marine plan was consulted on at the same time as the MPAs and yet we have the MPAs have moved on a stage but the marine plan uh remains where it was with waiting for marine Scotland to make progress and and publish it and I think in terms of the management of the sea as a whole that marine plan is a key uh aspect of the marine act that we'd like to see rolled out and implemented um I think um MCOs are part of the range of tools that Scottish ministers and other regulators have up their disposal um and those should be used where appropriate where it's needed in a case by case basis and just on the question you raise about fisheries not being included fisheries are not included in that piece of legislation because there are other pieces of legislation available to Scottish ministers to use if there is a need Ross may disagree about if there is a need to use them but Scottish ministers would be able to make up their own mind they have other tools at their disposal to manage fisheries if that makes sense so that's just a legislative answer to the question um we may or may not disagree how those tools are used but they are there um I think um the key though in overall terms in terms of management is the need to ensure that the management objectives uh aim for the right outcome as a whole I think there are there are too few objectives that are about recovery and enhancing which I think you mentioned earlier Claudia and I think the overall intention of the government of of applying management measures rather than simply allowing the status quo to to carry on and and not not apply management measures is something that we're slightly concerned about I think there is too much emphasis on designating things and saying job done rather than saying well now we've got that in place what do we need to do now nobody is suggesting we always need to do lots of things and what we need to do has to be evidenced based and and so forth but it's important that we don't just have a half of what I would say is a sort of um it's probably being undiplomatic but complacent approach of saying well we've got these designated let's uh let them be what we need to do is is look after them and achieve our objectives uh Ross Jiggle and then Callum Duncan yep just following on from what Lloyd said the reason why MPs have been announced is quite simple there was a 12-month deadline from the start of consultation that they had to be announced and that's why they have been announced and the other stuff has been put in the back shelf going back to the amount of work available to go into the rest of it and if I maybe slight the political it's like a lot of things just now we're waiting on stuff and I think it will depend on whether the referendum in one shape or another is needing a good news day okay um that's a point we might want to take up in a while but Callum Duncan just to reiterate in answer to Claudia's question you know yes we support those principles you know the whole question then becomes and the whole discussion is around where activities are or are not compatible with features and what it is that we want to achieve um for those features uh and as Lloyd says uh you know fisheries legislation is available to provide protection from fisheries uh we're we're medited um I just like to make the point about um trying to think a bit more holistically about these MPs you know we've we've got a process that you know you have to organise and categorise what the main environment is in order to go through a process to arrive at places that are important in the sea to protect so there's a sort of disaggregation that happens there but at this end of the process we need to be sort of integrating that so that we're not just thinking about managing little patches of leftovers in our mpa's and just to put it into perspective um the the the part it's not four mpa's that have recovery objectives it's little patches in in three mpa's of of murrell beds and flame shell beds these are little small areas um so I'd like to think that we we can think a bit more holistically we actually need to look to the legislation and recognise that the objective should be for the site overall uh not just for the features and what we want these sites to do and whilst I agree with Ross they're not fisheries management measures we have to in thinking about how we manage sites we should be recognising how protecting and where appropriate recovering uh these building blocks of ecosystem can deliver these sort of secondary benefits and and that sort of thinking should also be taken into marine planning as well so that we're doing proper ecosystem based marine planning uh to deliver sustainable development that the plan should be in the sense of living within environmental limits and and that wider process uh has to as I think this committee concluded a few years ago or an earlier version of which that fisheries management has to integrate with marine planning outside in it as well as inside mpa's right claudia beamish thank you convener um just in addition to those responses are there any comments from the panel about whether it's a realistic aim to implement all the measures for the mpa's by the end of 2016 2016 that is the project i think it will go back to what's already been said that you refer to the nature conservation mpa management handbook which is there but it's broad brush in some cases to get the actual evidence required to harden up in some of these things as callum talked about if you're talking about recovery um of a merl bed or flame shell bed where do you stop i mean what size is big enough you're saying they're very small areas but perhaps that's fine who knows just saying that you should have more there's got to be some sort of edge foot on that and that's where the problem is going to be we're what we are seriously working very hard on the management measures and trying to make things work but it's going to be a long slog um on the top of the mpa's the federation as mpa knows and the renewables knows we're involved in a lot of the in discussions in the licensing process there as to where things are going to be cited perhaps modifications of cables and the track they're going to take which are going to avoid areas which perhaps are beneficial to fishermen but also may be beneficial in terms of features i think there's some of the bt communication cables on going in and out of jura i think actually go right through mpa's so you know joined up thinking has got to be there and there's going to have to be a balance all i'm saying is i think everybody around here is will wants to work towards a balance position meck yes thanks convenient at at a site level there is one of the management measures that we will have a great deal of difficulty complying with it calls for deposited material should meet local habitat type which means don't put if you've got a mud or a sand seabed don't put something like rocks that weren't there in the first place we use this technique to stabilise pipelines particularly and that's a safety feature it's safety feature for the fishing fleet as well as for the the contents of the pipeline itself and that is a management measure that we will have great difficulty with as ross says we'll work with the the regulators and advisors how to determine the impact of that whether we can do it by 2016 was the question i don't know to say as well that first of all we support the principles of the management options the measures and we also welcome a statement in the management options that says that renewable energy impact assessments will be considered on a case by case basis through eia so that's positive and but i think that to highlight the one area that we've got some concerns with it's stated in the the draft management handbook the ability to amend a consent in light of mpa designation and monitoring and so that's obviously clearly a very important issue for licensed activities and as it introduces uncertainty to the consent and it's also stated that there's no legal duty to review consents so that's an area that we we still have some concern about and and that also relates back to the the reviews of the the mpa networks as well so okay Lloyd Austin um i was going to make a point about the targets but just before i do that on on on amending and reviewing consents i mean that is a statutory ability first Scottish ministers anywhere it's not new for the marine environment it exists on land and it's part of the habitats regulations for instance for all natura sites everywhere i mean that doesn't mean that ministers use it frequently or very often or are very keen to use it but it's there in the statutory framework i don't think that's a particularly new or different thing in terms of claudia's previous questions about the 2016 target i think 2016 target will be challenging for all the reasons we've discussed in terms of uncertainty and science and the ability of regulators and everything to uh to get up to speed and get the processes working and for all the discussions that everybody's talking about happening um so it's challenging but we ought to it is the osbar target the osbar target that the Scottish government is signed up to is to have a well managed network of mpa's by the end of 2016 and beyond that there is the eu target under the marine strategy framework directive to meet the target of good environmental status for the marine environment by 2020 and a key component of good environmental status is an ecologically coherent network of well managed mpa's so we do have those sort of overarching environment international sort of agreements to deliver this and so whilst challenging it's really our responsibility to step up to the plate and try and make it work okay we had a view about reviews and things like that jim humor i think you want to yes just just to follow on for that we're talking about achieving conservation objectives and reviewing these on a six-yearly time period i just wonder if the panel members would agree that a six-year reporting back to parliament is appropriate is is it realistic to actually expect significant change within a six-year period or should it be a shorter period be interesting to hear different members of the panel's views on that right who's first then timescales mic thank you for i think well thank you convenience when you're on a steep learning curve i think six years is probably right it sounds very short but it's probably about right one thing i would say is that there is no mention of reviewing the impact assessment within the same time frame and i think that it should be coupled with a six-year review okay nobody else is agreeing day you perhaps have a point nobody seems to want to comment more or agree with what mic says well it would indeed yes but um they didn't offer right so there's full Hammond well just to say that species that have slow life histories if you like long your species six years is plenty enough really because unless there's a really serious impact on them which you would probably know about for other reasons you don't really need to monitor any more than six years even 10 years because these species have very long life cycles but i recognise of course that these species are if you'd like at the top of the food chain and and the species underneath are in many ways much more important because they're supporting those so but from long live species six years is fine why do you want to see something about that you're involved with some of the longer level of species yeah i can reiterate Phil's comments on the fact that six years isn't an adequate and accepted in other processes such as the sac process and the other processes involving um mutual 2000 so i think that six years is adequate however i would also admit as well when we consider some of the species we're looking at such as minkey whale and uh resource dolphin that there can be annual changes in the distribution of those species due to foraging and association with different key foraging sites so there may be importance for you know a smaller period of time but i think that it's why they said that six years is an adequate period for investigation do you actually have something to add callum to that or are we just going to reiterate what's been said i think you wanted to say something just now but the six year period well i was just responding to your delivery request didn't you you invited mike in but it was just to from from our perspective say six years seems not unrealistic that's good i like ferguson i just wanted to draw out a point that Lloyd Austin mentioned which was i think if i picked him up right under european legislation we're required to have an ecologically coherent network by 2020 and i wonder given given environment links insistence that the suggested network is probably not fully coherent without the addition of further mpa's how we can possibly achieve i'm 2020 is six years from now so how can we achieve that coherence to satisfy european standards within that time period if we stick to that six year time period well i we've we've not suggested that the additional sites or the additional features that we think are necessary for to make the network coherent need to wait for six years so i think you know we think that the announcement both of the mpa's and the draft spa's was a very positive move and a good step forward but that's not complete for the reasons we've explained earlier and there needs to be further development of that but that further development doesn't have to wait till the six year review the six year review is of the network as a whole whatever the network is but you can add at any time ministers can add at any time and in relation to the spa's i mean it's quite clear that the commission and the directive requires ministers to add further spa's i mean it was part of the announcement and they won't wait six years to to comply with that that's okay thank you creyden day yeah thank you computer i'm given that we've heard today about how we're embarking on a steep learning curve here i just wonder right now is our ability to assess improvement to measure it sufficiently strong and if it isn't will it be in six years time and i'm taking up ross doogle's point don't we need to determine now how much improvement is enough where do we need to be in six years time to be able to say yeah now we need to review it okay let's be more precise then yes lo i doston well my view is that that is about the question of setting conservation objectives the setting of conservation objectives what we want to achieve with these sites whether that for some people that might be the status quo for others it might be 10 increase in the size of our piece of habitat or a 20 increase in the population of a species or whatever but the important thing is that we have that debate about what our objectives are so that we know whether or not we've achieved them so to be clear do we have the ability to measure this accurately right across the range of the mpa is all the different not for everything everywhere but we have to do what we can with the knowledge that we've got and put in place the mechanisms to the research and the surveys to fill the fill the gaps in our knowledge is that why Richard Lochhead said in March that in the majority of mpa designations there will simply be a designation so that we are aware of the marine feature other mpas will have management plans attached them where that's required but i do not expect there to be a huge number of such mpas why do you think he said that well that was the issue that i was referring to earlier i was that we were concerned that they actually were going to have management measures for a minority of mpa's i mean we don't know how this is going to pan out but we think we need to be clear about what our conservation objectives are for all of the mpa's and where no intervention is needed to achieve those objectives then there's no need for any management but where intervention is needed then there should be management plans but there is a there needs to be a process to do both of those things determine the objectives and if those objectives need management implement the management and i i i don't think we're yet in a position to say what proportion of mpa's would be in one camp and what proportion would be in the other camp so we're slightly concerned that the cabinet secretary did make that statement that the majority would have no action you know i think there's another reason it's about staff and cash and resource yeah is that not central to the whole of this development that we're talking about at the moment and that indeed you know ross google hinted at it the question about whether you can have enough people actually working in this and how you actually fund that yeah i think the question of resource and whether there is adequate resource to deliver the objectives that everybody has signed up to and the act requires is is is something that's worth debating indeed is it worth campaigning about back to something that was said earlier that all that everybody talks about is best available science that is not necessarily good science best available science could be very little it can be someday going down with an aqualong and saying what i saw a flameshell you know it i'm not being facetious but there is a great range of it and the the best available science is not always good enough and i think you're right to convener that i don't think there is the staffing available to do this job for all the mpa's that are there and we've been at that point when there's all this kicked off you can set them you can do them but how are you going to monitor progress how are you going to do this we'll play our part but that's always a big gap okay mick borwell and then callum Duncan and this thank you convener because of that issue that there is lack of cash within government and its science advisers it brings me back to the point i may before about standards of evidence the sncb's when they're acting as statuary consultees have to say to industry when you're doing monitoring these are the questions that we need answered and if one of those questions is around the conservation objectives in the status of a site they need to say so and then we will undertake appropriate monitoring just a second point and i know i'm going back and i shouldn't on the coherence of the ecological network and the meeting the standard for the msfd in 2020 that is based on the regional sea which is the north sea so it's not just the scottish mpa's it's the entirety of the uk's mpa network which includes english mcz and the sac's so and callum Duncan um we could obviously do with more resources as monitoring's needed keep putting your hands out like this and so where is it going to come from but to pick up on ross's point that is um the the best available evidence does include very good quality citizen science data from sea search that's quality assured by by ngios so and that that data has been tested with commissioned reports from snh and has stood up very well um i i would also want to highlight the pick up on a point that mick made right at the start of this session about um data being available from oil and gas that's because and another sectors that's because there's requirements under eia and habitat regs appraisals for those industries to actually do surveys um particularly if they impact european marine sites offshore uh because um appropriate assessment is needed so that the burden of proof is on industry to prove that their activity would not damage a feature and uh and the you know it's important to um to to recognise that there's been a big ongoing discussion about that in relation to fishing um and um with a series of correspondences with the mmo in england and the conclusion of that was that um for sac's article 6 3 should apply and therefore a risk based review of fishing should should be triggered so there's a questionnaire about who you know where the where the burden of evidence gathering should be if an activity and and that that applies to whatever the activity is wishes to undertake uh some some activity some some development some work whatever the industry is so um it would be you know we welcome any um socioeconomic sector that can can provide data to prove that what they're doing won't have an impact oil and gas renewables all these sort of people and fishing that information is yeah and fisheries as well creme day just to be clear you're talking about if we wouldn't have an impact would the conservationist amongst us here today accept um evidence that was coming forward from the oil and gas sector for example if they broadened out their survey work to to assess perhaps improvement in the areas of mpa's would you accept that as robust and a baseline for making judgments i say in the perspective of a seabird ecologist that our knowledge of the distribution of seabirds at sea in uk waters is largely from work that was generated by island gas it's the european seabirds at sea database and that is fundamental for amongst other things to defining which areas should be considered as spas for seabirds foraging at sea so we do accept that there are a lot of scientific effort has gone into the development of that program of survey and and the science has been published and is robust and and so we would very much support the fact that the oil and gas industry has helped to develop that so in terms of what we're talking about limited governmental resource that could be supplemented by mc borwell's members and the work that they do and you would accept that yes and the offshore renewables developments are using the same european seabirds at sea methods for their sites as well and providing the data into a central database and briefly Lloyd Austin mike yeah i'd just like to support comments as well that in the same way as for seabirds many of the same methodologies developed are important for marine mammals and cetacean species as well and that really is fed into a large program of work in terms of the joint cetacean protocol at a uk and european level and also i imagine into the works of professor philhamond at smrew with regards to other large-scale surveys for marine mammals as well thank you uh Lloyd Austin yeah i'd agree entirely with what bob finness and mike has said and and with what mc said about the oil industry a lot of the developers provide a lot of information which is good science through eias and so forth the one caviar i would add to that is that in some circumstances some eia information is held to be commercially confidential and it's important that government finds a way of getting data in those documents into the wider public domain and are onshore the scottish wind farm bird monitoring group is doing good work with industry to bring that information together in order for it to be widely available and published and i think uh a mechanism like that in the marine environment would be worth exploring to make the information more available in the way that as bob has said oil industry information has been come available in the past so i think that the the one caviar i would say is it's all very good what's being done by different industries in different ways but making the data widely available to government and others is an important thing that needs to be done you'd have thought that that would have been part of the eia process that is available you would have thought so mc mic it isn't and there's a a group called the productive seas evidence group which is looking at how a voluntary current voluntary arrangement is made a legal requirement of licence but i would say that um we oil and gas we have a 30-year database of benthic data for the north sea that we publish and it's the raw data that we publish okay move on to another oh jenny hogan all right but you can just very very quick just to to reiterate that as well and and say that um there are other projects that are being looked at things like the offshore renewables joint industry project there's lots of discussions going on with marine scotland around ongoing monitoring for the offshore renewal sites so that's you know in addition to the requirements of eia so there are some initiatives already being discussed and taken forward that's useful to know angus mcdonald wants to kick off another question okay thanks convener on a slightly different tack but continuing with management issues as we know the licensed activities for existing operations in or near mpa's can continue as they are at present however any new or extended operation requiring consent will have to be assessed against the conservation objectives are panel members content to see existing license operations continue without assessing them against conservation objectives and are there any examples of currently licensed activities that could affect the conservation objectives i think that's a very good question i think ideally i would when we've put it in our our collective link response previously we would like to see an assessment of existing licensed activities against the conservation objectives for sites and the example i gave earlier of the the surge outfall in the mural bed serves in this instance as well you know theoretically you have a site that hasn't been legally recognised for a certain types of seabed and activities have been consented that might impact that site i don't have any particular ones in mind but that that point of principle stands i think that uh there should be a consideration of how how those existing activities are impacting the features um i have just thought of an example for example the fetlar to harold's wick site in shetland uh this is where the atlantic and the north sea meet we heard that earlier uh and it's uh an absolute um biodiverse hotspot for uh mural beds and horse muscle beds and other biogenic features in the seabed and there are a number of uh fish farms there uh but there are places in the site where uh and some of those fish farms are already on top of biogenic features so there might be instances where it would be worth looking at whether that's appropriate or not it's not saying there shouldn't be those activities there it's just to illustrate to the the committee that you know potentially you've got an activity in an existing in a new designation that might be having an impact on a feature that's newly legally recognised mick our stated position would be that if the evidence was sufficient to designate the site and the conservation objective is not recover then the existing activity is not having an effect okay that's lying down the gauntlet there um if there's nobody else wants to pick up on those points i think we move on to the next one which is about fisheries and voluntary management measures dave tomson much convener um i was noticing from some of the information here that there are three mpa voluntary measures that have been entered into by the sff the creel fishermen and the western else fishermen as association but i notice that there are other associations that aren't involved in that mulligan north west for instance and no doubt others and and they're late to south ar and west are rose upper lock fine um i was just wondering how comfortable people were that um these voluntary measures could run on for a while or how quickly would people wish them to be formalised if you like um rather than left as voluntary arrangements uh rose to go for that that's convener um i think it was a case of necessity that these voluntary measures came in as soon as the mpa's were designated then there were certain sites within these mpa's that had to have protection and voluntary measures were the way of doing it pending the fuller discussions which will i can't see what the outcome of that will be but it was a case of it had to be done straight away to protect Scottish Government in effect because i think the infraction proceedings could have taken place if it could be shown that they had not designated but not protected these particular features so that's why the voluntary measures came in they were discussed with well mulligan north west i'm surprised but they were involved in the discussions as well in terms of people who aren't signed up it's fine for those of you who have signed up to them the ones that haven't how do we ensure that they don't encroach and breach their the voluntary arrangements and that is a very difficult question to which i do not have an answer it's that it's anything that's voluntary and there are various other things which happened around the coast you're relying on the good sense of the majority to comply it's been portrayed as like this is necessary if we don't do this then you're looking at a big stick coming down somewhere so i've gone along with it and recognised that it needed to be done what the full term measures will be we nobody knows and at that point it will be hardened up but you will always get an element of free riding as it were on the backs of others we've got um carlem Duncan Lloyd and then i want to come in myself carlem i think the voluntary measures similar to what the shellfish shetland shellfish management organization i've done for shellfish uh there is you know is a is a good start um and it you know illustrates um uh the you know the the issues that will be discussed further down the line in terms of objectives because as the committee has probably heard we might have more ambitions for protection and recovery that that said we recognize these measures as a start um uh for the record um our response to what were presented as likely management options as part of the fisheries displacement study on eight insure mpa's is is on marine scotland website where we have set out the sort of measures that we think are needed and the voluntary measures that are you know don't go as far as that but those discussions are still to be had in terms of the principle of um voluntary measures uh we think it's of benefit to to the industry and everybody concerned that when the objectives have been agreed and management required has been agreed that the the measures to manage fishing are statutory and we think that's to everyone's benefit because everybody knows where they stand um it also means that if uh if a vessel flouts a statutory closure it doesn't bring the whole industry into disrepute um and i would also refer to a study that that was done by um and one of our NGO members down south looking at voluntary arrangements and where these have been put in place they haven't been very successful um as a whole um without wishing to um cast dispersions on on the fact that it's been done in the long term i think it's better for everybody that the measures become statutory um Lloyd Austin um yeah i'll just reiterate that i think uh i we we warmly welcomed the voluntary measures but i think the need to follow up with the discussions on objectives and management measures is is important and the reason that needs to happen and be moved into uh properly based um management measures is really answered by Dave Thompson supplementary question um you know those that are not signed up uh would get caught by the statutory measures and therefore that's why we'd like to see those discussions progressed and the process is implemented Dave Thompson it's convener thanks for these answers um of course the the the statutory thing yeah fine um the problem then arises with all of these things and the convener raised this earlier about how you how you police these things how you enforce these things because we're in a situation where uh public finances are being squeezed massively there's less and less um it could well be that that could continue over a number of years so there's no point in having laws and protections if you can't police them so i was just wondering if any of the members around the table had any answers uh to that Callum Duncan i think that's a really important point um i mean i think that the ideal scenario is that that all stakeholders recognise why measures are in place and the importance of them and uh and therefore wish to buy buy buy them so there's a culture of compliance that's the ideal scenario um and you know we'll um whilst these aren't fisheries management measures we would hope to continue making the point of the secondary benefits that can arise from from some of these protection measures because you know good examples from within the uh the british isles at lamblash bay isle of man show where there are statutory measures you see 30 three zero fold increases for example in isle of man in terms of numbers of scallops that's a fisheries management discussion i recognise that we see increases in lamblash bay in terms of lobster size so in terms of we know we would hope where where those measures are needed and we're not saying they're needed everywhere um those are opportunities to actually test the benefits and then uh and hopefully all locals say stakeholders see those benefits the culture of compliance is ideal um in terms of actually uh you know policing it where there are floutings of the law uh we would like to see vessel monitoring systems on you know i think we should consider looking at vessel monitoring on on smaller vessels as well um because with gps you know it's possible to see where vessel activity is happening um and we saw that in relation to los duoclon and oush recently which highlighted some activity on on protected features so the ideal world is cultural compliance which you know we think is not unattainable we've we've you see all of the world you see fishermen fishing the line because they see the spillover effects whether that's uh lee maroon reserve in new zealand or um the georges banks of northeast north america um but lots of discussions and uh studies to be done till till we get there in scotland i want to uh just to broaden us out a wee bit just in the same area we can talk about the on land uh you know monitoring that there should be now that includes inshore fishery groups which we haven't talked about and their relations to the mpa's because if they're going to work and they're going to develop then they have to actually be signed up to these things most of all because uh i have an example of a constituent gave me with regard to ferail and the several order there there's a degree of concern not about local boats floating the rules but boats from further afield i'll not mention exactly where and it comes down to the problem about whether there's onshore reviews and tie-up of the inshore fishery groups with the mpa development or several orders and the ships and aircraft that we have in the fishery protection squadron so should the fishery protection squadron also be an environmental protection squadron uh as part of its work so therefore need to be expanded ships and aircraft and so on which the government has at its disposal are extremely limited ross thanks convener at one point i'll bring up about the voluntary measures the voluntary measures as well as helping scottish government out of a hole were brought in simply because the rushed put statutory measures in place over the past number of years has been littered with unintended consequences and once they're in it's a dill's own job to get the bad stuff out of them and that's why he was agreed to do it on a voluntary basis pending proper joined up discussion on what should be the full measures and get it right from the start instead of getting rushing something in that was going to turn out to have unintended consequences i think on the monitoring side um i'll quote one skipper i know who's got a smaller boat which doesn't a isn't big enough for the regulations under vms and things like that he says if i start my wheelhouse and i do that and i do that my hands are out the window where am i going to put this bit of kit you're wanting me to put on board so there have been experiments done with a smaller system called sucker fish but the trials have been a bit iffy if i can put that way there's a lot of work being done on it it's been trialled in the south of south west of england around about line bay i think i've tried it but so far it's a work in progress that's good to know um Lloyd Austin and then phil Hammond i think the challenge of compliance is um an important one that we need to to work through as part of the uh the process i think um more ways of monitoring are desirable but i was just going to respond to to your question rob by ants indicating that actually the fisheries protection agency has been renamed marine scotland compliance which indicates it's there now to ensure compliance with all of the marine regulations irrespective of whether they're fisheries environmental or anything else and so i think whether they have enough resources is a question that we come back to uh or we dealt with earlier but i think you know they are a marine compliance agency now in in the round and i think whatever environmental training etc is needed in much the same way as the applies on land to wildlife and environmental police officers and uh ffiscals and so forth more more training and more activity is on these environmental compliance issues is is important but the more that we could achieve what callum called a culture of compliance the better so that that is a full back uh activity you know enforcement and prosecution is is is is the full back in the occasional circumstance rather than the only way in which compliance has achieved the better okay um we've got phil next yes following on that just to note that marine scotland already are using their fisheries protection aircraft to survey for marine species they've got a camera in there now which takes digital photography and they've asked us to see how that could be used to estimate the abundance of cetaceans so i think that's already happening i was wondering if mick could clarify for me whether there's any environmental monitoring from oil rigs at the moment you know when you talk about building up data is there anyone actually employed in the oil industry regarding the main marine environment and what you see from there um short answers no because um everybody on the installation has a job which is full time and there aren't the beds where somebody could be standing there observing birds or cetaceans i don't think would be the the short answer okay cctv then sorry ross no just just to let you know that the sff have employ marine mammal observers to go and survey ships for oil and gas yeah but so we're beginning to see of infrastructure being created uh callum was first actually yeah and just to say welcome sort of citizen scientists across all the the sectors helping build the evidence base but i just a very quick point which was the um you know the sucker fish type technology is mobile phone based we know those so um so that's addressing the point about the size of them but there's other technical issues there and Lloyd Austin to finish this but i was just going to comment on mixed point that a lot of mixed people who have jobs equally there are many good amateur naturalists amongst them who when they're off shift do make observations and input observations into particular bto type surveys for seabirds and equally similar citizen science projects for other species so there are observations although it's admittedly off shift time and by um you know good amateur naturalists and in the uk a huge amount of our knowledge of the natural environment is from that amateur naturalist tradition good thank you um but we're going to try and look at um further designations uh Nigel don't want to look forward we've talked about the ones that have been designated i'm conscious and it's already been mentioned that there are 14 special protection areas being discussed and i think to be consulted on uh and there are also four more mpa's to maybe be consulted on and i'd really be interested in in panellists thoughts about whether they're appropriate whether they wanted what they will achieve and what timetables we might be on please for example the sea of hebrides northeast lewis southern trench and the shant east bank mike timeliness of the designations thank you uh the time is those nations uh my uh icn task force on marine protected areas started last october was specifically for increasing and facilitating and bolstering efforts for marine mammals in these types of networks so i think that in terms of these sites being going forward and proposed uh i and colleagues would like to welcome those recommendations and think that it's a great leap forward for meeting those targets at the highest international levels um and with respect to the sites i think that with respect to minkie whales i think great efforts have been made going forward um but i will admit in terms of colleagues we do think that further efforts could be made with respect to additional sites for resource dolphins and a programme of work for white big dolphins a feature which wasn't identified for any sites okay um bob if i could comment in the context of seabirds um we have a lot of spas with breeding seabirds as a feature of the breeding spas um but that protection doesn't cover their activities at sea when they're feeding and i think it is crucially important that we have an spas designated for seabirds at sea one of the problems with that is identifying where they should be because it turns out that most of our seabirds are very mobile and they're very spread across the entire uk waters so if you want to find hotspots it's difficult to identify those hotspots because most of the north sea as far as seabirds is concerned is fairly similar habitat with fairly similar feeding opportunities so there are hotspots but they're not very obvious and they're only visible for some species and it becomes quite difficult to define those and i think that's been one of the challenges which has slowed up the process for seabirds it's fine for inshore species like divers in coastal areas but it's very much more difficult for pelagic seabirds and we do have a big challenge there and perhaps that leads on to the fact that for some of these species the more mobile species and it probably applies to marine mammals as well there is a need to to think that we need an ecosystem-based approach to conservation of those populations because site-based approaches may not be appropriate so i think we have to be aware of the fact that there's a continuum from things like black gillimots which stay in the place all the time and an mpa system is very appropriate through to the opposite end of the spectrum where birds are traveling literally hundreds of kilometres and are ranging over huge areas. Claudia Beamish Thank you convener it really follows on from Bob Furness's question about whether the seabird population can be protected and the way that SNH has said and i quote that the current work on marine SPAs is expected to complete the Scottish MPA network for seabirds and marine waterfowl and i wonder in view of Bob's remarks how how that could happen if there are other comments on that can i can i respond to that initially i think there will be some challenges for some species where it's going to be very difficult to define sites for them and and so it may be completed in terms of what it's straightforward to achieve but there may be holes and that may cause us problems but with a six-yearly review there's an opportunity to plug the hole can i briefly come back on that in view of your remark about the ecosystem-based approach how do you see that fitting in with the with the whole picture how could that be taken forward if this is going to be necessary in order to give seabirds protection well we might have to think in terms of protecting the resources that seabirds need in other words food on a wider scale and we might have to think about things like sand eel stocks in the whole of uk waters rather than in one specific little sand bank byd Euston and then Phil Hammond thank you convener i mean first of all i think we do welcome the announcement of the new tranche of draft sbas it's a very good step forward in terms of marine sbas i think it's important that we recognize that that's not actually the end i think uh the quote that claudia bemish um referred to talked about snh's current work which i don't think only includes that tranche of sbas because we're aware that there is work going on at the moment uh looking at the seabirds at sea data that bob and mick referred to earlier and also new data that's collected using these tags satellite tags that you put on seabirds to identify the hotspots and our understanding is that that analysis will or could will or could lead to further hotspots being identified as further sbas and i think that's important that that work is completed and if it does identify more sbas they are added to this tranche because if we don't do that we won't have a coherent network of sbas there are certainly some areas that we believe will be identified by that process that are not in this tranche that should be added i think in terms of bob's comment about the ecosystem approach i think this is a question that comes back to all the sort of widely dispersed and migratory species we were talking about whether that be seabirds citations sea trout and so on i think although there needs to be ecosystem wide measures taken this this is really about making sure that the planning which is really the ecosystem wide measures and site mechanisms work hand in hand and holistically i i think it's important that where you can identify feeding hotspots importance places for migration or or parts of a lifecycle you do have protected area mechanisms applied to bits of these migratory and mobile species lifestyle as part of the measures so they are complementary they're not alternatives you need sites to deal with some of the issues and ecosystem wide measures to deal with some of the others so you don't it's not an either or they're complementary the one question i would have on the draft sbas is it's scotish government and indeed other governments in the uk and across the EU policy that what's called proposed sbas are treated as if they are designated in relation to decisions taken affecting those that applies on land that's in scotish planning policy for instance and i would welcome some clarity from the scotish government as to whether or not the word draft has been picked to demonstrate that they're not proposed or whether it's just the different type of wording in other words my question is does the spp policy in relation to proposed sbas apply to these draft sbas the cabinet secretary about that next week for sure so just to wind up phil and callum phil yes so to follow on from the discussion about birds marine mammals are indeed very similar to sea birds in terms of life history and and their ecology my view is that marine protected areas must be seen as only part of the solution for conserving and protecting marine mammals because they do range very widely there may be some areas and perhaps the particularly the rysos dolphin proposed mpa is a good one where there's good evidence that these animals are seen there all the time and that's somewhere they like to be for other species you know maybe mpas are not not going to have that much effect marine mammals are already protected under the law what what i think we should think about is what are the other threats to marine mammals and they are things like by catching fisheries they are things like noise increasing noise from shipping and other disturbance these are not threats that you're going to mitigate by having mpas so i think following what was said about seabirds it has to be seen as part of the solution but certainly by no means the the only solution thank you for that uh callum Duncan thank you um dr mc tetley and Lloyd Austin have already outlined for citations and and seabirds why you know the network's not yet complete the snh and jncc advice recognised the four new sites are needed but the we don't agree with the conclusion that once there's those sites plus some of these spas the network will be complete for the reasons we've heard about citations and and seabirds but also basking sharks and others but also because of inherent points made in the advice uh the the the report to me in Scotland have early recognised that there were gaps in duplication a coherent network needs to protect enough of the populations and the extent of the range of species and habitats and has to have replication to to increase resilience and there's only one site for common skate there's recognition that that needs duplicated there's only going to be one site for basking shark there's only going to be one site for white beaked dolphin so with any advice that lack of duplication is recognised i also touched on earlier that um the spiny lobster heart colcol aggregations and borrowing and enemies are recognised as features that would benefit from area-based protection and just because suitable areas haven't been found for them doesn't make them any less uh important to get protection and then the last point is the they've stated that further research is needed to improve connectivity between sites so further research uh could be showing that some of the sites aren't close enough together and we need new sites to to get that connectivity yeah i thank you for that um and Mike Tately respond to to comments just just quickly it was a one site for Rizzo's dolphin just just just for record uh not white beaked dolphin but also to follow up on um Phil Hammond's comments uh i totally agree i think that uh spatial measures for conservation of cetaceans and marine mammals and mobile species require a holistic and well thought out management which encourages both sectoral management and also site-based protection methods so i totally agree with that i also agree that in some cases single mpa's with respects to achieving conservation objectives for a species of marine mammal in some times are not appropriate but the consideration of those mobile species and mpa's within a network to address those different areas of critical habitat where identifiable do and have been proven to work successfully for the conservation and conservation benefit of those species of mobile species and the ecosystem services that they generate so thank you everybody for the contributions that you've made uh as i alluded to earlier we're going to be questioning the cabinet secretary about these matters about the way we designate about the way we police the way that we fund uh we will be very searching of him to find out just exactly what he thinks the current state of play is and to explore uh the the evidence you provided us with uh in the context of the government actually carrying out so we look forward to that and i'd like to thank you all extremely uh even tempered and uh incisive in quite a number of ways uh for your contribution this afternoon as it is now and i want to bring this meeting to a formal close by saying that we'll be starting at 9 30 with the formal meeting next week and then deal with we're dealing with the agricultural holdings legislation review with the cabinet secretary and with the scottish government's designation of marine protected areas so with that i close the meeting and thank you for your attendance