The Government’s diminished ambition to restore UK seas is nonsensical, writes Dr Lissa Batey head of marine conservation at The Wildlife Trusts

The Government’s diminished ambition to restore UK seas is nonsensical, writes Dr Lissa Batey head of marine conservation at The Wildlife Trusts -

The health of UK seas is at rock bottom – they’re in crisis – so when the UK Government announced two years ago that it would be introducing a minimum of five Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) to English waters, we cheered and hailed it as a landmark moment for marine conservation. The Wildlife Trusts had spent four years campaigning for HPMAs and over 17,000 of our supporters had backed our calls – yet yesterday we learnt, via newspaper reports, that only three such special sites will be designated.

grey seal lying on seaweed covered rocks surrounded by water — Grey seal hauled out on rocks on the North Wales coast (image: pixabay)

Three is better than none, and it is still amazing that we will be making history in designating highly protected sites for the first time. But it’s nothing like enough – here’s why…

Nature is in big trouble and plummeting at a rate never seen before in history. Decade after decade we have continued to see declines in our wildlife – with 1 in 7 species in the UK now under threat from extinction. Despite all the ‘blue planet moments’ and Sir David Attenborough’s call to action, we are failing to turn the tide and bring wildlife back.

We have lost 20% of coastal habitat in England since 1954, more than 90% of our native oysters reefs in England since the mid 1800s, and up to 92% of seagrass from UK seas. The common skate is common no-more. Populations of angel shark have declined by 99%, basking sharks by 95% since the 1800s too – these are all trends we need to halt, urgently.

This is why designating highly protected sites are so crucially important. They provide nature with a lifeline – a chance to recover. Our shallow seas, diverse seabeds and deep underwater canyons can be healthy, productive and full of life once more. The government came up with a longlist of over 30 important places that deserve the highest protection and whittled it down to five precious places. Now we discover that only three have made the cut and the long term health of our seas has been sacrificed to the short term interests of the fishing industry – even though the industry has the most to gain from the spillover benefits of HPMAs of increased crab, lobster and other commercial species.

Defra has yet to reveal the site boundaries for the chosen three HPMAs so we can’t calculate the area covered by the three sites of Allonby Bay, Dolphin Head and North-East of Farnes Deep – but I can tell you now that these alone won’t be enough; not when you consider the competing pressures our seas