PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Marine Protected Areas (23 November 2017)

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress his Department has made on completing (a) the UK’s Marine Protected Area designations by 2018 and (b) the third tranche of English Marine Conservation Zones.

Asked by:
Kerry McCarthy (Labour)

The UK has made good progress towards protecting our native marine species and habitats. Over 23% of UK waters are now protected within Marine Protected Areas. This includes 296 sites (excluding Isle of Man and the Channel islands) covering an area of 206,000km².

The UK’s network of marine Special Areas of Conservation is now largely complete. Earlier this year, we classified additional marine Special Protection Areas for birds. Further such sites are due for classification in the near future. These will be in addition to over 100 existing Special Protection Areas with marine components in our network.

A third and final tranche of Marine Conservation Zones will be consulted on in the first half of 2018 with designations to be completed within 12 months of consultation. We are aiming for the third tranche to complete our contribution to the international ecologically coherent network in the north east Atlantic and also our domestic obligation to form a network of sites which protect the range of features in the UK marine area.

Answered by:
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Conservative)
1 December 2017