Call for new form of marine protection backed by Northumberland Wildlife Trust

It has joined 45 other wildlife trusts from across the UK in calling on the government for Highly Protected Marine Areas to be delivered within a year.

The Benyon review of Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs), published by Defra, recommends that HPMAs should be an essential part of the UK network for protection and recovery of the marine environment.

Duncan Hutt, Northumberland Wildlife Trust’s head of living landscapes and conservation, said: “Our seas are in an impoverished state and it’s hard for our generation to comprehend how abundant our waters once were.

“Cod were once as long and wide as humans are tall, and whales, dolphins and basking sharks were many times more common than they are today.

“We need to let the sea show us what it’s capable of. This publication proposes a vital way of achieving marine recovery. We want to see real ambition from the Government with a commitment to HPMA delivery plan agreed before World Oceans Day in 2021.

“Existing Marine Protected Areas are limited in their ability to restore habitats and wildlife because their remit to protect nature only extends as far as maintaining the status quo. In these areas only some of the most damaging activities are prevented and even then, only in some locations.

Duncan concludes: “In Highly Protected Marine Areas, on the other hand, all damaging activities including fishing, dredging, construction and sea angling would be banned. This new type of designation means that nature could properly recover.

“HPMAs could be monitored to allow us to understand what a thriving seabed and restored marine life really means. They could set a bar against which other sorts of protected areas could be measured.”

Northumberland Wildlife Trust, which has nature reserves along Druridge Bay believes that HPMAs should be designated in each regional sea, in both inshore and offshore English waters, encompassing a range of habitats so that experts can study how recovery works in different ecosystems.

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