Translating volunteer recording into marine
conservation action
Alan Law
Marine Director, Natural England
About Natural England
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Statutory advisor on the natural environment.
Purpose: “to ensure that the natural environment is
conserved, enhanced and managed for the benefit
of current and future generations, thereby
contributing to sustainable development”.
Marine remit covers England’s territorial waters to
12nm
2200 staff of which c170 engaged in marine work.
 Work on identification of Marine Protected
Areas in English waters for Defra
 Statutory advice to Industries & Regulators
 Monitoring and management advice for MPAs
 Proposals for new SACs and SPAs
Outline
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Current state of knowledge about our seas
The Marine Protected Area network
Evidence requirements for MPAs
Use of evidence in MCZ designation
Evidence challenges around identifying
and designating MPAs
• Opportunities for volunteer input
– Now
– Future
Starting point land vs sea
• First SSSI notified in 1949
• Currently over 4,000 SSSIs and 224 NNRs covering >1
million hectares (c8%) of England’s land area
• Over 60 years of research, monitoring and
experimentation
• First marine nature reserve in 1986
• Marine SACs first designated in 2005
• Marine protected areas currently cover around 25% of
England’s sea area
• Comprehensive research and monitoring programmes
mainly in last 10-15 years.
State of marine knowledge
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Provision of evidence in marine environment is
problematical, particularly outside designated sites
because:
– The history of comprehensive evidence gathering
at sea is relatively short compared to evidence
gathering on land and comprehensive monitoring
programmes are not yet in place
– The difficulty and cost of access
We lack information on:
• Distribution of marine habitats and species
• Condition of marine features
• Pressures and impacts
• How the marine environment is changing
The UK MPA network
One network, six designations
What evidence do we need?
Evidence is required for:
• Setting guidelines and targets
• MPA identification
– the location of features
• MPA designation
– the location and extent of features
• Developing MPA advice on:
– feature condition
– feature sensitivity
– the location and intensity of activities
Levels of evidence - comparison of evidence for
identification SACs and MCZs
SACs
MCZs
Type of evidence
Ecological & physical
Ecological, physical &
socio-economic
Science input
Through survey
Guideline preparation
Site identification
Primary survey
Existing information, plus
survey where needed
Evidence quality
High – through dedicated Variable
survey to meet objectives
Features
Few (Annex 1)
Many
Cost of obtaining
evidence
High
Low (initially)
Stakeholder involvement
Through consultation
Identification &
consultation
Stakeholder challenge
High
High
Marine conservation zone project
• Regional projects worked to national
guidance
• Provided with national ecological and
socio-economic data, supplemented
with local data and information
• Considered “best available”
ecological and socio-economic
evidence to identify sites. Projects’
recommendations identify where
consensus could not be reached.
• RSG members were requested to
represent their sector and engage
them between meetings. Some
stakeholders struggled to engage.
MCZ project recommendations
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127 rMCZs – 1205 features
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15% Defra marine area
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65 Reference areas
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2,500+ interviews
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150+ negotiation meetings
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600,000 stakeholder
interests
Marine conservation zones – designation
proposals
• 31 sites proposed for designation
in the first tranche
• Reasons for not taking sites
forward in the first tranche (or at
all) due to:
– Socio-economic concerns
– Level of evidence needed to
designate (and manage) MCZs
is higher than “best available”
– Insufficient evidence and/or
low confidence in the available
evidence
Summary of data issues
• Sites were identified on the basis of the best available
evidence but this has, in many cases, been deemed
insufficient
• Evidence often a combination of modelled data and
direct survey
– Collected by different methods at different times
– Often conflicting or out of date
• For many habitat and species features confidence in
their presence and extent is low
Opportunities for volunteer input to improve the
evidence base
Types of evidence that volunteers can
contribute to:
• Increasing our understanding of the
presence and distribution of habitats and
species
– More scope for volunteer involvement
– Can often be done from the shore
– Reduced need for specialised equipment
• More detailed work to map the extent
particularly of subtidal features
– More costly
– Less accessible to amateurs
– Often requires specialist equipment
Shore-based opportunities
• The Shore Thing – co-ordinated by
MarLIN
• Shoresearch - coordinated by the
Wildlife Trusts
• These projects:
• Provide opportunities for a wide
range of participants from schools
and community group to families
on a day out and more serious
recorders
• Provide standard survey
methodologies
• Contribute data, particularly on the
presence of species, to the NBN
©JNCC
Improving the evidence base for MCZs – a case
study
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©Lin Baldock
Cromer Shoal chalk beds rMCZ, North Norfolk Coast
– Recommended by the Net Gain regional MCZ
project for:
• High energy infralittoral rock
• Moderate energy infralittoral rock
• Moderate energy circalittoral rock
• Subtidal chalk
• North Norfolk Coast (subtidal) geological
features
• Extent of chalk reef makes it amongst the longest
(c20 miles) chalk reefs in Europe
• Not included in the proposed tranche 1 MCZs due to
lack of certainty in the features
Working collaboratively to improve the evidence base
• Included in the Cefas verification surveys which
covered only part of the site
• The site has been dived extensively by local
Seasearch volunteers who have gathered
records, photo and video footage
• This created an opportunity for Natural England,
Seasearch and Cefas to work together to fill the
gaps
- Funding provided by Natural England
- Advice on methodology provided by Cefas
- Surveys carried out by Seasearch
• Survey methodology developed to improve
usability of volunteer-collected data
©JNCC
Future opportunities
Stretching the definition of “volunteer”
• Harnessing the power of those already on the water
– Fishermen
– Recreational boat users
Improving technology and techniques – new
possibilities?
• DNA techniques – could water samples for DNA
analysis one day be collected by anyone with a boat?
• Smaller and cheaper remote sensing equipment –
could this in the future be accessible to recreational
boat users?
• Developing mobile apps to make it easier to record
data
Evidence challenges in the marine environment summary
• Our basic knowledge of marine ecosystems lags far behind our
understanding of terrestrial ecosystems
• In particular we lack knowledge and understanding of:
– The location and extent of features
– The condition of marine features
– What our monitoring is telling us about quality and change
• Our evidence comes from many sources of variable quality and
distribution
• The costs of collecting evidence in the marine environment is
extremely high and resources from traditional sources are reducing
• There is increasing pressure to have more, and more detailed
information about marine features. There is no set evidence ‘bar’ for
SACs or MCZs. When do we have enough?
Summary
• There are many current opportunities for
volunteers to contribute to the marine evidence
base both to collect broader distributional
information and to be involved in more targeted
and comprehensive surveys.
• There is a role for schools and community groups,
interested individuals, those who are using our
seas both for work or recreational purposes.
• Improving and cheaper technology and
methodologies are opening up possibilities of
collecting information on a wider scale.
• The question is how to harness the enthusiasm we
know is out there and to ensure that the
information collected is made widely available.
Alan Law
Marine Director, Natural England
alan.law@naturalengland.org.uk
Base data used
• Provided nationally
– Broad-scale habitat map
– Locations of rare, threatened &
declining species & habitats
– Socio-economic data layers
– Existing MPAs
• Additional local information
– Habitats and species
– Inshore fishing and recreation
• Data issues
– Conflicting/out of date information
– Provenance of stakeholder data