UK Government Responds to Environmental Audit Committee Report.
The UK government’s response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s report, ‘Governing the marine environment,’ has been published.
The report contained 16 recommendations across four main areas: marine governance and stakeholder engagement, marine planning, marine protection and recovery, and international marine treaties.
In response to the report, the UK Government stated that their ‘policy is not to introduce whole-site bans on bottom-towed fishing gear in MPAs. Our approach is to only restrict fishing which is assessed as damaging to the specific protected features in each MPA, based on advice from the Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies (Natural England and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee). Sometimes management measures will involve a ban across the whole site, where the features to be protected cover the whole site, and in other cases they will not.
To read the full report click here