oldharry
Well-known member
BORG has been asked to pass on the following message from Finding Sanctuary:
As the Dorset Liaison Officer for Finding Sanctuary my attention has been brought to a recent post on this blog regarding Studland and Finding Sanctuary. I understand that the MCZ (Marine Conservation Zone) process is a technical and complicated one and that it is very difficult to compress a whole days meeting in to a short post on a blog therefore I would urge anyone who wants to keep up to date with MCZs in the South West to look at the Finding Sanctuary Website which explains the process and has on it all the meeting reports in the ‘resources’ section.
The blog post has generated a lot of comments and I feel that I need to clarify a number of points.
Firstly, Finding Sanctuary’s job is to host a ‘Steering Group’ of Stakeholders who will decide on a proposed network of marine protected areas to submit to government (via Natural England and JNCC) for approval. The Steering Group has appointed a number of its members as a working group to do a lot of the initial work narrowing down the options. To make this work easier they are starting off with some general assumptions one of which is that there will not be restrictions on boats passing through or wishing to anchor in an MCZ. This is a general assumption though and might well not apply to all MCZs, it will depend on what has to be protected and is also subject to review by the Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies (Natural England, JNCC)
Secondly; there will be a number of smaller 'reference sites' where “all extraction, deposition or human-derived disturbance is removed or prevented.” This means that, amongst a number of activities, anchoring will not be allowed in reference areas. The working group has only just started to consider reference sites and has reached NO DECISIONS. There are a number of target species and habitats that need to be in a reference site and the Finding Sanctuary project team was asked to use its GIS (mapping computer) to identify some areas to focus on where a number of targets could possibly be protected in just one reference site. The Dorset Local MCZ Group meeting was a very useful opportunity for local stakeholder representatives to comment on these focus areas, suggesting changes, and/or recording their opinions. This input will be passed on to the working group so that they have the advantage of local knowledge and expertise when they are ready to make their decisions. So far no decisions have been reached on any reference sites.
A full report of the 25th January Dorset MCZ Local Group meeting will be posted on the Finding Sanctuary website in the next week or so.
www.finding-sanctuary.org
John Weinberg
Dorset Liaison Officer
07788 675 294
As the Dorset Liaison Officer for Finding Sanctuary my attention has been brought to a recent post on this blog regarding Studland and Finding Sanctuary. I understand that the MCZ (Marine Conservation Zone) process is a technical and complicated one and that it is very difficult to compress a whole days meeting in to a short post on a blog therefore I would urge anyone who wants to keep up to date with MCZs in the South West to look at the Finding Sanctuary Website which explains the process and has on it all the meeting reports in the ‘resources’ section.
The blog post has generated a lot of comments and I feel that I need to clarify a number of points.
Firstly, Finding Sanctuary’s job is to host a ‘Steering Group’ of Stakeholders who will decide on a proposed network of marine protected areas to submit to government (via Natural England and JNCC) for approval. The Steering Group has appointed a number of its members as a working group to do a lot of the initial work narrowing down the options. To make this work easier they are starting off with some general assumptions one of which is that there will not be restrictions on boats passing through or wishing to anchor in an MCZ. This is a general assumption though and might well not apply to all MCZs, it will depend on what has to be protected and is also subject to review by the Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies (Natural England, JNCC)
Secondly; there will be a number of smaller 'reference sites' where “all extraction, deposition or human-derived disturbance is removed or prevented.” This means that, amongst a number of activities, anchoring will not be allowed in reference areas. The working group has only just started to consider reference sites and has reached NO DECISIONS. There are a number of target species and habitats that need to be in a reference site and the Finding Sanctuary project team was asked to use its GIS (mapping computer) to identify some areas to focus on where a number of targets could possibly be protected in just one reference site. The Dorset Local MCZ Group meeting was a very useful opportunity for local stakeholder representatives to comment on these focus areas, suggesting changes, and/or recording their opinions. This input will be passed on to the working group so that they have the advantage of local knowledge and expertise when they are ready to make their decisions. So far no decisions have been reached on any reference sites.
A full report of the 25th January Dorset MCZ Local Group meeting will be posted on the Finding Sanctuary website in the next week or so.
www.finding-sanctuary.org
John Weinberg
Dorset Liaison Officer
07788 675 294