oldharry
Well-Known Member
A report from the Commons select Committee on Marine Science was published last Wednesday, and the press leapt on the call for a speeding up of the MCZ process.
A summary by the Chairman Andrew Miller MP, and a link to the report itself can be found here: http://www.parliament.uk/business/c...hnology-committee/news/marine-science-report/ Miller is quoted saying: “Site selection should be based on the best available evidence - the selection process should not be stalled by an unattainable threshold for certainty.”
We say that Government should not be rushed in to using inadequate or questionable evidence to set up conservation measures which compromise local communities and businesses.
Having spent a huge amount of time and money (the Natural England report alone cost £12.8m), does the Government really want to compromise the process by faulty information, and decisions based on ill informed assumptions? The eelgrass / anchoring debate for example is based on a completely false premise as spelled out on the BORG website by Dr Simons. BORG had made two submissions to the Commons Marine Science sub committee, both of which were accepted and indexed as part of this report. The remedies recommended by the Conservationists would in Studland alone cost an estimated £800,000. Repeat that across all the other Eelgrass anchorages, there is a colossal bill which would at best have a very marginal effect on the health of the eelgrass it is supposed to protect, and the cost of which would have to come out of our pockets. Yet the conservation gain in terms of improved eelgrass health has been shown by BORG, by Seastar, and a number of other experts as being at best marginal.
We need to be contacting our MPs now about this: does the government REALLY want to compromise the MCZ project by rushing in before the true facts are established? In a great many cases, MCZ designation has been deferred because DEFRA was not satisfied that the Social and Economic impacts had been worked out. That is, the real cost to you and I, and to the leisure boating support industry as well as the tourist and holiday trade has simply not been evaluated. Does the government REALLY want to rush in and find itself putting hundreds of jobs at risk by limiting or closing access to popular holiday areas ?
A clear commercial example is the call to close the big ship anchorage off Bembridge: the potential loss of trade to the port of Southampton has not even been evaluated. Yet in real terms conservation gains from closing it would be small. The conservation process should not be driven by an unattainable threshold of perfection. Wherever Natural England have identified a feature that is seen to have been even slightly compromised by human activity or influence , the report calls for measures to allow it to return to its fully natural state. In the modern world that counsel of perfection is surely an equally unattainable objective ?
So read the report, or at least the summary in the link above, and if you agree with me, get on to your MP while the report is still fresh in their minds!
A summary by the Chairman Andrew Miller MP, and a link to the report itself can be found here: http://www.parliament.uk/business/c...hnology-committee/news/marine-science-report/ Miller is quoted saying: “Site selection should be based on the best available evidence - the selection process should not be stalled by an unattainable threshold for certainty.”
We say that Government should not be rushed in to using inadequate or questionable evidence to set up conservation measures which compromise local communities and businesses.
Having spent a huge amount of time and money (the Natural England report alone cost £12.8m), does the Government really want to compromise the process by faulty information, and decisions based on ill informed assumptions? The eelgrass / anchoring debate for example is based on a completely false premise as spelled out on the BORG website by Dr Simons. BORG had made two submissions to the Commons Marine Science sub committee, both of which were accepted and indexed as part of this report. The remedies recommended by the Conservationists would in Studland alone cost an estimated £800,000. Repeat that across all the other Eelgrass anchorages, there is a colossal bill which would at best have a very marginal effect on the health of the eelgrass it is supposed to protect, and the cost of which would have to come out of our pockets. Yet the conservation gain in terms of improved eelgrass health has been shown by BORG, by Seastar, and a number of other experts as being at best marginal.
We need to be contacting our MPs now about this: does the government REALLY want to compromise the MCZ project by rushing in before the true facts are established? In a great many cases, MCZ designation has been deferred because DEFRA was not satisfied that the Social and Economic impacts had been worked out. That is, the real cost to you and I, and to the leisure boating support industry as well as the tourist and holiday trade has simply not been evaluated. Does the government REALLY want to rush in and find itself putting hundreds of jobs at risk by limiting or closing access to popular holiday areas ?
A clear commercial example is the call to close the big ship anchorage off Bembridge: the potential loss of trade to the port of Southampton has not even been evaluated. Yet in real terms conservation gains from closing it would be small. The conservation process should not be driven by an unattainable threshold of perfection. Wherever Natural England have identified a feature that is seen to have been even slightly compromised by human activity or influence , the report calls for measures to allow it to return to its fully natural state. In the modern world that counsel of perfection is surely an equally unattainable objective ?
So read the report, or at least the summary in the link above, and if you agree with me, get on to your MP while the report is still fresh in their minds!
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