Marine and Coastal Access Act
On Thursday 12th November the Marine and Coastal Access Bill received Royal Assent and became The Marine and Coastal Access Act!
This legislation is a once-in -a-lifetime opportunity to put things right for the marine environment, and has many welcome proposals. Our top priority is for the Act to deliver the means and the mandate to better protect marine wildlife by setting up an ecologically coherent network of well-protected sites, including highly protected areas, throughout the UK seas.
During the 6 months that the Bill spent in the House of Lords, we succeeded in securing the following improvements:
- A clear duty to designate Marine Conservation Zones and, in doing so, to contribute to a network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
- Clear and repeated statements of the Government’s commitment to an ‘ecologically coherent’ network of MPAs, together with references to ecological coherence in policy documents and in the Bill’s Explanatory Notes. While it has not been possible to get the words ‘ecologically coherent’ in the Bill itself, we are satisfied with the progress made.
- Addition of ‘reckless damage’ to the general offence of damaging an MCZ (previously only ‘intentional damage’ was included).