Marine Areas
Nationally-important areas are an important mechanism for
delivering conservation of those marine landscapes, habitats and
species which have the most overall value for nature conservation
and which are also susceptible to harm from human activities. The
value of identifying important areas for biodiversity is that these
areas make an essential contribution to meeting the objective of
maintaining the range and scale of biodiversity present in the
country. Also, important areas should not be identified in
isolation, but as components of an ecologically-coherent network of
areas.
The Pilot project recommends that an
ecologically-coherent network of nationally-important areas for the
Regional Sea should be identified and that proportionate measures
should be taken to protect these areas from harm as a result of
human activities.
A separate report on identification of areas gives the
outcomes of testing criteria for identifying important areas (
Lieberknecht et al, 2004b)and
presents a process for selecting areas. Some alternative methods
for identifying areas are discussed and the use of a reserve
selection software tool Marxan is discussed The principles of an
ecologically coherent network are set out in a report by York
University also available for download (
Roberts et al, 2003).