The Marine
and Coastal Access Act creates a new type of
Marine Protected Area (MPA), called a Marine Conservation Zone
(MCZ). MCZs will protect nationally important marine
wildlife, habitats, geology and geomorphology and can be designated
anywhere in English and Welsh inshore and UK offshore waters. In
English inshore and English, Welsh and Northern Irish offshore
waters MCZs will be identified through the Marine Conservation Zone Project. In Welsh
inshore waters there will be a small number of Highly
Protected Marine Conservation Zones identified. Sites will
be selected to protect not just the rare and threatened, but the
range of marine wildlife.
The management measures required within MCZs
will be decided on a site-by-site basis and will depend on what the
site has been designated for. In a similar way to protected areas
on land, there will be sites where some activities are not allowed
but others can occur, or where there are seasonal restrictions on
activities rather than a complete ban. Not all sites will
need the same management measures and there is no presumption that
any specific type of activity will be restricted. There
may however, be some sites where many activities are
restricted.
MCZs, together with other types of MPA, will deliver the
Government's aim for an 'ecologically coherent network of
Marine Protected Areas'. This means the MPA network will
be a collection of areas that work together to provide more
benefits than an individual area could on its own. To provide
further information on other types of MPA, JNCC have produced a
document called "Different Types of Marine Protected
Area". This document will be regularly updated as the situation
progresses.