Independent report

Benyon review Into Highly Protected Marine Areas: Final report - executive summary

Updated 17 August 2022

Forty percent of England’s seas are designated as Marine Protected Areas (MPA). However, the government’s Marine Strategy assessment^{[footnote 1]} shows that the environment is not in a healthy state. This Review asks whether areas with higher levels of protection can enable a greater recovery of the marine ecosystem.

The sea has provided food, materials and recreational opportunities for thousands of years. Beneath the waves, a vast number of species live on or in rocky, sandy and muddy seabeds, and in the water column. Human activities have a significant effect on these habitats and species. To understand the impact of these activities, and to better understand the sea’s condition if recovered to a more natural state, this Review explores the potential for areas with high levels of protection. To be successful, such areas must exclude all extractive and depositional use and prevent damaging levels of other activities.

This Review answers the following questions:

• what are Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) and should they be part of marine management?
• what opportunities and challenges do HPMAs create?
• how should government select HPMAs?
• how will HPMAs work?
• how should pilot HPMAs be selected?

1. What are HPMAs and should government introduce them?

The UK’s current network of MPAs protects discrete habitats and species while allowing sustainable use to continue. This means that extractive and depositional activities continue in many such sites, albeit under strict conditions. While important for overall marine conservation, these MPAs do not allow ecosystems to fully recover or deliver the full range of ecosystem services.

HPMAs allow marine ecosystems to recover to a mature state. By taking a ‘whole site approach’ to designation, thereby protecting all habitats and species in their boundaries, HPMAs give nature the best chance to thrive.

HPMAs will support delivery of government’s ambition to:

i. leave nature in a better state than we found it as set out in the 25 Year Environment Plan

ii. reach ‘Good Environmental Status’ as set out in the UK Marine Strategy

iii. sustainably manage, protect and preserve the ocean through a co‑ordinated approach as set out The Commonwealth Blue Charter

iv. conserve at least 10% of coastal and marine areas, consistent with national and international law and based on the best available scientific information as set out the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

v. safeguard at least 30% of the world’s ocean by 2030, establishing and leading a Global Ocean Alliance

vi. be consistent with government’s Blue Belt policies for the ocean under its control

For these reasons, the Panel’s headline recommendation is that HPMAs are an essential component of the Marine Protected Areas network, and government should introduce them into Secretary of State waters^{[footnote 2]}. The Panel makes the following recommendations in support of HPMA introduction:

1.1 Recommendations

1) HPMAs should be defined as areas of the sea that allow the protection and recovery of marine ecosystems. They prohibit extractive, destructive and depositional uses and allow only non‑damaging levels of other activities.

2) Government should introduce HPMAs in conjunction with the existing MPA network. In many instances, sections of existing MPAs can be upgraded to HPMAs.

3) Government must set conservation objectives for HPMAs that allow full recovery of the marine environment and its ecological processes.

4) Government must take a ‘whole site approach’ to HPMAs to conserve all habitats and species within the site boundary. This includes mobile and migratory species that visit or pass through the site.

2. What are the social and economic opportunities and challenges around introducing HPMAs?

HPMAs have potential social and economic benefits. These include increased tourism and recreational activities, opportunities for scientific research and education, and positive impacts on human health. In addition, HPMAs can enhance the aesthetic, cultural and religious significance of the area and have a range of non‑use and intrinsic values. Positive feelings about HPMAs may be expressed in terms of obligation – a sense that they help fulfil a duty to protect the marine environment.

HPMAs may bring social and economic challenges because of exclusion of certain activities and subsequent loss of economic opportunities. These challenges include halting and/or displacement of fishing effort, as well as a range of other commercial activities in the marine environment, leading to increased competition for space.

It is clear from the Call for Evidence, stakeholder engagement and previous designation processes, that the fishing industry may be most negatively impacted by the introduction of HPMAs. The exclusion of fisheries from within HPMA boundaries will lead to loss of catching opportunities in that area. The negative impacts of fishing displacement are often experienced most by small‑scale fisheries as they are less able to relocate, and/or the cost of fishing elsewhere is too high. Thus, the Panel are keenly aware that in comparison to other marine industries, small scale local fishers may suffer financial impacts as a result of HPMA introduction.

The potential advantages of HPMAs for the fishing industry were considered by the Panel. Over time, benefits such as spillover and boundary effects can accrue to small scale local fishers. Therefore, given the strength of the biodiversity benefits which HPMAs generate and the fact there are at present no HPMAs designations, the Panel is strongly in favour of their introduction. However, it is also the Panel’s view that government must acknowledge and mitigate the impacts of HPMAs on fishing and other marine industries, without compromising HPMA objectives. The Panel’s recommendations on nesting HPMAs within existing MPAs, on thorough consultation and on co‑management all seek to address this objective.

2.1 Recommendations

5) Government and others should use HPMAs as an opportunity to increase public awareness of, and engagement with, the marine environment.

6) Government and local authorities should seek to maximise the direct and indirect social, economic and cultural benefits of HPMA designation.

7) Government should acknowledge displacement in its decision making during HPMA designation. It should put strategies in place to support marine uses and avoid creating new problems from moving pressures to other parts of the marine environment.

8) Government should plan the sustainable and equitable use of the marine environment. This includes ensuring that Marine Plans are sufficiently spatially prescriptive to address competing demands on space, alongside the need to allow nature to recover.

3. The path to successful HPMA identification

To select potential HPMAs, government should prioritise areas for recovery potential and benefits to nature (see ‘How should government identify HPMAs’). Government must also work with sea users, other stakeholders and local communities to minimise the consequences of displacement of activities. To do this, the principles of transparency and early, continuous engagement with a diverse range of stakeholders in HPMA site identification and implementation must be followed. Government should consider which legislative tools to use and gather supporting evidence, but these should not become barriers to introducing HPMAs.

3.1 Recommendations

9) Government should adopt the principles of transparency and early, continuous engagement with a range of stakeholders in HPMA site consideration.

10) Government should use ‘best available evidence’ to designate HPMAs and should not use a lack of perfect evidence as a reason to delay HPMA designation.

11) Government must introduce and manage HPMAs using quick and pragmatic legislative approaches.

4. How should government identify HPMAs?

HPMAs facilitate ecosystem recovery and protection. Therefore, government should select sites on ecological merit.

Government should identify sites for HPMA designation using the principles of ecological importance; naturalness, sensitivity and potential to recover; and ecosystem services. Social and economic principles are a secondary filter: once ecological principles are met sites are selected to minimise any negative effects on certain groups. In applying these principles, HPMA designations must cover a variety of seabed habitats to support recovery of a full range of species and ecosystem functions. To reduce the effects of climate change and improve climate resilience in our seas HPMAs should aim to protect blue carbon habitats.

HPMAs will benefit any part of the ocean. However, the Panel recommends they are located within existing MPAs, allowing the wider MPA to act as a buffer zone to support and evaluate their recovery.

4.1 Recommendations

12) Government should identify sites for HPMA designation using the principles of ecological importance; naturalness, sensitivity and potential to recover, and ecosystem services. Social and economic principles are a secondary filter.

13) HPMAs should be located within existing MPAs as the existing site will act as a buffer zone to the HPMA. However, in the future alternative locations could be considered, such as co‑location with existing and emerging marine industries.

14) In identifying HPMAs, government should consider blue carbon habitats to improve the climate resilience of the seas.

5. How can government make HPMAs work?

To benefit from high levels of protection, many activities within HPMAs should cease after site designation. For example, fishing, construction, dredging, sewage and other discharges, dumping, littering and anchoring are not compatible with achieving recovery^{[footnote 3]}. However, HPMAs would not be ‘no‑go zones’ and people could visit and use them for non‑damaging levels of recreational activities such as surfing, scuba diving and kayaking.

To be successful, HPMAs need a combination of appropriate and well‑funded management and simple, easily assessible guidance for marine users. Therefore, HPMA monitoring and evaluation, enforcement and compliance will require continuous investment of funds and resources from government. Where practical, government should work with sea users to co‑manage sites, and encourage the use of novel technologies for enforcement and management.

5.1 Recommendations

15) Government should adopt co‑management principles where possible, to agree effective management in partnership with sea users.

16) Government must issue guidance on permitted activities within HPMAs, underpinned by a simple categorisation approach aligned to International Union for Conservation of Nature categories.

17) Management bodies will need to set out clearly their enforcement responsibilities which will be critical to HPMA success and required by legislation; they should also develop, where possible, voluntary approaches and codes of conduct with stakeholder user groups (particularly for low‑impact activities).

18) To increase compliance and reduce enforcement demands, government and marine managers should engage with stakeholders early and regularly, on all aspects of the HPMA process.

19) Technological advancements, including vessel monitoring, should be used to ease the burden of enforcement and monitoring of HPMAs.

20) To establish comparative baselines, the monitoring and evaluation of biological, social and economic processes and effects of HPMAs must begin before designation and continue long term.

21) Sufficient funding is required for the designation, management, monitoring and enforcement of HPMAs. Government must make available resources proportionate to the scale of any designated HPMA.

22) In the longer term, government should reconsider existing marine governance to ensure current structures do not hinder the introduction of HPMAs.

6. How could government select pilot HPMAs?

Due to the restrictions arising from COVID‑19 the Panel did not fully analyse pilot site recommendations. However, the Panel noted that one of the conditions set for the Review was to recommend a maximum of five pilot sites. The Panel considered this to be the bare minimum required to evidence the success of HPMA introduction. Instead, to address the variation in environments and activities, pilot sites should have a geographic spread covering nearshore, inshore and offshore areas and different regional seas.

The Review’s ‘Call for Evidence’ provided a number of areas that respondents recommended as suitable for HPMAs, see Annex 5. Government should use this as a starting point for identifying pilot HPMAs.

6.1 Recommendations

23) Supporting evidence for identifying pilot HPMAs should be taken from a wide a range of sources including statutory bodies, academia, environmental NGOs and industry.

24) Government could use the list of sites recommended to the Review as a starting point in any future HPMA process.

25) Five pilot sites are the bare minimum and to cover different environments and activities, the number of pilot sites should have sufficient geographic spread to cover nearshore, inshore and offshore areas and different regional seas.

1. Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (2019). Marine strategy part one: UK updated assessment and Good Environmental Status. ↩

2. This was the geographical remit of this Review and covers English inshore and offshore waters and Northern Irish offshore waters. Marine conservation is a devolved matter in Scotland, Wales and Northern Irish inshore waters. ↩

3. We recognise that any existing infrastructure may require repair and maintenance. ↩