What is protected in MPAs?
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a globally recognised tool that can help support the conservation of marine habitats and species whilst promoting sustainable use. The aim of the UK network of MPAs is to protect the range of marine habitats and species for which MPAs are considered an appropriate conservation tool.
Supporting healthy and resilient ecosystems will increase their ability to respond and adapt to other impacts such as those of global climate change.
UK seas are home to a great variety of marine habitats and species; many of which are considered to be of European and international conservation importance. This includes vulnerable marine ecosystems such as underwater mountains called seamounts, cold-water coral reefs and deep-sea sponge aggregations. Topographic features such as reefs and sandbanks elevated from the seafloor provide a habitat for species, which in turn provide a food source for commercially important fish species, seabirds and marine mammals.
Different MPA designation types protect different habitats and species. Together MPAs complement each other to collectively create an MPA network that protects both characteristic habitats present in UK waters as well as some of its more charismatic habitats and species.
An overview of the types of features protected within the UK MPA network in offshore waters is provided below:
Features protected within offshore Special Areas of Conservation |
Annex II features protected within offshore Special Areas of Conservation |
Broad-scale habitats and features of conservation importance protected within offshore Marine Conservation Zones |
|
Cold-water coral reefs |
Subtidal chalk |
Deep-sea bed |
Subtidal coarse sediment |
Fan mussel (Atrina fragilis) |
Subtidal mixed sediments |
Moderate energy circalittoral rock |
Subtidal mud |
Ocean quahog (Arctica islandica) |
Subtidal sand |
Sea-pen and burrowing megafauna communities |
|
Priority marine features protected within offshore Nature Conservation Marine Protected Areas |
|
Burrowed mud |
Offshore subtidal sands and gravels |
Deep sea sponge aggregations |
Orange roughy |
Ocean quahog aggregations |
Sandeels |
Offshore deep-sea muds |
Seamount communities |
Marine birds protected in Special Protection Areas which are fully or partly offshore |
|
European storm petrel |
Black-legged kittiwake |
Red-billed chough* |
Lesser black-backed gull |
Short-eared owl* |
Sandwich tern |
Red-breasted merganser |
Common tern |
Great cormorant |
Little tern |
Red-throated diver |
Common guillemot |
Manx shearwater |
Razorbill |
Little gull |
Atlantic puffin |
Common scoter |
|
*in terrestrial part of the Special Protection Area
Large-scale features, and geological and geomorphological features are also protected within Nature Conservation MPAs and MCZs.
Many of the habitats and species protected within the UK MPA network are listed by OSPAR as Threatened and/or Declining and so contribute to commitments under the OSPAR Convention.
Categories:
Published: .