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1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 This document sets out a new Scottish marine and
coastal strategy, to be taken forward through stakeholder
participation and is, in turn, the Scottish Executive's
formal response to the outcome of the 2004 consultation on
"Developing a Strategic Framework for Scotland's Marine
Environment" (March 2004, Paper 2004/6). The marine and
coastal strategy will take into account the advice offered
to Scottish Ministers in the Scottish Coastal Forum's
"Strategy for Scotland's Coast and Inshore Waters". The
Executive will continue to look to the Forum to offer
guidance on the implementation of
ICZM in Scotland.
Background
Aerial View of Forth Bridges and Port
Edgar.
© P.A. Macdonald /
SNH
1.2 The marine and coastal waters around Scotland are
vitally important to the sustainable future of the country.
Our coasts and seas provide food from fisheries, energy and
mineral resources, routes and harbours for shipping,
tourism and recreational opportunities and sites of
cultural and historic interest, which meet many of our
economic and social needs particularly in remote rural
areas. At the same time they
contain distinctive and important habitats and support a
diverse range of species which we need to protect, conserve
and enhance. Integrating socio-economic and
environmental/ecological factors is crucial to our
long-term sustainability and already features in several
sectoral strategies of relevance to our coasts and seas. A
wider marine and coastal strategy will in part provide a
better bond between those sectoral approaches, helping us
to grow Scotland's economy and create jobs.
Sea View
Scottish Executive strategies relevant to marine and
coastal sustainability include
- A Sustainable Framework for Scottish Sea
Fisheries
- A Strategic Framework for Inshore Fisheries in
Scotland
- A Strategic Framework for Scottish Aquaculture
- The Scottish Biodiversity Strategy
- Scotland's Bathing Waters: a Strategy for
Improvement
- A Framework Strategy for Scottish Agriculture
- Enterprise Strategy: a Smart Successful
Scotland
- Going for Green Growth - a Green Jobs Strategy for
Scotland
2004 consultation
1.3 From April to July 2004 the Scottish Executive
consulted widely on developing a Strategic Framework for
Scotland's Marine Environment [
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations/environment/dsfsme-00.asp].
That consultation took forward a Partnership Agreement
commitment to:
consult on the best Strategy for protecting and
enhancing all of Scotland's coastline, building on
existing policies and including the options of
establishing a national coastline park and marine
national parks
and, sought views on:
- How best to bring greater coherence to the range of
marine related initiatives across the Scottish
Executive
- A vision for the sustainability of Scotland's
coasts and seas:
a clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically
diverse marine environment which, through sustainable
management, will continue to support the interests of
nature and people
- Any perceived gaps in current activity/policy, and
how to plug them
- Objectives for our coasts and seas and how they
should be measured
- How to provide better, more effective governance of
the coastal and marine environments - including how the
development of the strategy should be taken
forward
- The potential for marine spatial planning
1.4 The consultation also sought views on 4 pieces of
development consent legislation for which the Scottish
Executive has varying degrees of devolved responsibility,
namely:
- Section 34 of the Coast Protection Act 1949
(Navigational Safety)
- Harbours Orders under Sections 14-18 of the
Harbours Act 1964
- Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989
- Part II of the Food and Environment Protection Act
1985
1.5 A summary of responses to the consultation was
published in October
[http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/environment/dsfsmeresponses.pdf ]]. There were 104 substantive replies and
730 postcards and e-mails inspired by a
WWF campaign supporting the vision and
calling for a Marine Act.
Other reviews
1.6 Parallel to the 2004 consultation, several other
initiatives and reviews relating to the coastal and marine
environments were underway, in particular:
Emerging themes
1.7 Taken together, the responses to the 2004
consultation and these other reviews and initiatives
suggested in broad terms that a strategy for the long-term
sustainability of Scotland's coasts and seas should
comprise:
- A clear
vision, broadly as proposed in the
2004 consultation
- The identification of
pressures on our coasts and seas, as
described in the 2004 consultation
- Clear, achievable
objectives and time limited
outputs and
outcomes, building on existing
objectives outlined in the 2004 consultation
- Indicators of performance against the
vision and objectives
- A new means of
delivering the above
1.8 On the means of delivery, emerging themes were:
- A senior level
policy body
- The establishment of Scotland's first
coastal and marine national park
- A system of
marine spatial planning
- The provision of
marine protected areas
- The creation of a
marine agency
- A
Marine Bill to give effect to the
above
1.9 The 2004 consultation provided little evidence to
suggest that, in Scotland, the current development consent
regimes (the 4 regimes at paragraph 1.4 above) were causing
a difficulty on the same scale as perceived in England and
Wales, although some users of the system would prefer to
see some simplification of processes.
1.10 Scottish Ministers remain open minded about the
need for new delivery mechanisms and new legislation
applicable to those areas for which they have devolved
responsibility. Ministers wish to give that further
consideration, with stakeholder involvement, as the
Scottish marine and coastal strategy develops and as the
scope of Defra's Marine Bill clarifies.
The structure of the rest of this document
Ecotourism: Common Seals and Seal
watching Boat, Skye and Lochalsh.
© Lorne Gill/
SNH
1.11 This document is the Scottish Executive's response
to those emerging themes. Section 2 re-iterates the
importance of our marine and coastal areas, with key
statistics and links to supporting material. Section 3 sets
the context for and concept of a marine and coastal
strategy, including the vision to which the Scottish
Executive is now committed. Section 4 describes top level
objectives, with Section 5 setting out the outputs and
outcomes towards which we will now work. Section 6
describes how Scottish Ministers intend to take forward the
further development of the strategy. Section 7 outlines the
devolution context within which a Scottish strategy will
operate. Section 8 sets out the broad timetable for action.
Section 9 summarises those proposals made in response to
the 2004 consultation that Scottish Ministers have decided
not to pursue at this stage. Throughout the document there
are illustrative examples ("sea views") of current
activity.
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