Question reference: S6W-16728
- Date lodged: 4 April 2023
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Current status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 28 April 2023
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the effectiveness of Marine Protected Areas since their introduction, and what criteria are used to determine this.
Answer
The Scottish MPA Monitoring Strategy sets out the Scottish Government approach to MPA related survey and monitoring to meet the requirements of assessing and reporting under a number of legislative and policy drivers including the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010. To meet these reporting and assessment obligations there is a need to gather appropriate evidence to assess the condition of the sites and determine whether any implemented management measures are proving effective. This information has contributed to reports such as Scotland's Marine Assessment 2020 and the 2018 Report to Parliament.
However, the features of MPAs are often slow growing and take time to recover, and therefore measuring noticeable change in condition and status will often take many years. The ongoing monitoring programme enables continued assessment of MPAs and development of the evidence base to determine whether individual MPAs are achieving their objectives. By the time of the next report to Parliament in 2024 we should hopefully have a better understanding if this is the case. This will focus on those sites that have had their full suite of management measures in place since 2016.