CCU 7^th Floor

Eastbury House

30-34 Albert Embankment

London

SE1 7TL

Email: [email address]

Website: www.defra.gov.uk

Dear Mr Holmes,

Marine Bill

Thank you for your email of 15 November about the Marine Bill. Although you have asked for this to be handled as a Freedom of Information request, the information you have asked for is in the public domain already, and it is not therefore covered by the Freedom of Information Act. I have been asked to reply.

The Marine Bill is a groundbreaking piece of legislation that will greatly improve the way the UK uses its vast marine resources and maximises the benefits it gets from them. No other country has attempted quite such an ambitious and wide-ranging structured approach to marine management. The Bill addresses the whole management cycle from selling policy objectives to ensuring that what activities are permitted, and then what people actually do, is consistent with that policy.

The Government introduced the Marine and Coastal Access Bill into the House of Lords on 4 December 2008, things covered by the Bill include: -

• a new system of marine planning, to enable more strategic and effective management of our seas;

• a streamlined, transparent and consistent system for licensing marine developments;

• a flexible mechanism to protect natural resources, including marine conservation zones with clear objectives;

• improvements to the management of marine fisheries and the ability to share the costs of management with commercial sectors;

• creation of a new body, the Marine Management Organisation, to be the strategic delivery body in the marine area;

• modernised tools for the Environment Agency to manage migratory and freshwater fisheries more effectively; and

• provisions to provide recreational access to England's coastline.

You can find out more about the Bill at:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/marine/legislation/index.htm

Turning to the issues you listed in your email, the Government takes seriously all threats to marine biodiversity. Although the Marine Bill will not contain any explicit reference to marine noise, it will give us the ability to control some aspects of marine noise where this gives rise to problems in marine nature conservation zones. All Government Ministers and public authorities will be under a duty to further the objectives of Marine Conservation Zones, insofar as this is consistent with the proper exercise of their functions.

The UK is a signatory to ASCOBANS (Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic, North East Atlantic, Irish and North Seas). At the 4th Meeting of Parties in 2003, Resolution 4.5 invited Parties and Range States to conduct research into the effects on small cetaceans of acoustic disturbances.

In October 2004,the Department let a contract to the Zoological Society of London to assess the feasibility of researching induced anthropogenic acoustic damage to cetaceans in British waters through the detailed examination of the auditory apparatus of stranded or by-caught animals. A report on the findings of this project was published in November 2006. See link below to read the report:

http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=WC04008_4189_EXE.doc

The Department also contributes to the Inter Agency Committee for Marine Science and Technology and a Crown Estate initiative which includes sound research and development in relation to piling noise for wind farms.

You may be interested to know that noise from shipping is a mailer for the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). IMO's Marine Environment Protection Committee has recently taken on a new work programme item aimed at minimising the introduction of incidental noise into the marine environment from commercial shipping.

Sustainable fishing is one of the objectives of the Marine Bill. It will create new Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities (or IFCAs) which will replace Sea Fisheries Committees (SFCs) to deliver greater protection for the marine environment by ensuring the exploitation of sea fisheries resources is undertaken in a sustainable way and with greater consideration of fishing activity on wider marine ecosystems. In this sense, sand eels would enjoy some protection under the Bill, though they are not specifically protected since the Bill is a framework Bill which aims generally to protect biodiversity and promote sustainable fishing.

The nature conservation clauses of the Marine Bill will help deliver an ecologically coherent network of marine protected areas. There has been much discussion about the proportion of the sea that might need to be designated as part of the network of marine protected areas. Experts have suggested differing figures based on different assumptions and criteria. We do not propose to include a prescribed target on the face of the Bill, as further detailed research still needs to be carried out with key stakeholders before we know what proportion of the sea needs protection. This approach has been endorsed by the Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament.

Marine pollution is not specifically covered by the Marine Bill except that under the licensing provisions in the Bill, an enforcement authority will be able to issue a remediation notice where an operator is carrying on a licensable activity which is causing, or is likely to cause, serious harm to the environment or human health, or serious interference with

legitimate uses of the sea. This is consistent with the `polluter pays principle'.

I hope that this letter addresses your concerns.

Yours sincerely,

Benjamin Rees

Defra - Customer Contact Unit