Summary: Members of Scottish Environment LINK’s Marine Group strongly support the Demonstration and Research MPA. We believe that it offers an opportunity to put into effect the aspirations of the whole of the local community on Fair Isle for greater involvement in the protection of their local marine resource which they perceive to have been degraded over many years as a result of failures in fisheries management to no benefit to themselves. We believe that the D&R MPA will help to develop mechanisms and models for greater community involvement in MPA management that will be applicable in other parts of Scotland and will demonstrate some of the wider benefits of MPAs. The Fair Isle is the third largest seabird colony in the UK but several species have been in serious decline for the last 20 years. The D&R MPA will build on the expertise of the Fair Isle Bird Observatory to help elucidate the details and causes of the problems facing internationally important populations of seabirds.
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