January 5th, 2005 by ie-adminAlmost 12 years ago to the day the Braer tanker tanker carrying 85,000 tonnes of crude oil ran aground in hurricane force winds off the Shetland Islands. In the wake of the Braer oil spill, the Donaldson Inquiry recommended that the most sensitive and environmentally valuable parts of our coastal seas should be identified as Marine Environment High Risk Areas (MEHRAs) in order to protect them from such disasters.
It now appears that the publication of the long over due report from the Department for Transport (DfT) containing its choices of Marine Environmental High Risk Areas is finally about to happen. Scottish Environment Groups hope that the report will identify sites in UK waters and will put forward management measures that will at last give much needed protection from the threat of shipping accidents.
LINK question whether the Scottish Executive’s guidelines emphasise enough how the new law should be central to running the country’s public bodies.
These guidelines still present the conservation of biodiversity as an optional add-on. Ultimately Scotland’s future depends on assuring the long term conservation of biodiversity, in which we are all implicated and all have a role to play.”
In a major parliamentary seminar to be held today (Thursday 23rd September), Scotland’s marine environment groups and coastal community members will be telling an audience of prominent MSPs and stakeholders why a radical new approach to looking after Scotland’s seas is urgently needed.
Today Scottish Environment LINK’s Marine Task Force [1] welcomed the Scottish Executive’s public consultation on how to improve management of Scotland’s seas.
“We believe that a radical change is needed in the way we manage Scotland’s seas and that the introduction of new primary legislation offers an effective means of achieving this” said Darren Kindleysides, convenor of Scottish Environment LINK’s Marine Task Force. “The Scottish Executive obviously share our concerns about the future of our valuable marine resources and we applaud them for beginning this important initiative.”
One of the significant markers is that there is a shift from business as usual to the commitment to engage all interests in dialogue about the way forward, primarily on the standards that public money distribution will be based on. This marks a real shift from how agriculture policy has been developed in the past.
