Finding Sanctuary
Finding Sanctuary is a partnership project which aims to secure a healthy and productive future for the coasts and seas of South West England. The project is working with regional stakeholders to design a network of Marine Protected Areas (MPA) and Marine Conservation Zones (MCZ). The goals of the MPA network are to safeguard and encourage recovery of marine biodiversity and to help ensure the long-term sustainability of marine resources in the region.
Finding Sanctuary is one of four regional projects of its kind around the English coast, initiated under an umbrella project (the Marine Conservation Zone Project) established by Defra, Natural England and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. All four projects are tasked with designing networks of Marine Conservation Zones (MCZ) and recommending them to Government in 2011.
Important issues posed by the project include:
- how it attempts to take decisions at appropriate spatial scales;
- how it examines the cumulative impacts of decisions and the multiple sources of pressure on marine resources;
- how it organises stakeholder participation;
- how it manages trade-offs and conflicts between competing uses and users of marine resources and conservation; and,
- how it uses adaptive approaches in marine management to deal with dynamic issues, such as climate change, and uncertainties, such as the status of fish stocks.
Thus this demonstrator project would allow us to examine: the extent to which stakeholder engagement is successful in generating understanding of and support for the MCZ boundaries that are ultimately recommended; whether the approach has been useful in resolving conflicts or facilitating trade-offs (e.g. between public access and habitat conservation); and, the effectiveness of communication and use of language.
