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Halting
Biodiversity Loss by 2010 |
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Protecting and
managing our finest wildlife sites |
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2. PROTECT THE BEST |
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a) Marine |
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Our performance indicator: A complete
Marine Protected Area network (including Natura 2000 sites, OSPAR
MPAs Nationally Important Marine
Sites and Highly Protected Marine Reserves) identified and notified by
2010. |
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Site protection
in the marine environment continues to lag decades behind that on land.
The inclusion of a draft Marine Bill in the Queen’s Speech 2007 was a
step in the right direction. However, it is very disappointing that
following the White Paper and consultation on bill content the
Government did not go for a full Bill at this stage. The additional
steps in the process to deliver a Marine Act only further reduces the
likelihood of achieving a complete network of Marine Protected Areas by
2010 and, therefore, this target being met. |
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ASSESSMENT –
RED
(unchanged) |
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b) Terrestrial and freshwater sites |
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Our performance indicator: 95% of UK SSSI
/ ASSIs in favourable condition by 2010. |
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The
latest assessment for
England (4 January 2008) is
that 45% of SSSIs are in favourable condition, 35% are ‘unfavourable –
recovering’, 14% are ‘unfavourable - no change’, and 6% are
‘unfavourable – declining’.
Under Natural England’s analysis, the ‘favourable’ and ‘recovering’
categories are combined to give a figure of 80%. This compares to 56.9%
in March 2003, 72.3% in March 2006 and 75.4% in March 2007. This shows
an increase of approximately 5% per annum and with a target deadline of
31 December 2010, this target is currently on trajectory.
However, we do not underestimate the challenge of addressing the issues
facing the remaining sites that are in unfavourable condition. These
may well be harder to crack than those that have already been resolved
and the impacts of external factors such as climate change will bring
their own problems. All SSSIs are of national importance and we should
be as concerned about the condition of the last 5% as much as the first
95%. It is not yet clear whether the pressure on Defra and Natural
England budgets will impact on this or other important areas of Natural
England’s work.
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ASSESSMENT –
GREEN
(up from green/amber) |
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Further assessments |
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1. Stop the Rot
3. Restore the Rest
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Documents
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