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1 1 1 1 14 44 42 2 (2008) 20 ELM : THE UK DRAFT MARINE BILL – WILSON, TRIGGS
We hereby give notice that a planning application has introduce new, exciting and entirely inappropriate non
been made for a major development you won’t like native species which can have a devastating effect on more
on this hitherto protected area. local fisheries. Provisions are supposed to implement the
You can object, but your views will not count for recommendations of the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries
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much. We need it, it’s going to happen and that’s that. Review, and the Environment Agency is given even wider
powers, for example to control and set conditions on
Revisions to licensing decisions historic installations such as fish traps, controls on the
introduction of live fish and wider powers to order the
The Marine Bill aims to simplify what is currently a complex regulation of close seasons and fisheries in freshwater areas
licensing system operating under different regulators. Its and even coastal fishing. In practical terms this could have
major impact will be to consolidate and update the Food quite important implications. For example the Environment
and Environment Protection Act 1985 (FEPA) and the Agency could change the dates of seasons when fishing
Coast Protection Act 1949 with the idea that there will can take place or impose conservation measures
be one licensing body considering factors across a number forbidding the taking of any fish and imposing ‘catch and
of areas including environment, human health, navigation release’ methods.
and with the interests of other users of the sea taken into
account together, not separately. Marine Act licenses will Enforcement
now, therefore, cover a wider field.
There will be a common set of powers for enforcing
Nature conservation officers, who will be known as Marine Enforcement Officers,
and their devolved equivalents. For marine fisheries they
The Bill will introduce measures to establish Marine will be given specific powers, for example to inspect fishing
Conservation Zones to protect individual habitats and gear at sea.
species and a network of sites representing marine eco-
systems around the UK. There are provisions to prevent Administrative penalties
activities which damage habitats and sites once
designated, and the MMO will be able to make The Marine Bill is a ‘guinea pig’ for the introduction of
Conservation Orders to regulate activities up to 12 civil sanctions for licensing and conservation offences, and
nautical miles from the coast. Once again, developments administrative penalty schemes for domestic fisheries
in Europe form the unspoken background to these offences. The background to this reflects the Macrory
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proposals, and the implementation of the Habitats Review and the Government’s Regulatory Enforcement
Directive and the way it is interpreted by the European and Sanctions Act 2008. After many years of papers and
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Court of Justice have an important influence. The impacts research to this effect, the usual reliance in new
of the Bill on environmental protection are considered in environmental legislation upon the creation of criminal
more detail below. offences as the sole means of enforcement is finally
changing, with the importation of new ideas, in some part
Managing marine fisheries based upon practice in the United States, to introduce
civil and administrative enforcement of environmental
Sea Fisheries Committees are to be replaced by Inshore obligations.
Fisheries and Conservation Authorities (IFCAs). It is not
clear exactly how this kind of administrative tinkering will Access to coastal land
make any real difference to fish stocks. Sea fisheries
conservation and shell fish management measures will be There will be a duty on the Secretary of State and Natural
amongst the responsibilities of the new IFCAs, which will England to secure ‘the English Coastal Route’ and for land
also have powers to make by-laws and be funded by local for open air recreation to be made accessible to the public
authorities. Neither the Common Fisheries Policy nor the around the coastal margin of England. Beaches, cliffs, rocks
relatively minor reforms introduced by this legislation have and dunes and similar areas will become subject to greater
succeeded in delivering effective answers to the real public access rights. These measures extend the thinking
pressures of overfishing and the nonsense of ‘by-catch’ of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, and
where millions of tons of juvenile fish are thrown back dead respond to the huge public demand and pressure for
into the sea each year. access to open areas and recreation. Countervailing

Reform of migratory and freshwater fisheries
laws
There will be some modernisation of the powers that 5 http://www.defra.gov.uk/fish/freshwater/pdf/sffrev.pdf.
oversee the licensing and management of migratory and 6 ‘Regulatory Justice: Making Sanctions Effective’ (November 2006).
(http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file44593.pdf and http://
freshwater fisheries. A new scheme to manage live fish www.berr.gov.uk/bre/reviewing-regulation/compliance-businesses/
movement will be introduced, partly in response to the page44102.html).
sometimes eccentric efforts of anglers and others to 7 c.13 (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2008/pdf/ukpga_20080013
_en.pdf).

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