Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Before we move to the substantial topic of today's meeting, I will say one or two words. Yesterday, members of the committee, including me as Cathaoirleach, had an opportunity to visit the Marine Institute at its facility in Oranmore, County Galway. It was a really interesting visit. The Marine Institute has been before this committee as a witness on several occasions in the past year as this committee has a scrutiny role over the institute and other agencies. We also depend on its expertise and broad knowledge. All members who attended the briefing sessions yesterday in Oranmore were left in no doubt as to the breadth of work and research the Marine Institute undertakes, the value of that work to the maritime sector and the passion of the people who work in the Marine Institute. I thank Martin Sisk, chairperson of the board of the Marine Institute, for the welcome, and Rick Officer, chief executive, and his team for the warm welcome, explanations and briefings they gave us and the work they do. I also thank the committee clerk and secretariat for arranging the visit.

Our three witnesses today are joining us remotely. Witnesses giving evidence from within the parliamentary precincts are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they give to the committee. Witnesses who are to give evidence from a location outside the parliamentary precincts, as is the case today, are asked to note that they may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings as a witness giving evidence from within the parliamentary precincts and may consider it appropriate to take legal advice on the matter. Privilege against defamation does not apply to any publication by them outside of the proceedings held by the committee of any matters arising from the proceedings.

I advise members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. I will not allow a member to participate where they are not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, a member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask any member participating via Microsoft Teams that prior to making their contribution to the meeting, they confirm that they are in fact on the grounds of Leinster House.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

The agenda for today's meeting is international best practice in marine protected areas. We are joined by Ms George Short, kelp recovery co-ordinator and marine biologist from the Sussex Kelp Recovery Project, and Ms Belinda Bramley, independent blue economy consultant and co-founder and director of the Protected Areas Foundation.

We will also be joined a little after 12 noon by Professor Mark John Costello of Nord University. I propose to take his opening statement as read. It has been forwarded to members. I will allow five minutes each to the other witnesses to read their opening statements into the record or, if they prefer, give a brief précis or synopsis of them. I invite Ms Short to begin and she is to be followed by Ms Bramley. After that, we will have questions and answers with members.

Ms George Short:

I thank the members of the committee for the opportunity to speak today. I am a marine ecologist and the kelp recovery co-ordinator on the Sussex Kelp Recovery Project. My role involves supporting the monitoring, co-ordination and communication of one of the UK's largest seabed recovery initiatives, working closely with scientists, regulators, fishers and local communities. Having previously spent years researching the incredible marine life off the west coast of Ireland, I hope to pass on learnings from the successes and failures of marine protected areas in English waters to assist the committee's efforts to ensure Ireland's astonishing marine life is sustained for generations to come.

I will focus on a single, evidence-based case study from off England's south coast. Historically, kelp forests were a defining feature of the Sussex coastline, creating a highly productive ecosystem. They supported biodiversity, were key to ecological processes and dampened the impact of storms. Their role as feeding, breeding and nursery habitats for many commercially important species, such as plaice, lobster and cod, meant they also supported a thriving sustainable fishing industry. However, these habitats experienced severe decline, with around 96% of kelp being lost by the early 2000s.

The regulatory body responsible for English inshore fisheries management at a regional scale, Sussex Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority, Sussex IFCA, identified bottom-towed fishing as a key pressure. A formal impact assessment then concluded that continued trawling in nearshore areas was unsustainable, risked long-term damage to natural capital and the viability of fisheries themselves, and that the environmental, societal and economic benefits of protection outweighed the cost of trawl fisheries. This included a potential cost benefit to netting fisheries and recreational sea users due to the reduction in by-catch. The associated advocacy campaign, known as Help Our Kelp, generated record submissions to a fisheries management consultation and to this day is reflective of enormous public support, with 98% of local people surveyed supporting protection when surveyed in 2026. In 2021, 304 sq. km of nearshore seabed were protected from bottom-towed fishing gear, with the objective of recovering ecosystem processes and improving fisheries biomass over time. This protection is known as the Sussex IFCA Nearshore Trawling Byelaw 2021.

Five years after implementation, the Sussex Kelp Recovery Project is delivering a programme of monitoring to track ecosystem change following the removal of bottom-towed fishing pressure. Recovery remains in the initial stages of a decades-long process, but monitoring is already detecting changes in seabed habitats and mobile marine species. On the seabed, structurally important mussel beds are expanding yearly and providing habitats and feeding opportunities for marine species, as well as a hard structure on which kelp can re-establish. Surveys are also documenting increases in commercially important black sea-bream with their nests now carpeting the seabed in several areas. This observation is reflected by the fishing community. One fisher, Clive Mills, who left the industry in 1999 due to the decline in fish stocks and recently returned to the profession, reported that over the last two years he and other local fishermen have noticed a steady increase in bream stocks and that marine life in general appears to be on the upturn.

Work is now under way to identify and evidence other known threats to local marine life and associated fisheries, such as poor water quality, increased sediment and the impacts of climate change. These factors pose a threat to marine recovery and future resource use. Since designation, we now understand that the case for seabed protection extends beyond biodiversity and fisheries. Research from the Wildlife Trusts to map the UK's blue carbon habitats found that over 244 million tonnes of organic carbon is stored in the top 10 cm of blue carbon habitats.

Some 98% of this is stored in seabed sediments. Physical disturbance from bottom trawling is identified as a key threat, which has the potential to release stored carbon back into the environment years after trawling has occurred. Protecting seabed habitats, therefore, provides co-benefits, supporting fisheries productivity while also contributing to climate mitigation and long-term ecosystem resilience.

Based on learnings from this case study and the wider English MPA network, my recommendations are as follows. A key strength of the Sussex by-law is that rather than managing one fish stock or protecting one habitat feature in isolation, as is often done in English waters, the protection takes an ecosystem-based management approach. This approach recognises that fisheries productivity depends on the health of the entire ecosystem, not individual features or stocks. Protecting whole sites, year round and at scale, is essential to safeguard the ecological processes that underpin the health of marine ecosystems. Another key lesson is the importance of clear rules and enforceability. In Sussex, land and sea patrols are carried out day and night by fisheries management authorities and are essential to compliance and protection. For this reason, there have been no reported incursions of prohibited gear within the protected area.

The Sussex by-law developed through a structured process of evidence gathering, impact assessment and stakeholder consultation, which ensured measures were grounded in both science and practical fisheries knowledge. A key learning is the value of balanced, cross-sector governance. Each level of consultation and decision-making involved fishers, scientists, conservationists and local communities, which ensured fishers were a key voice but did not disproportionately dominate decision-making.

The Sussex Kelp Recovery Project demonstrates that evidence-based, large-scale seabed protection can provide environmental, social and economic benefits vital to the future of sustainable fisheries and protecting essential carbon stores. In doing so, it is possible to support healthy seas and thriving fishing communities into the future.

Ms Belinda Bramley:

I thank the Chair and committee members for the opportunity to present to them. I am an independent blue economy consultant based in the UK with a focus on enduring and inclusive marine protection as the cornerstone for coastal prosperity. Currently, I co-lead stakeholder engagement for the MPA Europe project, a Horizon Europe project identifying optimal networks of marine protected areas across Europe's seas. I am also co-founder and director of the Protected Areas Foundation, a UK-registered charity with a mission to support and scale effective community-managed marine protected areas for the benefit of nature and people.

It is important to distinguish between marine protected areas, MPAs, in development, that is, committed or designated, and those that are operational. Only operational MPAs with management bodies and effective management, including ongoing engagement and monitoring, can be expected to deliver positive outcomes. However, the term "MPA" is used ubiquitously to cover marine protected areas at all stages of development and this can lead to confusion for the public. Long delays between MPA designation and implementation erode the goodwill of stakeholders and can create false expectations of MPAs and mistrust. Internationally, the main reason MPAs fail is due to lack of capacity and resources. While the World Conservation Monitoring Centre reported last month that 10% of the ocean is now protected, only 1.3% of the global ocean falls within protected areas that have had management effectiveness evaluations performed. These are the MPAs that can tell us whether conservation is working for nature and people. The International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN, green list and blue parks list also offer examples of international best practices and other MPAs, including locally managed marine areas, may also be effective.

Best practices for proposing and designating MPAs include designating coherent networks of MPAs to ensure a wide range of biodiversity is protected; co-designing MPA objectives with an even balance of interest groups; setting objectives that are specific and time-bound; and combining local ecological and cultural knowledge with scientific knowledge. The MPA Europe project has identified optimal areas for marine protection across Europe’s seas by taking a systematic data-driven approach to create species range maps for over 12,000 species found in Europe.

The open-access MPA Europe map platform contains this information, which can be used by Ireland and other countries, in combination with local datasets, to identify how best to extend existing MPA networks.

In Portugal, the Blue Azores initiative recently designated the largest network of MPAs in the North Atlantic. This initiative showcases SMARTIE goals, participatory co-design processes and financial support for fisheries to restructure. In Canada, the Great Bear Sea initiative is a partnership between the Canadian and British Columbian Governments and 17 first nations to design a network of MPAs and secure long-term funding for stewardship and sustainable economic development in coastal communities. Here, indigenous culture is the governance mechanism for balancing conservation and sustainable use.

Best practices for implementing and actively managing MPAs include equitable, flexible and transparent governance processes; establishing co-management with local stakeholders and rights holders; sustained resourcing, including finance, people with relevant skills, equipment and information; regular performance analysis to measure progress towards the objectives for the MPA; and regular management effectiveness assessments to improve MPA management.

In Italy, the Torre Guaceto MPA resolved conflicts early on by involving fishers in management over the years to co-define fishing regulations, illustrating how a flexible, participatory governance approach through day-to-day in situwork can be effective. The Isle of Man's inshore MPA network is the result of a unique co-creation between fisheries and conservation bodies. The MPA network has expanded over the years and supports conservation and profitable, sustainable fisheries, showing the value of openness to collaborate, experiment and adapt.

Continuing to expand MPAs without adequate investment in human and financial capacity is likely to lead to suboptimal conservation outcomes. These international examples show effective MPAs are built on trust, long-term relationships, a willingness to try new approaches while ensuring all voices are heard, respect for traditional knowledge and culture, and learning by doing. Effective MPAs are in everyone's interests.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Ms Bramley. We will move to questions and answers. I propose we take seven-minute slots. Those seven minutes per member have to include both the question and the response. I ask, particularly because we are using Microsoft Teams, that members mention in putting their questions to whom they are directed or, if they are directed at both witnesses, members make that clear and keep an eye on the clock as well.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I thank our two witnesses for taking time out of their day to talk to us about their experiences. This is incredibly valuable for us here in Ireland because we are just starting this process. Where it has worked overseas, it is important that we learn from how it was done. Equally, however, where it has not worked, we need to identify those areas, those risks and those gaps in order that we do not make the same mistakes here.

The issue of co-design and its importance has come up repeatedly. At the moment in Ireland there is a fear. This will be a change to the current operating of how we manage things and, in some regards, there is a lack of trust in a process or in an ability for people to maintain their incomes. What level of financial support have the witnesses seen given to fishers to transition, whether perhaps out of certain fisheries or to divest from the fisheries they are in?

Ms Bramley said that a participatory governance approach was achieved through ongoing, day-by-day work. Will she go into that a little more? What actual work were the fishers involved in?

Ms Belinda Bramley:

In Europe in particular, and as Ms Short mentioned, I recognise the feature-based approach has prevailed which is a very narrow objective. The examples I gave in my evidence point to wider objectives for MPAs beyond preservation of biodiversity. If you look at the IUCN's definition of protected areas, it mentions long-term "conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values." The international definition of protected areas is broader than is hinted at in the EU legislation. The co-design can still come to the existing network of MPAs, but it requires a willingness on the part of different jurisdictions to set aside the lack of trust that has perhaps been caused by a slowness to implement marine protected areas and recognise that a better way forward can be achieved as long as everybody's legitimate concerns are aired, listened to and addressed.

On the levels of financial support, the Blue Azores initiative in Portugal has secured significant sums of money. I do not know the exact figure, but it is millions of euro to support fisheries to make that transition to restructure. We had a presentation form the Blue Azores initiative at the MPA in MSP International Conference that MPA Europe hosted last year. The group presented this in detail, and the video is available. I think I have provided a link to it in my evidence. The financial support was initially provided by philanthropy for the co-design process to get established but the Portuguese Government had established a precedent where it had supported a fisheries transition for mainland Portugal. This meant the Blue Azores initiative was able to go to the relevant Minister and request financial support to contribute to the Blue Azores initiative. The philanthropic funding has been repurposed to further the progress with the management plans for the new MPA network and work towards longer-term sustainability.

The other example that is interesting but perhaps does not speak to financial support for fisheries restructuring specifically is the Great Bear Sea example in Canada, where philanthropic funding, state government funding and federal government funding have been pooled - these are significant sums of hundreds of millions of Canadian dollars - into a permanent endowment fund to support marine stewardship and a sinking endowment fund which is there to support coastal economic enterprise and development, which is where the fisheries aspects would come in.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I thank Ms Bramley. It is not just about the amount of money involved, but the longevity of it. We see that with our farmers. If they do not know they can rely on a source of income for an extended period, there is a risk with that. Was this funding for a long period or were they more short-term funding opportunities?

Ms Belinda Bramley:

That is why I think the Canadian example is striking because it is called a project finance for permanence agreement. This is a model for conservation finance that is taking root in several countries. It is basically designed to provide enduring financial support to some degree for conservation measures. It obviously requires significant sums to establish those endowments, but I think it is the only model I have seen that depoliticises the payments and provides some comfort that funding will be sustained into the long term. The model of conservation trust funds is another one that is used in the global south as well. Those models are ones we can learn from in the global north.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I thank Ms Bramley. Does Ms Short have any comment?

Ms George Short:

The only thing to add is that in English waters, we have not had appropriate support in respect of the transition of fisheries.

That is where the English system has failed. That is a key learning in itself. On top of that a key takeaway is the cross-sector balanced governance at all stages of implementation and ongoing reviews of protection. In our case, we have inshore fisheries management bodies, which are essentially the fisheries board for the nearshore environment in English waters. They have a board which approves all new protections and reviews protections. It has a cross-sector panel of fishers, scientists, local government and community members. That is a requirement of those boards. Having that balanced decision-making has been essential to the success in our areas.

Another learning is that ocean literacy in England is and has been extremely low. That has added to the barriers to this process because people are not aware of the benefits that their marine environment provides to them and how it is linked to their daily lives. That is a key learning, that engagement is always needed alongside these implementation efforts to make sure people are fully engaged and understand the process they are involved in.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I thank both witnesses for making time to assist us. We will have legislation coming before us later this year. The legislation to enact our marine protected areas is long delayed, so we want to get this right and to learn from best international practice and from mistakes that have emerged so that we can benefit from them.

I have a few questions for Ms Short about the Sussex kelp recovery project. One of the key phrases that Ms Bramley has focused on and recommended is this principle of co-creation whereby fishermen and fishing communities would be at the table when these MPAs are being designed and operated. Will she tell us how that operates in her own project? Were fishermen involved in the design of the by-laws for trawling? How was that dealt with? How is that operating at this point?

Ms George Short:

In regard to how the by-law is co-developed with the fishers, as part of the process that the fisheries management do in the nearshore area, this is not a statutory obligation but it would be a good learning if it were to become so or if it were to become so in Ireland that there is a consultation process and a series of workshops held with four proposed management measures, four options for different levels of management within a marine protected area, so different gear-type exclusions, for example, or different spatial extents, and they are attended by a cross-sector representation comprising scientists, fishers, conservationists, local community members and recreational sea users, who are all present and proportionately represented in those workshops. Key to this is the mediation. There is a series of workflows that people can contribute to which they think would impact their livelihoods or their ecosystem benefits or services that they receive from that area, based on those different types of management, and that is taken into account. Based on the evidence gathering done by the fisheries board on the economic impact and the impact on biodiversity, the case is then put forward to the board at a regional level. Again that board has a representative of the fishing community, conservation and all of those sectors. There is cross-sector governance at each stage of that process, which has been key, so fishers are always involved. Then, when those protections are reviewed, which in our case happens every four to five years, the case for whether they have achieved the intended goal of the protection or whether recovery is starting to occur in line with the timeline expected is put to that same balanced board of cross-sector governance representatives, including fishers.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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We will have a presentation from Professor Mark John Costello later on. We have had a chance to read his statement in advance as committee members, and he will talk about the spillover benefits. He is clear that in every MPA, there is a recovery and strengthening of the fishery. Is Ms Short seeing that evidence off the coast of Sussex?

Ms George Short:

We are. We are in the very initial stages. We are only five years into the recovery process, and we anticipate that this is a decade-long process. We would not have anticipated seeing really significant benefits for fisheries at this point, but they are superseding what we had predicted. The local inshore fishers in particular are seeing big benefits in terms of black seabream increases because it was one of the target species of the trawling, which has now been prohibited. They are seeing increases in those catches, and there are other cost benefits locally in terms of species that otherwise would have been by-catch. Things like bass have increased as well. We are starting to see those initial signs and preliminary increases in stocks in specific species.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Ms Bramley is obviously an expert in this area internationally. In terms of offshore renewable energy, there is a suggestion that it can coexist in marine protected areas, and that is certainly what we are hearing from our Department in Ireland. What is her sense of that internationally? Can we have a situation where stakeholders like environmental campaigners, fishing communities, fishermen and offshore renewable energy developers can all coexist in an MPA?

Ms Belinda Bramley:

Yes, there is a paper that Professor Costello wrote for the International Union for Conservation of Nature about this which he may also speak about. We had a stakeholder workshop for the North Atlantic and we invited a stakeholder from the offshore renewable energy industry. Her view as an operator was that they have tried to site wind farms away from MPAs but that MPAs could actually be compatible with wind farms. What we see across Europe are different approaches. Not all wind farms exclude fisheries but then fisheries may consider that there is more risk in operating in wind farms. There is a mixed picture emerging in reality about this. Wind farms do have negative effects on biodiversity. This speaks to the objectives of the MPA because we have this feature-based approach across Europe which may not always deliver the kind of benefits that an ecosystem-based management approach might deliver, assuming the resources are in place for the protected area. It is an emerging picture. There are no clear lessons for fisheries or MPAs yet with respect to wind farms, but a lot of environmental concerns are being raised which the offshore industry in Europe is working hard to mitigate.

Charles Ward (Donegal, 100% Redress Party)
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I thank the witnesses for being here today. I will start with Ms Bramley. Does she have any specific examples of EU countries that she feels are implementing MPAs successfully? Why and how does she think they are doing this?

Ms Belinda Bramley:

There are very few MPAs in Europe that have strong protection in place with all the right conditions in place. Part of the MPA Europe project was to do a review of all of Europe's MPAs and those in the UK and Norway by looking at the MPA guide as a reference to whether those MPAs were likely to be effective. The international MPA guide is a yardstick by which you can go through a systematic process to determine the expected outcomes from an MPA based on what it actually allowed in that area. The review that we did in the MPA Europe project found that less than 1%, and perhaps less than half a percent, of Europe's MPAs actually would be expected to deliver strong outcomes because of the activities that are typically allowed within a protected area.

There are some examples in Europe of effective small-scale protected areas, one with ambitions to grow much larger. I provided a couple in my evidence. There is Torre Guaceto MPA in Italy. I refer back to a question I missed in the first intervention about how the in situwork is taking place. There is a local presence in that MPA which is a collaboration between WWF Italy, the ministry of the environment and local municipalities. Staff at the MPA have been engaging from the outset with fishers to understand their needs, and the MPA has wider objectives than biodiversity. It is about public education, scientific research and sustainable fisheries. Those are all target goals of that MPA. That MPA delivers ecological spillover, the fisheries have become more profitable and it is looking to expand significantly along the coast of Puglia. That is a nice example of a blue park. I mentioned the international standards to which MPAs aspire. There are similar examples in France. Cerbère-Banyuls MPA is another long-standing MPA that has delivered significant ecological spillover over time. The country that is probably in the lead at the moment in Europe is Portugal with its new MPA network. We are all watching with excitement to see if it can implement it effectively. A lot of work is ongoing. It will significantly increase the geographic area of Europe's seas that is under meaningful protection.

Charles Ward (Donegal, 100% Redress Party)
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Would Ms Bramley believe we in the north coast could seriously look into the Portuguese model into the future?

Ms Belinda Bramley:

It is certainly worth a look at in how to engage constructively with fisheries at the very beginning as a significant interest group. My understanding is two thirds of the MPA network that has been designated was designated by fisheries groups. This is an example of an equal balance of voices being heard in the co-design process. There is the financial support to give the fisheries confidence to come to the table and know their interests are being adequately addressed.

Charles Ward (Donegal, 100% Redress Party)
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To Ms Short, have there been any negative impacts on the fishing industry in Sussex since the introduction of the trawling by-law?

Ms George Short:

There was a fairly small fishery in Sussex by the time the by-law was implemented because there was such a severe decrease in stocks. There were only nine fishers displaced. The most significant impact is that those nine trawling fishers were then displaced out of the protected area. The area is not protected from all gear types. It is only bottom-towed gear, so it was only those nine fishers. Because it is not possible or easy to make a living all year round in our waters with one gear type, most fishers here have multiple gear types they rotate between to preserve their livelihood throughout the year. It was fairly minimal in our case but that is mainly a reflection of how depleted the stocks are. In terms of the economic cost to the fishery, it was predicted to be about £90,000 per annum but the predicted benefits were 1.5 times that for other gear types, so there was a trade-off with other gear types.

Manus Boyle (Fine Gael)
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I thank everyone for attending the committee. What is the biggest opposition from fishermen the witnesses have heard? How did they overcome it at the start?

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Who is that question directed at?

Manus Boyle (Fine Gael)
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Either of the two ladies who wants to answer.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Does Ms Bramley want to take that first, then Ms Short?

Ms Belinda Bramley:

Yes, thank you. I do not have direct experience of working on an MPA and engaging with the fishermen. Based on experience with the communities we are working with in Scotland, it can be very powerful when community fishermen - Ms Short mentioned Clive in her area - are willing to be advocates within their own community for the marine protected area. Having somebody with a grounded understanding of the constituency's needs is perhaps more effective than the environmental voices at the table.

Manus Boyle (Fine Gael)
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Ms Bramley mentioned the Great Bear Sea in Canada and said it is a model we could learn a lot from. How are they doing it so differently? Portugal was also mentioned. Is there a willingness there to do something different or is it enforcement?

Ms Belinda Bramley:

In Canada what was striking was the governments' position at federal and state level. It took particular individuals in the governments to recognise the government needed to surrender some control in this process and that having a top-down process would not work. If coastal communities affected by political decisions about marine protected areas are not constructively engaged, why would they support them? If they are not supported locally, they are not likely to achieve the desired objectives. There is strength in engaging the community well from the outset. In Canada this is part of a broader reconciliation process between the Canadian Government and the First Nations, so there was a political motivation to go above and beyond, facilitate the co-governance approach and trust in indigenous practices to balance conservation and sustainable use.

It is becoming more appreciated in conservation generally that we can only make it stick if we work with the local people and socioeconomic interests are catered to. It cannot be simply a biodiversity objective.

Manus Boyle (Fine Gael)
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Ms Short talked about down off the coast of England. How is compliance monitored? How is benefit to the marine protected areas judged?

Ms George Short:

I will take compliance first. We are in the nearshore area. The protection goes from low water to 4 km off the coast, so it is very near shore. It is possible to monitor this area using land and sea patrols. We have fisheries management vessels and vehicles that go out at different times, day and night, to keep it varied. They are looking for different gear types. They cannot keep a constant monitor on that from the shore and from the sea. There is enforcement. Members of staff will board fishers' vessels, take counts of their gear and keep control of it that way. That has worked successfully in the nearshore area and has been essential to the reason we have had no incursions on the protection - that is, no prohibited gear types.

Further out on our waters, similar to other international examples, the methodology uses vessel monitoring systems. That has not been well monitored and has not been as successful because less resource has been put into keeping an eye on those tracking systems. There needs to be some prevention of incursions into the protected area.

In our region, there has only been one case that was taken to court because of illegal fishing in a protected area. If there is not that visible enforcement of these prosecutions, then there is no incentive to abide by the protections, so there will be incursions. It is much more important in offshore protected areas that the vessel monitoring has adequate resourcing capacity, and also prosecutions when there are incursions in those areas. In our case, the land and sea patrols are adequate because it is so close to the coast.

With regard to monitoring how the ecosystem is changing and whether it is supporting sustainable fisheries, we have a large research and monitoring programme. It uses everything from towed video surveys, with underwater cameras looking at the seabed and predator populations using bait. We use environmental DNA analysis, similar to what is used at crime scenes, to assess the DNA in the water and which species might have been using that area. We also use catch data so that when fisheries management enforcement staff are going on board and taking records of the catches of different vessels, that data also inputs into how the catches are changing in our area. It is an enormous amount of resource, which in our case is currently spread between NGOs, academic institutions and statutory bodies. In an ideal situation, it would mainly be carried out by the statutory authority, but that is not well resourced here, so we have to spread it across.

There is also a key role for the fishers involved in that process. It is a key knowledge exchange for those fishers who are willing to engage. We carry out some of the surveys on their vessels, so they can see the benefits of the protection for their fishery and can also provide knowledge to us. There is a two-way exchange and they are involved in the monitoring.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I have several questions. Ms Bramley mentioned the MPAs in Italy and France, as well as the Portuguese model. I am interested in the objectives of the MPA in Italy she mentioned. It had biodiversity at its core, but also education and sustainable fishing. How has the process of putting the MPA in place worked out, as well as its management and ensuring there is sustainable fishing? Are there similar examples in either France or Portugal?

Ms Belinda Bramley:

My understanding from the Italian example is that the fishers have been involved from the very beginning in setting the regulations for the fisheries. The manager spoke at an event where he was presented with an award by the European Commission, for which the MPA Europe project was a judge. I remember that he commented on the active presence there, day in day out. This had been achieved not as a big bang or a sudden enlightenment, but through steady day-to-day work from the marine protected area staff. Fisheries representatives could come by the office and talk through an issue, and the work was worked through together. My understanding of that MPA is that the success it is evidencing today in terms of more profitable fisheries, and looking at significant expansion, spillovers and ecological recovery, is down to that very strong partnership and the tone that was set with fisheries organisations right from the very beginning.

The same can be said of the Isle of Man example. In the videos that I have provided a link to in my evidence, it is clear that this is the fruit of a partnership initiated in the main by the fisheries directorate within the marine environment ministry.

Some of the marine protected areas have arisen from fisheries restricted areas. This again demonstrates an openness to adapt and to be opportunistic almost about the designation and management of marine protected areas based on existing practices that might already be contributing to marine protection. Both those examples are worth a closer look at in terms of the equal-footing partnerships that have been established from the beginning and the learning by doing as they have gone along.

The Isle of Man has a very nice monitoring system in place for all the local fishers so that as soon as the fishers return with the catch, not only can they log where they were fishing very precisely on a map-based app but they can also report what has been caught. That is interactively fed into the fisheries management day by day so they have monitoring in place for all vessels and are able to adaptively manage the fishery very tightly.

The example I gave of Portugal's Azores MPA is very much at the designation stage. This is an unfolding story of how the partnership is working with the fisheries.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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That leads on nicely to my second question on the framework for performance analysis and monitoring, and what works. Ms Bramley mentioned the Isle of Man. While it may be too early to tell in Portugal, are there lessons to take from Italy and France in terms of performance analysis monitoring on an ongoing basis?

Ms Belinda Bramley:

Yes. The videos the Isle of Man produced as part of its biosphere recognition are really illuminating. Evidence is presented of ecological recovery and spillover, and of fisheries outcomes. The comment is made that it is essential to keep showing that the MPA is doing what it was intended to do, to maintain that public trust, to justify the closure of these areas, to keep the community engagement positive and to ensure the community continues to recognise the value of these places. In an island community perhaps that is a more strongly felt natural imperative than on the south coast of England where we do not have strong ocean literacy.

The performance analysis also needs to reflect the objectives of the MPA. The objectives could be simply this narrow feature-based approach or there can be the wider ecosystem and they could therefore be relating to fisheries education, research and increasingly climate. The Isle of Man marine protected area network is now considering how to use newly gathered information on blue carbon across some of the inshore area of the island to understand how that can feed into either newly designated protected areas or stronger protections or fisheries management measures so that seabed sediment impacts are mitigated. There is an example where they are continuing to adapt and experiment and improve management on a continuous spectrum.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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My next question is for Ms Short. We have heard about the impact on sea fisheries. Is Ms Short aware of any experience in Sussex of interaction with aquaculture, be that shellfish, finfish or seaweed, where the impact has been negative, positive or neutral?

Ms George Short:

We do not have any examples locally of aquaculture. In other areas of English waters there is aquaculture very close to marine protected areas. I am not aware of any that are within marine protected areas. Where they do exist, probably one learning is to make sure that the benefits for biodiversity and carbon sequestration that are claimed from the aquaculture facilities are long term and evidence based.

In a lot of cases information from those is claiming very short-term benefits which are then fed into protections or licensing. That would be a consideration - how long term are any carbon or biodiversity benefits of any aquaculture facilities if they are going to be implemented at all but especially if they are in a marine protected area.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I will put that same question to Ms Bramley in a moment. On the co-management of fisheries, allied with that analysis and monitoring, you mentioned, Ms Short, the involvement of fishing operators in research. Is that a formal structure? Is it done informally? Will you speak more on the impact that has had on the fishing industry locally in terms of the economic benefits or otherwise? Are you aware of similar happening in other areas where there are MPAs?

Ms George Short:

The mechanism with which that exists locally is through the fisheries management organisation by which we are able to create those relationships. That is because they are so physically present in the protected area, because they have that enforcement vessel. The members of staff who work for the fisheries management organisation are able and they have relationships, and those on-the-ground relationships are a key learning. They are boarding their vessels every day and have those interpersonal relationships so there is that level of trust, so we are able to organise our monitoring on those vessels with those fishers because they have that level of trust with those specific staff at the fisheries management who they know and see daily. From that process I would say there is a reluctance within some members of the fishing community, specifically if their gear type has impacted by the protection, to trust or work with fisheries management or conservation organisations or even researchers. For that reason there needs to be adequate safeguarding and support for fishers who do work with those organisations. The fishing community can even become violent at times. We have seen threats of that in our area and other areas in English waters towards either fisheries management other fishers or conservationists. A really key consideration is how to safeguard those fishers who are being involved that process as well.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Thank you. Ms Bramley, on the question I put to Ms Short earlier, will you speak of any interaction of MPAs with aquaculture in your experience or knowledge?

Ms Belinda Bramley:

Speaking of what is called regenerative aquaculture, that is, cultivation of seaweeds and shellfish, that is starting to increase around the UK, and I am aware of a mussel farm off the south coast of the UK was recently found to have created a mussel bed beneath the farm which was attracting biodiversity, so there can be positive benefits from regenerative aquaculture. That could be relevant to MPAs, for example, where water quality is a problem, and we have problems with our water quality in the UK, in that shellfish species can clean up nitrogen pollution and other forms of pollution. Reefs can mitigate some of those issues and we have lost a lot of our shellfish reefs around the UK. However, they need to be in the right places and they need to have social acceptance from the community.

I am aware anecdotally of concerns in Scotland about commercial aquaculture farms being located in close proximity to designated protected areas where coastal communities are active at those areas. I do not have any specific details I can give to the committee other than we have heard this expressed. This is where monitoring is really important but is sorely lacking in the UK due to a lack of resources. We have insufficient monitoring going on in our marine protected area networks in England and in Scotland, and water quality monitoring in particular is lacking, so there is no evidence to necessarily mitigate against those aquaculture farms.

They are, however, certainly of concern to some coastal communities in Scotland.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Ms Bramley and Ms Short for those very comprehensive and interesting responses. I do not believe we have any further questions for either of you at this moment. I just want to reiterate my thanks and the thanks of the committee for your time and for being with us share your expertise, your knowledge and the experiences in your respective geographic areas and areas of expertise. We will briefly suspend the meeting as we await our third witness.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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We are joined by Professor Mark John Costello of Nord University. Professor Costello's opening statement has been circulated. I take it as read. The professor is more than welcome to take two or three minutes to give an overview or synopsis, and then we will go to questions and answers with members. We also have Ms Short and Ms Bramley still on the call. They gave their opening statements earlier in the meeting and have answered questions. They will be here to form part of the discussion. They may have responses to some of the questions that come in later.

I invite Professor Costello to take the floor.

Professor Mark John Costello:

The key message from my presentation is that it is often overlooked that the most effective way to protect marine life and fisheries is to have no fishing areas that are properly located, so that the spillover effect benefits the fisheries around them. I have been teaching about marine protected areas for 20 years or so. At one time, students in the class were asking me about the negative effects on fisheries because people assume that there are negative effects when areas are closed to fisheries. We then realise that fishery management often close areas to fisheries because they know it has a long-term benefit.

I started cataloguing all these effects that I could find. I found about 50 studies in 25 countries around the world on finfish, shellfish, lobsters, scallops and range of others. In almost all cases - 90% of these cases - the area was completely closed to fishing that showed the fishery benefits. When we look at areas that are not completely closed and half measures are taken, it is not really clear what the benefits are, if any. Sometimes no benefits at all arise, neither ecological recovery of the habitats and species nor benefits to fisheries. These areas do not need to be very large.

I have been out at a project called MPA4Fish. The idea is to design areas that will benefit fisheries in the future. Fisheries are different from activities on land. Fisheries are wildlife. We are still basically hunting wildlife in the sea. We cannot manage it, therefore. We have to let it restore and recovery itself naturally, so we can then harvest it. It is a much simpler and more economically and socially equitable solution to nature conservation and fishery management to have some areas that are completely closed to fishing. Of course, many other areas can have more sustainable fishing methods around them, which would benefit from the spillover. Instead of having the default as allowing people to fish whatever they want until the problem happens, we take a more proactive approach, whereby everybody realises that business as usual is not working for anybody, including fishermen and nature conversation.

That is a summary of a few of my thoughts. I am happy to take any questions now and later in the session.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Professor Costello very much for that. We will move to the questions and answers session. There will be seven minutes per member in which they have time to put their question and that also includes the time for responses. There will be a bit of back and forth. I ask members to put their questions and ensure they leave time for the response as well. Ms Short and Ms Bramley can come in if they wish to come in at any point to contribute. There might be something that we have not addressed earlier that might be flagged. Deputy Ward is up first and then Deputies Mac Lochlainn and Whitmore and Senator Boyle.

Charles Ward (Donegal, 100% Redress Party)
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I asked Ms Bramley this question earlier and I wish to get Professor Costello's opinion on it. How are other European countries establishing and enforcing their MPAs? Which country has done so successfully?

Professor Mark John Costello:

The Azores are doing the best job. They have had a programme with the fisheries community and designated over 30% of their exclusive economic zone. It is curious that globally, the countries with the best and most proactive management are often island nations in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It is maybe that their communities get it and really see the value of protecting marine life. The Azores are doing a very good job. They are probably by far the best region in Europe. There are places in Italy, such as in Tuscany, that are also quite good.

They have a range of different types of protected areas there as well.

Charles Ward (Donegal, 100% Redress Party)
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Does Professor Costello believe that a community-led format is the way forward for this?

Professor Mark John Costello:

Yes, definitely. You have to involve the community early on. The difficult job for the members, as politicians, which I do not envy them, is to bring people on board, explain to them what is involved and then come up with a measure that will work for most people most of the time.

Charles Ward (Donegal, 100% Redress Party)
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Has Professor Costello seen instances where MPAs have failed? If he has, what was the reason for that?

Professor Mark John Costello:

Usually, they allowed some form of fishing. We have an example in Norway that I have just worked on, and there was one in New Zealand. On both of those, they allowed recreational fishing. This had the perverse effect of not allowing fishing for commercial purposes and food, but allowing it for entertainment. It acts as a magnet then, and you get so much recreational fishing that it is even worse than any commercial fishing would have been before. That is why it is much easier for everybody to understand if all fishing is banned in certain areas and if, in other areas, permits are granted for particular types of fishing.

Charles Ward (Donegal, 100% Redress Party)
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Ms Bramley mentioned the Portuguese model. Is Professor Costello aware of this? Has he seen it? What is his opinion on it?

Professor Mark John Costello:

Maybe she was referring to the Azores. In the Algarve in Portugal, there is also very nice work going on with local communities that is very good.

Charles Ward (Donegal, 100% Redress Party)
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I thank Professor Costello.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I may have participated at a forum at which Professor Costello was involved a few years back for Members of the Oireachtas. It was not a committee. Professor Costello's work has been recognised for quite a while. He will know that the enactment of legislation in Ireland has been long delayed. This may provide an opportunity to allow us to learn from other countries internationally. Obviously, we will look at the Azores in that regard.

One of the big issues is that of co-creation. Our seas and oceans are shared spaces. We have made big mistakes in Ireland regarding the development of offshore renewable energy on our east coast. We could have brought fishing communities along, but, instead, we are caught in a quagmire of judicial reviews. What followed from that was the marine area planning process, designated maritime area plans and an attempt to come up with an approach that would bring everybody together and involve everybody. We need offshore renewable energy, we need to protect our marine environment and we can have sustainable fisheries.

I want to get Professor Costello's sense of a good model internationally. He mentioned the Azores, and perhaps that is it. Is there an example of where fishing communities were at the table and involved in co-creation, where offshore renewable energy can be facilitated and where the marine environment can be protected? Those are the three goals. Maybe it is utopia. There will not be a perfect example. However, is the best example what is happening in the Azores or is it what is happening somewhere else?

Professor Mark John Costello:

I am not sure if the Azores have wind energy included in theirs. I do not know of any examples that have all those things, because wind energy is such a new thing. However, there are examples in parts of the Canary Islands and Newfoundland in Canada. There are a few places around the world where fishing communities wanted the marine protected areas. It was their initiative. These are not the norm, unfortunately. In part, that is because they do not trust the regulatory system or other fishermen, because fishermen are a diverse group. I will start having a look for things like that. Ms Bramley might know. I do not know if I have come across any.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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That is fair enough. It is a work in progress. In fairness to Ms Short and Ms Bramley, they gave us good evidence in terms of good practice in the UK and internationally. Professor Costello referred to something I mentioned in the earlier session, namely the spillover benefits from the restoration and recovery of fisheries.

Professor Costello might talk about that. I think he stated that he does not know any MPA that has not led to increased opportunity for fisheries. He might talk about that for a while.

Professor Mark John Costello:

Not quite that, no. I do not know of any MPA that has caused a loss to a fishery that is documented. We could speculate why that is the case; maybe the MPAs are well designed with the fishing community. Of course, many MPAs are not old enough or large enough. Maybe they were not properly located to have the fishery benefits. I am sorry, I got distracted by something outside the car here and I missed part of the Deputy's question.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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No problem. I will repeat it. I have been in the professor's situation, trying to take online calls in a car. I fully understand the difficulty he is having - getting distracted by somebody waving at you. There are benefits to modern technology but sometimes it is difficult to have a meeting like this. There is no problem at all.

As Professor Costello made clear, it is not quite the recovery of fisheries but the loss of fisheries. One of the selling points for MPAs to fishing communities is that if they work with and join in this process, it will only benefit fisheries for future generations. Professor Costello might speak about that.

Professor Mark John Costello:

Yes, that is possible. We see this sometimes on land as well, where farmers are adapting to the new demands and environmentally friendly practices. I could easily see an area where there is no fishing agreed with the fishing community and wide areas where there is restricted fishing of certain types that are perhaps not harmful to the habitats, where they are using pots or lines. Certain types of pelagic fishing might be allowed in certain areas and all these would be better managed and permitted so that everybody knows who has got the rights.

In New Zealand, where I was for 16 years, it is quite spectacular how, after the first reserves were created, the fishing community was the first to report anybody who was cheating because nobody likes a cheat. Even when assigned and as we were doing the field work, people would telephone in and say, "There's some guy out there and he's doing something". Once you bring the community along, it almost becomes self-enforcing. You still need enforcement, however, and the fishing community would need to know that is happening. It is not just about designing the nature conservation areas but having the management and enforcement activities to back those up. Perhaps this is already a problem in fishery management as well.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I get a sense that Ms Bramley is itching to come in on that question too. She can feel free to come in on the preservation of the fishing opportunity for future generations. If I were a fisherman right now, how would she sell marine protected areas to me?

Ms Belinda Bramley:

My view is that they are a win-win-win. They are wins for biodiversity, climate and fisheries. We have not really tried them as well as we could in Europe, which is sad, but we see these bright spots - the blue parks and green list parks and other MPAs like the Isle of Man, which do not necessarily have that international recognition but are performing fantastically. We have enough science, as Professor Costello knows, to demonstrate that they can work. It is the people element we need to think about more. How do we get that strong trust and partnership from the outset? As I think I mentioned earlier, the best advocates are the fishers. There are some of those in the UK who are now on the side of marine protection and they make the best advocates among the fishing community.

Professor Costello also touched on fisheries disputes. One of the Isle of Man marine protected areas I mentioned stemmed from a fisheries dispute related to two types of gear in this area. The fishermen agreed between them to close off an area and that became a fisheries restricted area but it is now a marine reserve. This is where we can make a virtue out of some of these areas of disagreement if we look at them in the right way and are a bit creative. We have to be creative and a bit more open-minded, accept that the status quo is not working for anybody and try some new things. That requires political will and an ability to let the communities have more of a say.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I thank Professor Costello for participating. As my colleague said, it is difficult to do from the car but he is managing quite well. I read his statement where talked about the spillover and it was quite surprising to him that this was a consistent in all the different marine protected areas that he has seen globally but it is quite counterintuitive. It is sort of hard to explain. Can the Professor explain to people how it would be possible that, if you close off an area, the areas outside, where there might even be more fishing effort going in, still see a better return?

Professor Mark John Costello:

There are two reasons. First, the spillover they often talk about is the egg production. Within the protected areas, the fish get larger, and larger fish have proportionally more eggs so they contribute more to the outside. There have been studies in New Zealand and Australia documenting this. It is hard to measure. I think the more common one is where the abundance of fish inside just increases because they are not being fished. They also get larger, over the legal size limit. There is some type of density-dependent behaviour of fish inside the reserves and they eventually start leaving. I met somebody in Denmark and they have exactly the same pattern with geese in Denmark. They created areas where there was no hunting allowed and now they have a spillover of geese into the areas around them where hunting has happened. This started 20 years and it has been a great success. That is the main benefit. The fish get so abundant that they need more elbow room and start moving out.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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Was there a time period seen for that spillover effect?

Professor Mark John Costello:

Yes.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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How long was required or is it species-dependent?

Professor Mark John Costello:

It would be species-dependent and dependent on the prior fishing effort, or how hard they had been fished before, and the types of species. If you are only looking at the legal size limit of fish, you might see an effect within a couple of years. If the population has been fished very hard and they need to restore, you could be looking at longer.

There was a very interesting paper last year. I do not know if the Deputy knows that anglers love catching the biggest fish and there is a world database on who catches the biggest fish around the world. They discovered that the biggest ones are increasingly being founded outside of fully protected areas but most of those effects took 20 years to happen. They would be the exceptionally large fish.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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Okay. I thank Professor Costello. One of the areas I am most fearful of is that while we have the MPA legislation that is coming in, hopefully soon, we will implement it in a way that is not effective and essentially just have these paper parks in our marine in the same manner that we have paper parks on land as well, in that we do not have proper management plans and there is no biodiversity prioritisation within them.

Professor Costello mentioned that if you do not have highly protected areas it just will not work. I am not sure whether highly protected areas are something the Government is considering. It seems to be just talking about 30 by 30 but it does not seem to be talking about that 10% that had been initially discussed as the highly protected requirement. If we do not put in highly protected areas, is there any point in doing it? Do half-measures work with this? That would be my fear.

Professor Mark John Costello:

Yes. We do not know if half measures would work. They may or may not. A lot of fishing has a by-catch problem as well, where things are caught and released but do not survive. This is another reason why many types of fishing will have a knock-on effect on other fish that are not targeted and affect the whole ecosystem. It is a bit like taking half-measures in anything. It is a kind of compromise but we do not compromise with our own health if we are taking our own medicine, so we do not want to compromise when we are trying to protect ocean life either. We should have at least some places. The target for Europe is 10%; it is not a lot. Sometimes you would think people were asking for 90%, which I think is weird. They react so badly, but it is just 10%. Thirty percent is quite a lot when you look at it on a map and you look at the best areas.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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Okay. I thank the Professor. I will go back to his previous point. It is something I am hearing a lot more and I wonder whether there is a fundamental flaw in how we have been managing stocks for the past number of decades in that we have a catch size limit whereby you can catch anything above that size.

However, it is actually the bigger fish that produce more eggs and are probably more valuable to continued population growth. Does Professor Costello think there is that fundamental flaw or opportunities to modify how we are managing our stocks to incorporate that new knowledge?

Professor Mark John Costello:

Where I am living in Norway, you have to return halibut over a certain size. You can only kill the middling-sized ones. When I was in Canada, in the Bay of Fundy, there were these giant lobsters which are too big to get into lobster pots. They were the breeding population that were giving the young to the entire fishery. I am not sure if that answered all of the Deputy's questions but no one has asked me about the Common Fisheries Policy, CFP, yet either. I am waiting.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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That is my next question. One of the difficulties with managing fish stocks in Ireland is that the Common Fisheries Policy has to be adhered to. There are challenges around that in that if you go outside your inner limits, a country cannot tell or regulate what another country catches. The efficiency of MPAs may be limited if the Common Fisheries Policy is applied. Is that Professor Costello's understanding as well?

Professor Mark John Costello:

That was my understanding until the previous November, when there was a meeting in Dublin under the nature restoration regulation. The European Commission published and circulated a report. It is listed in my document I submitted. There is an obligation on member states to respect the rules that other member states bring in. There have already been two court cases showing this is the case. For example, if you were to create a marine protected area in Ireland's exclusive economic zone bordering the territorial sea, this would act as a buffer for the coastal fisheries in the territorial sea area, as well as protecting areas offshore. Other member states are obliged to respect that. You may have to be a little bit tough with them but there are measures within the Common Fisheries Policy to do that. The document was an eye-opener for me. I think it was written by the Directorate-General for Environment.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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That is actually really interesting because that was not my understanding. Some of our other witnesses might be aware of it. I was told Portugal had attempted to do this and had been essentially stopped under the Common Fisheries Policy but maybe that is not the case.

Professor Mark John Costello:

I think they can push through on that because that has been the belief so far. According to this document, that is not the case. I believe it was the Dutch Government that wanted to fish in a marine protected area that Britain had set up and the Dutch court ruled it could not because it was designated as a protected area.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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Fantastic. With the Cathaoirleach's discretion, the other witnesses might have something to add to that, if that is possible.

Ms Belinda Bramley:

I thank the Deputy. It is a very fluid area at the moment. In particular, there is this bottleneck the CFP is creating for marine protected areas outside the territorial seas. As Professor Costello said, a group of NGOs successfully challenged the Dutch Government on issuing fishing licenses on the Dogger Bank, which the UK had closed off fishing to since leaving the European Union. The CFP is being increasingly challenged legally. Portugal is a very interesting test case to watch to see how this pans out. There is now the Ocean Act in Europe and the Ocean Pact. It is a fluid area but it has proved to be a bottleneck for a lot of MPAs anecdotally.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I thank Ms Bramley. Would Ms Short like to add anything?

Ms George Short:

I will briefly comment. The case of the sand eel fishery around the Dogger Bank is definitely one to look at. The other thing I wanted to comment on was no-take zones and the effectiveness of spillover there. Obviously, we are only considering the pressures of fishing here. Where the English water system has failed is that they have not taken a precautionary approach to other pressures that may be on the system. Things like marine heatwaves that have been more frequently experienced in British and Irish waters, increasing intensity and frequency of storms, water quality, increased sediment in our waters and ocean acidification are all things that will be compounding factors in the recovery and potential benefits you might see from a marine protected area.

Taking a precautionary strategy or approach would definitely be where we failed and where we could learn from our failings.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I thank the witnesses.

Manus Boyle (Fine Gael)
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I thank Professor Costello for attending. He stated that the programme in the Azores is doing it right. What could we learn from that? We are only beginning our voyage. What information can Professor Costello provide or advise us to look at? That would be a good way of doing it because is better to be well armed at the start rather than to be sitting here 20 years down the road saying that we made mistakes. Any more information we can get from people like the witnesses would be more than welcome.

Professor Mark John Costello:

The programme does a lot of field marine surveys. It has a great deal of information on everything from whales and corals to fish stocks and other marine life. That was all put together in maps. There was a scientific recommendation regarding which areas would protect all of the species within their exclusive economic zone. There were then multiple meetings with the different stakeholders over several years. I cannot remember the number exactly, but it was tens of meetings. Some meetings might only have involved three or four people. The maps were looked at and the fishermen and tourism people were asked which areas they thought were most important, where they would get most tourists, where there was whale watching or where there were certain fisheries.

A platform called SeaSketch is used for that. It has been well used in California, New Zealand and other places. People sat down and there was a negotiation where everybody discovered what everybody wanted and said, "If we do this, that will be the outcome", and, "If we do that, this will be the outcome." The Government stated that it will have 30%, so there is a cake there that the others have to share. They managed to come through with some very good recommendations. From what I hear, it has been very positively received in the Azores. There are a couple of scientists who say it is not perfect, but nothing is ever perfect.

Manus Boyle (Fine Gael)
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How much of Ireland's waters would need to become fully protected to achieve meaningful stock recovery in Ireland?

Professor Mark John Costello:

That is a great question. I do not know. We would have to start with places where the communities are willing. One of the common things I have heard in Norway - and this happened in New Zealand - is that people say, "That works fine over there, but it will not work here because things are different." There are some general principles that are the same everywhere. If we got communities to have some successful protective areas, such as Tralee Bay or maybe parts of Galway Bay, people from other communities would be able to visit and talk to those who they feel they can relate to better than crazy scientists like me. People will then go along with it.

That is what happened in New Zealand. It was very annoying for the New Zealand Government and those involved with fisheries, because people saw the first marine reserve and went home asking, "Why can we not have one like this where we can swim with thousands of fish and see our children being pulled along on ropes through the water in their wetsuits." New Zealand now has 48 of them, and only perhaps the last eight or so were scientifically designed to fill gaps. Most of them were created just because people wanted them in their local communities, but they had already seen one.

Manus Boyle (Fine Gael)
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It is often stated at meetings of this committee that climate change has had a big impact. Does the Professor agree with that? From what we are hearing from other people and from Europe about the likes of bluefin tuna, they were never abundant in Irish waters, There is now an abundance of the species, however. Those to whom I refer all say that this is down to climate change. Does Professor Costello agree?

Professor Mark John Costello:

Yes, it seems to be. They also brought in measures to reduce fishing for tuna, so maybe that has helped. Climate change is changing things. It will not a be a disaster. We will just have to learn how to adapt to it when we see these changes in fish stocks and what is happening. Ireland is in the middle of Europe and is located between the warmest and the coldest areas.

In the future, we will probably still have most of the species in Ireland that we have now but their abundances will change. We will just have to adapt to it. Climate change is with us now for this century, to some degree.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I have a number of questions to put. I understand that the professor is tenured in Nord University in Norway. Norway is a country we often look to as being innovators in the marine space and having a very positive and progressive attitude towards their maritime resource, if not always the shared maritime environment, if I can put it as bluntly as that. Will Professor Costello tell us a little about the marine protected areas, MPA, structure in Norway including their journey there, the public acceptance, the industry attitude, the ongoing management and the benefits?

Professor Mark John Costello:

They were actually not very advanced regarding MPA until last year, when they created the first few around Oslofjord. They have created a sort of park around Oslofjord but this is an area polluted by sewage, overfishing and lots of human pressures. They have created some no-fishing areas within that. They are the first ones in Norway. As the Cathaoirleach mentioned, generally Norway has been very much focused on using its resources and less on nature conservation, especially in the sea. In part, that is because it is a huge coastline and they probably feel it is not that threatened. Increasingly, however, the public are very concerned. In our local protected area, the council has told the fisheries they have to stop fishing in the protected area and have to control it better because it is an embarrassment to everybody when they see so many hooks and lines lost in the water and people fishing for entertainment inside it, which is not necessary.

I am involved in two projects in Norway. One is designing where it would be best to place protected areas. They had a similar exercise 20 years ago but they did not protect them, so we will be looking at that again. The second project is to look more specifically at exactly which areas within this sort of network they should prioritise and start working on. When Norway has its regulations, they are enforced very strictly, but at the moment the protected area near me has so many exemptions that it does not really work at all for anybody, including the local people. It works for tourists, I suppose. They come and go fishing for the first time in their lives and then lose the hooks and lines in the water.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Thank you. That just shows that the Norwegians are not leaders in everything to do with the sea.

Professor Mark John Costello:

No, they are not.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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In his opening statement, Professor Costello made the case strongly for no-fish areas. We have also heard evidence that there are MPAs where certain types of fishing activity can take place. Is there an argument to be made for a chequered or mixed approach where some MPAs, depending on local socioeconomic factors and ecological factors, allow certain types of fishing while there would be parts of MPAs or additional MPAs that are specifically no-fish areas? Could a mixed approach like that work?

Professor Mark John Costello:

Yes. I forgot to mention the lobster reserves in Norway. They have been a huge success. There are more than 60 of them and they are under fishing regulations. They are mostly driven by local communities once they see the others work so well. I forgot to give them credit for that. That is kind of a resource management exercise rather than nature conservation. They are finding that there appear to be side benefits of that to other species.

To come back to the Chair's question, there is a big debate within the nature conservation community about the approaches and whether they should be people-centred or nature-centred. Of course, in reality it all has to somehow fit together. However, if it is being called a protected area, the main focus must be the conservation of biodiversity and then any benefits to fisheries are secondary. There could also be places where the aim is to manage fisheries or wind farms and they may have benefits to biodiversity as a secondary benefit. They seem to be the two pathways they are moving forward with. They are what are called "other effective area-based conservation measures." They could be areas that are essentially designed for wind farms but where the biodiversity increases for some reason.

All of this has to be built in with sustainable development because, in some way, we could say we want to go back to Charlie Haughey's day when he declared all of Ireland a sanctuary for whales. Ireland could declare the whole coast a protected area if it had sustainable fisheries on all of it, which is what we want. That might be a little bit cheeky but some of the Pacific Island nations have done it. The Cook Islands have declared their whole EEZ a marine protected area and they then give permits for particular activities in certain places.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Professor Costello. That is probably the first call for a return to the Charlie Haughey era I have heard at an Oireachtas committee since the Charlie Haughey era.

Professor Mark John Costello:

Apologies.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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It is okay. We all shivered a little. Thank you for that, Professor Costello. I see Ms Bramley has raised her hand to contribute.

Ms Belinda Bramley:

I just want to respond to the previous committee member's question on climate change. It speaks to the no-take marine protected areas, which are the strictly protected MPAs. One of the findings from a 40-year study from California on its MPA network was that kelp is more resilient to heatwaves when in strictly protected marine protected areas. This speaks beyond fisheries to maintaining the whole trophic food web intact. Another important benefit of strictly protected areas is that they tell us what "good" looks like for the marine environment and they are more resilient in the face of climate change. That is another benefit beyond the sedimentary storage of carbon and the sequestration that goes on.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Ms Bramley for that. I have a question which relates to other human pressures on the marine environment outside of fishing. They could be development of offshore renewable energy, surveying work, drilling for oil and gas, shipping and, in littoral areas, water pollution from rivers, particularly in bays and estuaries. How do the marine protected areas, in Professor Costello's experience, deal with those? I want to take the focus a little off fishing and look at other areas of human pressure.

Professor Mark John Costello:

Marine protected areas are designed for one purpose and these other activities should not be causing harm anywhere, such as sewage pollution or eutrophication from farming into rivers and then into estuaries. These are all problems caused by people, in a way. They may not be a problem in certain situations. Some oil and gas extraction facilities have a very small footprint on the seabed, meaning as long as it is done safely and does not spill it may have very limited impacts. That is similarly true with wind farms. We want to advance thinking. Sometimes, for example, aquaculture might increase productivity and employment in an area with less environmental impact than what was happening before, especially if there was dredging or trawling, which is basically scraping the whole seabed in the area and reducing the marine life.

A difficulty for marine planning is that we tend to take past practices as established and okay but not allow new practices or make it difficult for new things to happen that may be much more environmentally sustainable, like wind farms, for example, and using marine reserves to generate the spill-over benefits, which may be a much better solution in the long run as in that case it is protecting the whole population. Ms Bramley mentioned there are other studies which show healthier populations survive extreme events like storms and heatwaves better.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Thank you. I want to ask Ms Short a similar question. The south of England is probably the most densely populated part of the island of Britain. Regarding the immediate coastal areas, what impact have those human pressures and pollution had, if any, on the maritime environment? What have the marine protected areas been able to do to mitigate that, if anything?

Ms George Short:

This is another case of how we failed providing a key learning. Our MPA policy in English waters does not support automatically taking an approach of considering other pressures. There is a key example in Sussex Water where a protected area is designated for fisheries management but dredging and disposal still occurs within that protected area. Unfortunately, that protected area is not achieving its goals for recovery because there is really low water quality. In a similar way, as was described, licences in that area were already granted or recurring on a periodic basis before it was designated and that has not been reassessed. A key learning is to link up the licensing systems for other activities in those areas with marine protection with a consideration at the point of implementation for activities to be mitigated in that area. Linked to that is that it would be helpful to have links between the marine protected area policy and any net zero policy, because of the links between carbon emissions specifically from trawling and the fact that the carbon in the seabed is released from that practice even years after that has occurred in situ. Having policy links between what might seem separate and dispersed departments would be helpful. That is how they are dealt with in the English system. That has been an issue with marine protected areas not achieving what they set out to do. There is definitely a learning. Ours is one of the most densely populated areas in the busiest shipping lane in the world. There is an enormous amount of work we are trying to do to backpedal and collect data to understand those other pressures to push a more effective policy on water quality issues in our area. It is very rare, and this goes for all concepts in marine protection, that we have adequate data on how things were pre-pressure. It is okay to look at international examples of where there is an accepted concept that a particular pressure affects a species or group of which you are trying to improve the spillover. If it is an accepted concept elsewhere, a precautionary approach is that pressure is probably impacting the fishery you are trying to sustain or the area you are trying to recover. You may never have the baseline evidence that enables you to prove it is having an impact in situ, but that does not mean it is not having an impact.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Ms Short. I put the same questions to Ms Bramley, looking at examples in other countries as well with regard to human pressures, particularly in coastal areas.

Ms Belinda Bramley:

This speaks to the importance of effective marine spatial planning and coastal zone planning. Our experience from the MPA Europe project is that rarely across Europe have good examples occurred. We certainly heard about the example in Denmark where marine protected areas were the last areas to be designated after the needs of renewable energy had been met. The fisheries organisations there were articulate about the squeeze felt by the fisheries constituency in particular. Unfortunately, we do not seem to have ever got a good balance of participation in marine spatial planning processes so far in the European process. Obviously some countries have much less space than others with which to deal with all this. It is important that marine spatial planning is fully participatory of all the constituencies and tries to achieve this delicate balance. There will always be trade-offs, but parties need to be invited to the table to begin with. We also have to look more at the actual data. As Ms Short said, it is sorely lacking in a lot of countries in Europe, particularly the UK.

Marine protected area management is typically looking at pressures outside the marine protected area. Talking about the coastal zone in particular, most of the pressures are probably coming from land. This is a learning we have from the coastal communities we are starting to work with in Scotland and England. It could be leisure vessels mooring over seagrass. It could be water quality concerns linked to aquaculture as I mentioned previously. Ireland could learn from these in thinking about good buffer zones around marine protected areas wherever possible because our seas are getting busier. That does not help with the diffuse issues of water quality, water pollution and noise pollution. Again, we need to think about good practices or potentially statutory measures for shipping lanes and vessel rerouting. Increasingly, corporates are aware of their footprint on climate and biodiversity and are interested in taking voluntary measures, but they may not have the data to know what kinds of species are in the water. Increasingly, marine vessels are taking on NGOs that are educating passengers, if it is a ferry, about the marine life that is abundant in various waters. This is useful intelligence for companies to take voluntary measures even if government has not endorsed official measures to reroute shipping vessels. There are opportunities to learn from why we have made mistakes.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I follow on from that point. If we are creating these MPAs, particularly inshore ones, should we be incorporating any river inputs? The MPA should not just start at the intertidal zone or wherever, but we should be looking inland to see what potential impacts could be flowing through the river or over land and that should be part of an MPA.

Professor Mark John Costello:

Yes, I think so. Salmon, trout and eels live in estuaries and the sea, as well as the rivers. Those are some of our culturally most important fisheries. You do not want nutrients coming in and causing algal blooms in the bays due to too much fertiliser coming in down the rivers. They need to be considered. There is also the presence of harbours that might need to be dredged and other factors that need to be considered in designing MPAs.

Ms Belinda Bramley:

It is an interesting point. I think there are initiatives to restore oyster reefs in the River Tees in the UK and seagrass in some of the lochs in Scotland. Some of those important fish nursery habitats start in the estuaries in some cases. We are seeing active restoration initiatives going on there. We need marine protected areas that both work around those restoration sites or adjacent to them so there are synergies between what will hopefully become stronger and more effective MPAs, so we get that genetic reservoir that can be used for restoration.

Ms George Short:

There is an opportunity for Ireland to be incredibly progressive and include that inland source of impact in the initial assessment and protection of a coastal area, certainly in respect of areas with intensive aquaculture or other riverine inputs. There are a lot of nitrogen inputs. One issue in our area is that we have a lot of intensive agriculture close to or upstream of coastal environments. A huge amount of sediment is going into those water courses and clouding our coastal zone, which is preventing recovery in a lot of cases.

There is a huge opportunity for Ireland to lead the way, including upstream impacts too.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank all our witnesses for their contribution and for sharing their time, expertise and experiences with us. We are very grateful for that. This will be part of a conversation that will no doubt continue as this committee works and legislation is produced, pored over and enacted. We will keep in touch. I thank the witnesses.

Professor Mark John Costello:

Apart from complimenting members on the very good questions, I will say that it is not difficult to estimate the growth rate of species and many people in Ireland would know the growth rate of oysters, lobsters and scallops, which are well studied, and how long it would take the spillover effect. I have two people working with me now and this is what we are going to look at to come up with some general rules. I could simply estimate in an area, knowing what is there now, whether there would be a spillover benefit in certain species and how long that would take. This research is possible and these are good questions the Government can ask its science advisers; hint, hint.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Professor Costello. If he would be kind enough to share the results of that research with us, we would certainly appreciate that. As there are no further matters for discussion, today's meeting of the joint committee stands adjourned until 9 June at 11 a.m.