JERSEY needs to “push forward” with plans to enhance protections for its marine environment, according to an award-winning conservationist.
Kevin McIlwee, chair of Jersey Marine Conservation, said the government needed to act “as quickly and as effectively as is economically possible” in relation to the revised Marine Spatial Plan recently put forward by Environment Minister Steve Luce.
Mr McIlwee, who won Best Conservation Project at the Jersey Conservation Awards in 2022, cited the impacts of climate change and diminishing biodiversity as some of the challenges facing the Island’s marine environment.
His comments came in response to a review of the plan being conducted by the Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Scrutiny Panel.
Deputy Luce’s proposals could see over 23% of the Island’s territorial waters become marine-protected areas.
The number has shrunk from the 27% originally proposed under the previous government, following consultation work that included input from the fishing community.
The States Assembly is set to debate the plan later this year.
In a written submission to the Scrutiny panel, Mr McIlwee said it was important that “the seriousness of biodiversity decline and the impacts of climate change” were drawn into “imminent and all subsequent planning decisions”.
Highlighting the difficulties in predicting the impact of rising emissions and changing weather patterns, he also stressed that the Island had “correctly” declared a climate crisis in 2019 – adding that the situation “has not changed”.
“In reality, the lack of effective action has placed us in a position of mitigation, not eradication. The MSP is exactly what the title states, a plan. The government needs to act as quickly and as effectively as is economically possible,” Mr McIlwee wrote.
Speaking to the JEP, he added that there were still several factors that needed to be considered – such as how the MPAs would be managed and enforced – but agreed there was a need to “push forward” with the enhanced protections.
