WP 6: Threats, indicators, and shortcomings to achieve favourable conservation status

Northern Europe has not yet dedicated enough attention to effectively implementing and assessing its marine protected areas (MPAs) to achieve good ecological status. For example, in many European MPAs there is currently more trawling inside than outside their borders, which is hardly compatible with sufficient protection of species and habitats. To turn this, there is great potential in coordinating fishing activity and conservation strategies. The EU Biodiversity Strategy aims to establish a network of MPAs which will cover 30% of the sea, with 10% being “strictly protected”. In this part of the project, we will assess Northern Europe's already existing MPAs and their function in achieving this goal. Furthermore, we will develop guidelines for how new MPAs can be established and how those we already have can be strengthened by combining fisheries management and marine conservation.

During the first year of the project, we have been digging into the regulations of Scandinavian MPAs to assess their levels of protection as these can be good proxies of MPA effectiveness. To support that, we are in contact with local scientists and managers to gather and validate spatial information. We are now overlapping all the spatial information we could get, and we will soon provide a synthesis about protection coverage and the type of protection in place. We have done it already for the Skagerrak region and contributed to a policy brief to the Nordic Council of Ministers 21% of Skagerrak is within MPAs, but only 1% is within fully or highly protected MPAs and 15% is considered incompatible with conservation objectives, according to the MPA guide framework  We are also studying future perspectives for the region.