Fisheries Impacts Evidence Database Project Methodology Report: An in-depth review of fishing impacts on protected habitats and accompanying evidence spreadsheet.
Abstract
The Fisheries Impacts Evidence Database Spreadsheet (FIED) and Fisheries Impacts on Marine Protected Habitats - A Review of the Evidence are two evidence products produced by Natural England as part of a project commissioned by Defra's Marine Biodiversity Impacts Evidence Group. The purpose of each product is to support the assessment and management of commercial fishing in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), providing a collation of impacts evidence is to inform Habitat Regulations and Marine Conservation Zone Assessments. The FIED was initially created and developed by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) to present key evidence sources to support the assessment of the potential fishing impacts in European Marine Sites. As part of this evidence project the spreadsheet has been updated and increased in scope to include evidence related to Marine Conservation Zone feature. The updated spreadsheet is searchable using specific terms for features, sub-features and fishing gear types. The Fisheries Impacts on Marine Protected Habitats - A Review of the Evidence is a written document that provides summaries of evidence concerning the impacts of different fishing gears on MPA features. These summaries provide the best available evidence on impacts at the time of writing and highlight key evidence gaps and limitations. This report details how evidence sources were collated, prioritized and how and why the evidence found were customized to be consistent with Natural England's MPA conservation advice packages, limitations of the project and quality assurance processes.