Marine Conservation Zone proposed on the tidal

A mis-informed group are considering making the river below Teddington, a MCZ.

Obviously this could affect our fishing, so we're giving it our fully comprehensive attention.

The sceptical have gotta wonder, why is our license money being used to fund bio-diversity teams, while fishery teams are being reduced.

Basically our blood brothers the fishery teams are being replaced with people with other agendas, who most definitely should be answering to us.

WE ARE BIO-DIVERSIVE
just check out this forum, from invasive species control, to tracking down the very rare bee orchid, you the members have been doing it for ages

Jim, thanks for the heads-up. What is the name of this group?

Give us some more info Jim, who do they work for? The PLA? Who?

Ta,


Richard

Slightly clouded but they are the Balanced Seas group who are part of the Thames Estuary Partnership, which we believe are then linked to the biodiversity team of the EA. As I said it is clouded.

The TAC has been invited to a meeting on the 17th March which we will attend.

We also are in contact with the Angling Trust expert so information gathering and building the argument.

Comments as always please, get involved as this has the potential to affect all anglers on the tidal reaches.

From the latest MCZ project Newsletter


Extra time for the Marine Conservation Zone Project

The Marine Conservation Zone Project Board has agreed extra time to enable the regional projects to accommodate the increased scope of Defra Guidance Note 1and the impact assessment, also taking into account the issues raised by stakeholders and advice provided by regional project teams.

Joanna Redhead, Net Gain Project Manager, said: “This is good news. There is still a lot more work to do, but it demonstrates that the stakeholder process is working.”


The revised timeline is now as follows:

28 February 2011 (unchanged date): the four MCZ regional projects submit their third progress reports to the Science Advisory Panel.



1 June 2011 (unchanged date, but changed scope of what is to be delivered at this time): On receiving feedback from the Science Advisory Panel, the four MCZ regional projects will be required to deliver draft final proposals, including site boundaries and conservation objectives.



31 August 2011 (extended date): the four MCZ regional projects will deliver their final MCZ recommendations to the Science Advisory Panel and the Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies – which are the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and Natural England.



30 September 2011 (extended date): the four regional and cumulative impact assessments must be delivered to the Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies.

30 November 2011 (unchanged date): the Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies must deliver their final advice to Government, to enable designation of MCZs by 2012.

Don't ignore this chaps because you're not quite sure what it means. It will affect you if you want to fish the tidal, or you want your kids/grand-kids to fish it.

By law already passed, marine conservation zones (underwater nature reserves) will be created. This is good for fish as it will protect stocks.

However, for us, it could mean a total ban on angling on parts of the tidal Thames. They haven't ruled it out.

Teddington has been suggested as one of those areas. One of the requirements is zones are joined up (natural corridors), so that could also mean they look at Richmond, Kew, Isleworth and so on.

One of the requirements is physical boundaries are easy to see and police. A river makes that easy.

One of the requirements is the zones are nearby the research facilities so monitoring can take place. Well, 2 of the parties involved, the UCL and ZSL, are a bus ride away from the river. Beats them heading out to the North Sea.

Don't rely on someone else to sort it out. Make your ideas/ knowledge known so the TAC can build a case. If your're in fisheries or marine science, this is the time for you to step forward.

Attended a Stakeholders meeting today regarding the Thames MCZ run by the Balanced Seas Group

At the meeting were representatives from the PLA, EA, commercial fisheries, recreational sea angling, wildlife trusts, ZSL, TLS, boating groups, Natural England and the TAC

At present it is a series of meeting about a draft document that will then be finalised and sent to Defra. So is a long process.

The MCZ runs from SouthEnd up to Richmond (half lock). It was intially only up to Erith but was changed to cover Smelt and Eels after consulTation with the Environment Agency.


The basics of it is that there is a list of species and habitat that high on the conservation list and the zones are set up to protect these. The protection is to a quota.

The list consists of reefs, tentacled lagoon worms Seagrass, Eels, Smelt, Undulate Ray, Intertidal and Subtidal marhses, mud, sedients, foraging birds, nursery grounds for some sea fish and cockles (as a summary).

It is a feature based project, so as above and in the later stages, what actvities, if any may be restricted in the protected areas.

Major discussion were held regarding dregding activities and how this affected the marine life in the Estuary, how achorage does affect and may affect in the futures these zones.


Many of the requirements of an MCZ are effectively already in place through current best working practices and agreements through the relevant authorities.

In terms of Smelt, the EA want to try and protect the spawning grounds but as they only spawn for one day a year, it is something of a moving target, to say the least. Smelt as we found out from our EA interviews are highly sensetive to how clean the water is. So Thames sewage does restrict how far up they will come but spawning areas have been identified up as far as Putney.
Possible restriction on activity, if any, will be very short term around when they spawn, if that can be identified, a along way off though.

The Eel concern was the Yellow and Silver which are Estuary fish.

Any restriction on a activities could only be policed as a voluntary code of conduct, again a long way in the distance.

There will be minutes published fairly soon so will add more as a when.


As a footnote it was a great opportunity for the club to meet up with EA fisheries team and the PLA team, reinforcing the ties with the organisations who look after the river.

It would be a very sad day if we got stopped from fishing the tidal Dave, so nice one for going on behalf of all of us who fish it mate - good to make contacts and strengthen existing TAC relationships

The final report came out a couple of weeks back, took some time as the PLA wanted some changes

Have a read if you are interested.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24165932/RSGresources/Thames_site_meeting_report_revised.pdf

Thanks for the link Dave - read most of it.

Yawn I made it as far as page 4
Where are some swingeing government cuts when you want 'em?

James Page wrote:

any chance of a brief synopsis chaps

I've had a quick zip through the document, as far as I can tell they consider recreational angling to be of "low impact, especially in such a dynamic area", whatever that means.....

There is also a mention of commercial eel fishing in the area, they seem to be concerned only with "silver eels" and not too concerend about commercially caught "green eels", yet the EA has banned the taking of any eel in "freshwater, Estuarial or tidal waters" - how can they enforce this ban on anglers whilst still allowing commercial fishing for eels, double standards again, I think - one law for them and another for us.........

Wasn't there a case of an estuary angler being heavily fined for catching and taking an eel recently?

It would be interesting to learn if this was identified as a "silver eel" or a "green eel". or for that matter was it some shade in between, I know that when eels are returnig to the estuary to prepare to leave for mid atlantic to spawn, there is a period when they are neither one or t'other.

Don't get me wrong, I'm totally in agreement with the conservation of eels - but it seems to me that the CPS and EA could be on a bit of a sticky wicket here.

Today's mass fish kill of the nursery ground eels, bass and flounder makes a complete mockery of a Marine Conservation Zone in the Thames whilst raw sewage can still be dumped into the river after 2mm rainfall.

Here is an interactive map regarding another consultation.

We have questioned that when you click on the MCZ's, it shows all the way to Teddingon. At the BAI5 meeting the western boundary was agreed at Richmond half lock.

Will let you know

Here is the map, need to zoom in on the Thames and then select 'view' on the left hand side to get options

http://planningportal.marinemanagement.org.uk/#

We have recieved a reply to the question raised about the Western boundary and it will be corrected.

There is a further stakeholder meeting on the 14th July which a TAC rep will attend.

Cheers

The TAC attended another stakeholder meeting about the proposed MCZ on the Thames.

There are no changes as it was to broadly agree the draft proposal. The TAC raised again the protection of Smelt and European Eels in relation to the sewage problem. It should be now added as part of the document and affirming the need for the Tunnel.

The brief timetable from here is:

September 2011 - Final draft to be approved

October 2011 - Management guidlines approved

Mid 2012 - Defra will publish a public consultaion on the proposed MCZ's.

This stakeholder meeting also gave the TAC an opportunity to talk with other organisations including the PLA, ZSL, EA and Thames Estuary Partnership. With the ZSL, the Eels traps were discussed and future volunteering opportunities for TAC members.

All in all a good day

The actual dMCZ from Richmond to West Thurrock will use existing EA measures that in are force. All it does it reaffirm those which can only be good. Getting the CSO's and the tunnel into the document hopefull will create more pressure to get it built.

Nice one for going Dave.

Do you know if fishing will be banned from Richmond down, or will it be allowed?

No affect on fishing at all, the only restriction could be if the Smelt are spawning but is a moving target as to when and where. The existing EA rules apply to mooring in the areas, so nothing to worry about.

MCZs in BBC news today http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14823942
(I have added a comment below as "Ed_R" (which is #8 ) but ran out of characters and that last sentence could be mis-read a bit stupidly! ho-hum.)

Quote :

Looking forward to the Marine Conservation Zone on the lower Thames but wondering what it will achieve. The tidal river downstream from Kew is devoid of fish after a summer of extreme sewage discharges. Thames Anglers' Conservancy found no dead fish there yesterday despite an Environment Agency alert that oxygen levels had fallen to 9%, presumably because the fish were already dead.

Come on everyone vote me up!
Sort the comments by "highest rated" and I'm only on +2 !

Finally DEFRA announce the zones to be implemented in 2013, not the Thames Estuary though.

A mountain of documents to read, if anyone fancies it. The Thames is recommend but not being done until 2014. Shame as in the original meetings got CSO's in the plan. Still it will happen.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/13/marine-conservation-ambition-preserve-seas

   

England names 27 new marine conservation zones

Number is four less than ministers proposed and far short of the 127 zones recommended by the government's own consultation

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/21/england-27-new-marine-conservation-zones

And not the Thames. In my opinion they bottled it as would have increased pressure for the Tideway Tunnel which I got put into the plan.