Assessing Welsh fishing activities in Marine Protected Areas
About the project
We’ve worked with the Welsh Government on a project to evaluate the impacts of fishing on features of Marine Protected Areas in Wales.
The Assessing Welsh Fishing Activities Project:
- Helps safeguard our Welsh Marine Protected Area network
- Contributes to the sustainable exploitation of marine fish, and
- Strengthen the resilience of the marine environment
The outputs of this Project will support the aims of The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, The Environment (Wales) Act 2016 and the Habitats Regulations by contributing to the sustainable management of the marine environment.
Find out more detail in the documents used to guide the assessment work:
Project outcomes
The Assessing Welsh Fishing Activities Project examined how fishing activities may interact with protected habitats and species in Welsh waters.
The project identified 552 potential fishing-feature interactions and completed assessments for 374 of these interactions.
The assessments included:
- 318 fishing-habitat interactions, and
- 56 fishing-mobile species interactions, including fish, mammals and birds
The remaining interactions, which are available in the Matrix, were not assessed because they were considered a lower priority based on factors such as likelihood of occurrence, potential impact, available evidence and management relevance.
All completed assessments have been provided to Welsh Government. Published assessments are available on the Welsh Government website (GOV.WALES).