SEMS Quick Facts
BACKGROUND
The Solent European Marine Sites (SEMS) is a collective name which covers internationally important areas in the Solent. It includes areas designated under the EU Habitats Directive as Special Areas of Conservation (SAC), areas designated under the EU Birds Directive as Special Protection Areas (SPAs) and areas designated as Ramsar sites.
The Directive requires that all European sites are managed sustainably in order to protect the features for which the area has been designated.
The Habitats Regulations outline specific provisions which need to be considered for new Plans and Projects in European sites.
The Habitats Regulations identify specific provisions for European marine sites including methods for considering the management of ongoing activities through the production of a management scheme for each European marine site.
SEMS MANAGEMENT SCHEME (MG) The relevant authorities responsible for the SEMS have worked together to produce a management scheme for SEMS. The management scheme guides the way in which relevant authorities exercise their functions so as to secure compliance with the requirements of the Habitats Regulations.
MANAGEMENT GROUP (MG) The SEMS MG is made up of all relevant authorities in the Solent including the harbour authorities, local authorities, Sea Fisheries Committees, English Nature, Environment Agency, Trinity House and Southern Water. Discussions regarding setting up a MG first started in March 1999. The inaugural meeting of the relevant authorities took place in October 1999 with the aim of facilitating the development and implementation of a management scheme for the Solent European Marine Sites. The MG meets 3 times a year year during the production of the scheme and is expected to meet annually or bi-annually in the implementation phase.
STRATEGIC ADVISORY GROUP (SAG) A Strategic Advisory Group of other interested parties meets prior to the MG during the production phase in order to inform and advise the MG's decisions. A new strategic stakeholder group will meet in the implementation phase.
CLUSTER GROUPS Five cluster groups were set up to consider the more local aspects of the SEMS (Chichester & Langstone Harbour, Portsmouth Harbour, Southampton Water, North West Solent, Isle of Wight Coast). These working groups included those relevant authorities appropriate to each cluster.
IMPLEMENTATION A secretariat will be contracted to the Solent Forum to ensure the co-ordination of future MG meetings and to act as a contact point for SEMS issues. It will be up to each Relevant Authority to ensure that they continue to comply with the requirements of the Habitats Regulations.
PROJECT OFFICER A project officer was employed in November 2000 to facilitate the production of the management scheme.
FUNDING The production and implementation of the management scheme is jointly funded by most of the relevant authorities. Hampshire County Council acts as the facilitating authority.
NATURAL ENGLAND'S ROLE As well as being a relevant authority in its own right also has some additional responsibilities. It is required by Regulation 33(2) to advise other relevant authorities as to the conservation objectives of a European marine site and any operations which may cause deterioration to habitats or disturbance to species for which it has been designated. Regulation 36 allows Natural England to make use of their powers for making byelaws in Marine Nature Reserves (MNR) to make byelaws for European marine sites, if necessary and provided that they do not interfere with the statutory functions of other relevant authorities. Natural England will also be responsible for collating the information required to assess condition and will form a judgement on the condition of each feature within the site.
PROCESS FOR MANAGEMENT SCHEME PRODUCTION
The production of the management scheme was split into stages. Firstly Relevant Authorities identified which activities they were responsible for in their cluster (stage 1). Advice contained in the Regulation 33 advice on which operations may cause deterioration or damage to the site features was used to link operations to activities that were occurring in the site (stage 2). Relevant Authorities then provided information on where the activities occurred in relation to the features of interest, the operations they caused and how they were managed (stage 3). This information was assessed to produce activity inventories (stage 4). Those activities that could cause the operations listed in English Nature's Regulation 33 advice were each assigned to one of the following categories:
- The activity is a 'plan or project', and is dealt with by other processes within the Habitats Regulations.
- There are systems in place to manage the activity that also ensure that it is managed in line with the requirements of the Habitats Regulations
- The activity has a known mechanism to cause deterioration or disturbance to the site, however, there is insufficient current information to determine whether or not it is actually causing significant damage or deterioration i.e. it is having an unknown effect. These are known as 'key risk areas'.
Where there is no further evidence management considerations are given for each activity. Finally, all the information was bought together to produce the Management Scheme (stage 5).
PROGRESS
Most of the documents produced are available online as a pdf files, in our publications section.
The Secretariat and website is now hosted by the Solent Forum.
