RDE606 Understanding the State, Threats, and Management of Essential Fish Habita

The Celtic Sea and Western Channel Pelagic Fisheries Management Plan (FMP) has been

identified as the most promising FMP to take forward with a natural capital approach (NCA)

under the marine Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment (mNCEA) programme. Following

a scoping exercise to determine if applying natural capital approaches (NCA) to fisheries

management would help deliver both an Ecosystem Based Approach to Fisheries Management

(EBAFM), and a Sustainable Management of Natural Resources (SMNR) Approach. It was

determined that taking an NCA would not only help to operationalise EBAFM and SMNR, but an

NCA is also able to consider the wider implications to changes to marine natural assets, impacts across all beneficiaries, and impacts on the hidden additional benefits of nature to improve fisheries management decisions. In an additional synthesis of the current economic, environmental, and social evidence available for the Celtic Sea and Western Channel Pelagic

fishery, it was identified that knowledge of how the natural capital habitat assets support the

Celtic Sea and Western Channel Pelagic fishery (Essential Fish Habitat (EFH)) and also provide broader ecosystem services. It was considered essential to generate a robust evidence-base for EFH to take a NCA in developing this FMP.

The purpose of this project is to identify the Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) for Herring, Pilchard

(Non-Quota Species), Greater silver smelt, Horse mackerel and Anchovy (Non-Quota Species),

to review the capacity of these habitats to provide ecosystem services, and highlight the risks of not managing these habitats appropriately.