Queen puts toe in happy waters
As yesterday in Parliament, environmental groups were applauding.
They began lobbying for a bill to sort out the UK's seas about a decade ago; and as the Queen detailed, it's finally going to happen, with the scheduled to become law during the next parliamentary session.
The "strongly welcomed" the bill, though adding they would like it toughened. said it was "fantastic news", while for the it was an "historic moment".
You can understand the rapture. For an island nation with a historically strong association with the sea, a fishing industry under pressure on several fronts, oil and gas companies keen to find new fields, offshore wind farms set to become a mainstay of renewable energy programmes, a population that still likes to get to the beach when we can, a widespread interest in birds that depend on the sea, it is a bit odd that until now the UK hasn't had a systematic way of sorting out all the competing interests.
And that, basically, is what the bill is designed to do.
What should emerge is a system that prioritises fishing in important grounds, wind farms where there's a good wind resource and not too much bird life, recreation in places where people like to play, conservation in places where there are special things to conserve, and so on.
Of course there are caveats. And as the bill is largely "enabling legislation", setting the framework under which various agencies (notably the to-be-created Marine Management Organisation) will make the case-by-case decisions, a lot of local disputes probably lie ahead.
A good example is the , where the interests of dolphin conservationists and oil companies clash. Someone, somehow, is going to have to prioritise in these difficult areas.
Another potentially tricky issue concerns the relationship between Westminster and the devolved administrations. When I scanned the draft bill back in April, I reckoned that at least a quarter of its 700-plus pages dealt with questions such as which aspects would come under UK legislation and which would be devolved, how the various authorities would work together, and so on.
Scotland will have its own . It looks likely that that will cover waters out to 12 nautical miles from shore, with UK authorities taking over between 12 and 200 nautical miles; so let's hope they end up broadly seeing eye to eye.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Westminster bill is the dismantling of local Sea Fisheries Committees, and the establishment instead of Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities (IFCAs).
Why interesting? Because potentially - and I stress potentially - it could lead to conservation groups and fishermen working together in ways that traditionally they haven't.
It's hard to exaggerate the degree of mutual antipathy that can exist between the two groups.
I have heard conservationists dismiss all fishermen as "cowboys who will rape the seas until there's nothing left"; and I have heard fishermen dismiss conservationists in terms that if I took out the all the profanities would consist of nothing but dots and dashes.
In October, I went to a meeting of the Common Language Group, a forum initiated by the industry body , which brings together people from all parts of the seafood supply chain, environmental groups, and governments.
Although the idea is to build dialogue and trust - an ambition which broadly seemed to be working, from my one visit - the recent had clearly provoked so much anger among fishermen that if a representative of (the body which lobbied for the ban) had walked in, he might well have ended up in a big frying pan being seared with a bit of garlic and lemon.
There has to be a better way. Fishermen do have an interest in conservation; and if the aggression and bitterness can be put to one side, it's entirely possible that fishermen's own expertise can be put to use as a conservation tool, and that conservation groups' international experience can introduce new ideas on managing fisheries into what can be hermetically sealed communities.
Just this week, for example, has been shown to reduce the bycatch of small and juvenile cod - the sort of practical advance that conservation groups are unlikely to make.
So if you let your imagination loose on this, you can foresee a day when conservation groups, fishermen, wind power companies, sailors and all the other interested parties begin to use this enabling legislation for their mutual good. Perhaps fishermen will advise tidal power companies where they'll find the strongest flows; perhaps windsurfers will help turbine manufacturers design sexy towers.
Or perhaps not; we will see.
When the Scottish government launched its marine bill consultation, Bertie Armstrong of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation said: "What must not happen is for Scotland's seas to turn into a glorified marine aquarium."
No-one actually wants that. Apart from anything else, I don't see much profit to be made running glass-bottom boat trips from Peterhead in December.
But Mr Armstrong's choice of words shows that the antipathy still resides. The day when that all ends will truly be an historic moment.
I'm Richard Black, environment correspondent for the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ News website. This is my take on what's happening to our shared environment as the human population grows and our use of nature's resources increases.
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