Marine Protected Areas: British Overseas Territories

(asked on 5th July 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much and what proportion of the terrestrial and marine area of each of the UK Overseas Territories is in legally designated protected areas.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 8th July 2021

Information on the extent of marine and terrestrial protected areas for the UK Overseas Territories (UKOTs) by region has been published on gov.uk for the first time, as part of the recent 25 Year Environment Plan Outcome Indicator Framework update.

This can be accessed at Outcome Indicator Framework for the 25 Year Environment Plan: 2021 Update. (pages 157-160).

This shows that 63% of the marine environment and 4.7% of the terrestrial environment in the UKOTs is now protected.

These statistics focus on spatially defined, formally designated measures for biodiversity conservation. In addition to protected areas, it includes other effective conservation measures where these are considered to deliver biodiversity conservation outcomes by virtue of a long-term management regime. Decisions on which sites to include in the indicator were made by the UK Overseas Territories, in line with their responsibilities for the environment.

This indicator will continue to be updated to reflect future changes to protected areas such as the recent designation of the Tristan da Cunha Marine Protection Zone.

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