Marine protected areas in Britain: a conceptual problem?

Nature conservation in Great Britain is well established as a legitimate objective of land use and management, and there is an extensive and complex system of terrestrial protected areas. The designation of protected areas in the seas around Britain is considerably less well developed. Marine nature conservation is still almost entirely dependent on species-based measures and the voluntary cooperation of user groups and sectoral management authorities, while marine protected areas are few in number and weak in effect. The inadequacy of the marine management regime in protecting nature conservation interests, and the continuing failure of environmental management systems to recognise the coast as a zone not a boundary line, are not simply due to legal and technical obstacles to the implementation of marine conservation policy. It arises from the inadequate breadth and depth of public and political consideration of the fundamental ways in which the marine environment is valuable in conservation terms.