Europe's largest marine protected area comes into force
- Published
Europe's largest marine protected area (MPA) has come into force for an area of deep sea off the Western Isles.
The West of Scotland MPA involves an area of more than 38,610 sq miles (100,000 sq km) in the north-east Atlantic.
Coral reefs and deep-sea sharks are among the wildlife found at depths of 2,500m (8,202ft).
The designation aims to protect habitats from marine industry projects and some types of fishing.
Marine Scotland, a civil service directorate within the Scottish government, confirmed the protection was now in place.
More than 30% of Scotland's seas are now covered by MPAs.
Allow Twitter content?
This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’.
The West of Scotland MPA offers protection to habitats on seamounts, which are extinct volcanoes.
There are also areas of deep-sea mud, cold- water coral reefs and habitat inhabited by fish such as blue ling, gulper sharks and Portuguese dogfish.
Three telecommunications cables cross the site and, under MPA rules, the operators would be asked to take measures to minimise potential harm caused by maintenance work.
Oil and gas exploration has taken place in the area west of the Western Isles, and further activity may require "additional mitigation measures on a case-by-case basis to achieve conservation objectives".
The Scottish government had earlier held a public consultation on the new MPA.
- Published27 September 2019
- Published19 September 2019
- Published12 September 2019
- Published6 September 2019
- Published18 June 2019
