As a result of the consultation which took place earlier this summer Defra has, in October 2019, published an updated Marine Strategy Part One: UK Updated Assessment and Good Environmental Status report and a separate report summarising the responses to the consultation.
This consultation marked the start of the 2nd implementation cycle of the UK Marine Strategy, which describes how the UK will achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) i.e. ecologically diverse and dynamic ocean and seas which are clean, healthy and productive, by the target date of 2020 set out in the Marine Strategy Regulations 2010.
The consultation included consideration of:
- information about the features, characterisation of, and pressures facing our seas
- an explanation of the UK’s current approach to implementing the Strategy
- updated progress relating to the UK’s GES targets
- how progress towards the achievement of GES is measured; new objectives for GES and targets; and a separate Annex detailing threshold values or reference levels for the various indicators which the UK plans to use for the 2018-2024 cycle of the Strategy to assess whether the associated targets will be met.
The summary report published provides a broad summary of stakeholder responses to the main issues raised and the Government’s response to these and can be downloaded here
The updated Assessment report has been updated in light of the comments received and can be downloaded here.
