JNCC News on MPAs – Hannah Carr 

10 years of UK Offshore Marine Protected Areas: Protecting our diverse and vibrant seas for future generations

Our seas have a brilliant variety of marine life and habitats, many of which are rare and nationally important. Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) has been working for more than 10 years to identify Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the more remote areas of our seas to ensure they remain healthy into the future. See maps showing how many offshore MPAs have been designated over the last 10 years here: http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/page-7479

JNCC Offshore MPA videos launched

Over an eight week period during the summer the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) launched a series new offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) videos. The JNCC have been pioneering efforts to explore the more remote areas of UK seas, beyond the reach of most, and have brought them to life in this series of underwater videos. The underwater journey begins to the far north of Scotland where hundreds of enormous sponge communities live in the Faroe-Shetland Channel, before travelling to the far south-west of England where England’s only cold-water coral reefs have been discovered. View all the videos here: https://vimeo.com/user550564/videos