Building social capital – relationships, trust and communication – can deliver outstanding results – see the Lofoten example below.

The Berwickshire and Northumberland Marine Nature Partnership is a collaboration of twenty Scottish and English organisations focussed on managing our local inshore waters. The original partnership was established 16 years ago to proactively manage the Berwickshire and North Northumberland Coast Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and the Lindisfarne Special Protection Area (SPA). The new partnership will coordinate management for the entire network of inshore marine nature conservation designations between Fast Castle Head in Scotland, and the River Tyne in England.

Partnership members include statutory regulators such as Natural England, Scottish Natural Heritage, the Environment Agency and Marine Scotland, together with ports and harbours, local authorities, Northumberland Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority, and conservation charities. Working together, the partnership will develop a toolkit to help them manage this suite of important marine areas.

The toolkit will provide management organisations with the resources they need to effectively manage these sites, such as accurate mapping, up to date condition assessments and an inventory of local monitoring activity. It is hoped that the toolkit will eventually sit on a publicly available web-hub, so anyone interested in the management of the local marine environment can learn more.

The partnership project officer, Claire Hedley, said: “Management of the marine environment can be really complex, especially in the intertidal zone where land and marine legislation, policies and organisations overlap. It’s even more complicated when we have sites that cross the Scottish-English border. Working in partnership is really important and we’re excited to be developing a coordinated approach for the area.” To follow this development click here