Marine Park: States 'Opted For Bureaucratic Mediocrity'

Jersey's politicians have been accused of 'opting for compromise and bureaucratic mediocrity' by rejecting a plan to create a marine park in 30% of island waters.

Senator Lyndon Farnham proposed it - saying it would protect and showcase the very best of Jersey’s sea habitat.

But it was rejected by 27 votes to 14.

85% of around 2,500 people who responded to a survey said they wanted a marine park within the next decade.

The States has also been accused of missing an opportunity to become a world leader in environmental protection.

The Blue Marine Foundation and National Trust for Jersey say they're 'concerned and disappointed with the decision to reject Senator Farnham's proposal.

"In doing so they have chosen to go against poll findings showing that 85% of Jersey's islanders are in favour of a marine park, rising to 91% among 17-24yr olds. It’s disheartening that members of the States appeared to be ignoring the strength of feeling among Jersey’s electorate about the need to improve the protection of the island’s marine environment with the level of ambition now signed up to by 100 countries around the world. We believe that the proposal for a marine park will live to fight another day and it is up to those who are contesting this summer’s election to show that they share the views of the people.

We welcome the proposals of the Environment Minister, John Young, to include marine spatial planning and more Marine Protected Areas in the Bridging Island Plan, but without any specific quantum these are just the building blocks of protection lacking the ambition which could have been achieved in the form of a marine park."

The Executive Director of the Blue Marine Foundation claims that Jersey's States members who voted against creating the park are out of touch with public opinion.

Assistant Environment Minister Deputy Gregory Guida called the proposal 'greenwashing', but Charles Clover says it's anything but.

"Creating a plan to have a Marine Park which you then have to follow up with various things in the timetable to 2025 is not greenwash, it's setting out a timeline and a path to doing something which large numbers of people want. It's anything but greenwash.

What they've got now is virtually nothing. They've got a promise to create Marine Protected Areas and a Marine Spatial Plan with no timeline attached.

It's much less ambitious and it isn't actually very impressive at all, so why would it be greenwash? It's just an extraordinary thing to say, extraordinarily out of touch and wrong thing to say.

These Ministers will not be in place in two or three months' time and I hope this proposal comes back and is taken seriously. We may have lost the battle, but won't have lost the war because I think that is what the public of Jersey wants. While that is the case, we'll do our absolute level-best to help the Jersey public to make it come about."

External Relations Minister Senator Ian Gorst raised ongoing concerns from the French in regard to the number of licences being issued to their fishermen to use island waters and claimed they could've used the creation of a Marine Park to argue that Jersey isn't using the powers it signed up to under the post-Brexit agreement.

Mr Clover called Senator Gorst's argument 'eminently more respectable and real' but has questioned whether any Jersey Ministers have spoken to their French counterparts about whether a marine park would actually cause any issues.