West of Scotland Marine Protected Area
| West of Scotland MPA | |
|---|---|
Marine Scotland | |
| West of Scotland MPA |
The West of Scotland Marine Protected Area covers a large area of the
North Atlantic to the west of the Outer Hebrides. The Marine Protected Area (MPA) was designated by the Scottish Government in 2020, replacing the Rosemary Bank MPA, which covered a much smaller area.[2] Covering a sea area of over 100,000 square kilometres (39,000 sq mi), it is the largest marine protected area in Europe.[3]
The MPA covers a diverse range of marine landscapes. Moving west, these include: the steep gradient of the
seamounts: Anton Dohrn and Rosemary Bank. It protects several important habitats including deep-sea sponge aggregations and cold water coral reefs and gardens. Six species of deep-sea fish are specifically protected within the MPA: blue ling, orange roughy, leafscale gulper shark, gulper shark, Portuguese dogfish and round-nose grenadier.[4]
References
- ^ "SiteLink: West of Scotland MPA(NC)". NatureScot. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
- ^ "West of Scotland Marine Protected Area Order 2020" (PDF). Scottish Government. 9 October 2020. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
- ^ "Europe's largest marine protected area comes into force". BBC News. 9 October 2020. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
- ^ "West of Scotland Marine Protected Area". Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
External links
- West of Scotland Marine Protected Area - YouTube video produced by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee
| Historic Marine Protected Areas | |
|---|---|
| Nature Conservation MPAs |
|
| Demonstration and Research MPA | |
 | This Scottish location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |