Guiding Marine Restoration and Enhancement in the Shetland Islands

This project brings together Shetland’s community and marine stakeholders to develop a document to guide Marine Restoration and Enhancement Action in Shetland. By incorporating local knowledge and priorities, it identifies potential opportunities tailored to Shetland’s unique environmental and socio-economic context.

A key focus is on the co-creation of guiding principles, ensuring that restoration and enhancement efforts align with local needs while supporting ecosystem resilience and sustainable marine management. Through collaboration, the project identifies priority areas for restoration, explores innovative solutions, and develops practical actions to enhance Shetland’s marine environment.

Project Aims:

• Establish a set of guiding principles to support marine restoration and enhancement initiatives.
• Identify key themes and corresponding potential opportunities for action for marine restoration and enhancement.
• Showcase case studies of marine restoration and enhancement initiatives in Shetland's unique context.

Download:

Guiding Principles:

Marine restoration and enhancement initiatives in the Shetland Islands should:

1. Be appropriate to Shetland's unique marine environment.
2. Recognise the value of local knowledge and robust long-term data gathering to understand natural and anthropogenic change.
3. Recognise and safeguard Shetland's rich marine cultural heritage and identity.
4. Consider the current and future needs of other marine users and activity.
5. Consider how scale and location affect the delivery of meaningful action.
6. Consider opportunities for coordinated and innovative action.
7. Engage local stakeholders at all stages through planning, delivery and monitoring.
8. Be adaptively managed to account for changing conditions.
9. Include ongoing monitoring to assess long-term effectiveness.
10. Ensure data, knowledge and learning are effectively shared and publicly available.
11. Where development mitigation is required, consider opportunities for investment close to the area of impact.

Case Studies:

These case studies were co-written with NatureScot, Shetland Amenity Trust, Shetland Shellfish Management Organisation (SSMO) and UHI Shetland and form part of the document Guiding Marine Restoration and Enhancement in the Shetland Islands produced by UHI Shetland, co-developed with the Shetland community, endorsed as a Decade Activity by the UN Ocean Decade and funded by the Marine Fund Scotland.