Cumbria Coast is one of England's

Marine Conservation Zone A Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ) is a type of marine nature reserve in UK waters. They were established under the Marine and Coastal Access Act (2009) and are areas designated with the aim to protect nationally important, rare or threatened habit ...

s. It was designated in 2013, and is one of a number of such zones off the coast of

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...

The MCZ covers the stretch of sea from

Whitehaven Whitehaven is a town and port on the English north west coast and near to the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. Historically in Cumberland, it lies by road south-west of Carlisle and to the north of Barrow-in-Furness. It is th ...

down to the mouth of the Ravenglass Estuary. It includes the sea off

Sellafield Sellafield is a large multi-function nuclear site close to Seascale on the coast of Cumbria, England. As of August 2022, primary activities are nuclear waste processing and storage and nuclear decommissioning. Former activities included nucle ...

(the

nuclear fuel reprocessing Nuclear reprocessing is the chemical separation of fission products and actinides from spent nuclear fuel. Originally, reprocessing was used solely to extract plutonium for producing nuclear weapons. With commercialization of nuclear power, the ...

and

nuclear decommissioning Nuclear decommissioning is the process whereby a nuclear facility is dismantled to the point that it no longer requires measures for radiation protection. The presence of radioactive material necessitates processes that are potentially occupat ...

site), and off

St Bees Head St Bees Head is a headland on the North West coast of the English county of Cumbria and is named after the nearby village of St Bees. It is the only stretch of Heritage Coast on the English coastline between the Welsh and Scottish borders, an ...

Fauna

The MCZ protects underwater habitats and animals such as the honeycomb worm. St Bees Head, where there is an RSPB reserve, is an important breeding site for

sea birds Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adaptation, adapted to life within the marine (ocean), marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent ev ...

Extension

There was concern that the MCZ as originally designated did not protect enough of the foraging grounds of sea birds. In 2019 an addition was agreed.

References

{{coord, 54.5145, -3.6639, display=title Marine reserves of England Nature reserves in Cumbria Protected areas established in 2013

Fauna

Extension

See also

References