The Marine Action Plans of the first cycle of implementation of the MSFD included M003-NAT1b, aimed at “complementing the network of marine protected areas with strong protections on outstanding marine biodiversity sectors”. This measure was the subject of a national framework, sent to the services in summer 2018, clarifying the concept of strong protection and detailing the stages of implementation of this measure. According to this framework, a strong protection zone must meet all of the following five characteristics: to address the priority environmental issues defined in the fronting strategic documents, to be located primarily in a marine protected area, to have regulation of activities in order to reduce significantly or remove the main pressures, to rely on a management document, and to benefit from operational monitoring of activities. Therefore, a strong protection area can accept human activities as long as they do not jeopardise the conservation of the ecological challenges of this area. The objective of this action is to extend M003 by developing the network of strong protections in place at the end of the first cycle of implementation of the MSFD. This cross-cutting action contributes to the government’s ambition of 30 % of protected areas throughout the national territory (metropolitan and overseas), including a third in strong protection, as set out in the National Strategy for Protected Areas 2020-2030 (SNAP) and enshrined in Article 227 of the Climate and Resilience Law of 22 August 2021. It thus contributes to the implementation of the national strategy and its territorialisation. This action will be based on the definition and detailed rules for the recognition of the strong protection zones specified in the Decree implementing Article 227 referred to above. It will be implemented under the conditions set out in a new background note.

A ‘Marine Educational Area (AME)’ is a small coastal sea area which is managed in a participatory manner by students in 3 and 4 according to principles defined by a charter. It is a pedagogical and eco-citizen project of knowledge and protection of the marine environment by young audiences. The class is thus placed within a territorial dynamic involving the expertise of the school and the municipality concerned, as well as associations of users or environmental protection. The development of AMEs has been ensured since 2016 in metropolitan France and the overseas seas by the French Biodiversity Office (OFB) with an inter-ministerial steering committee (COPIL) (Ministry of Ecological and Inclusive Transition, Ministry of National Education and Ministry of Overseas Affairs). Educational areas are also developing in the terrestrial environment (so-called educational terrestrial areas, ETA). The implementation of the AME and ATE approach results in the award of a label issued by the three ministries mentioned above. There are 200 AMEs for the school year 2020-2021 and 143 ETA, bringing the number of pupils affected since 2016 to more than 20 000. In June 2019, a feedback seminar took stock of the year of experimentation of the ATE scheme and of the deployment of ATE-AME in the 6th. In total, almost 210 schools and colleges are involved in the Aires Educational initiative for the school year 2019-2020 (around 12000 pupils in that year and more than 20000 students who have passed through the scheme since 2016). The development of the network of MEAs and ETA is one of the flagship actions of the Biodiversity Plan, which foresees the deployment of 500 AME and ATE by 2022. It is also one of the flagship actions mentioned in the framework agreement linking the OFB) and the Ministry of National Education. The main challenge identified in order to ensure the development of the project while maintaining the quality of the label is the establishment of place-based governance and training of the stakeholders concerned. This territorialisation requires the commitment of all actors in the state and the territories, but should not be at the expense of other environmental education schemes. The OFB and the inter-ministerial COPIL will retain national governance and remain the guarantors of the concept. The OFB will continue its tasks of general coordination and support for newly invested or reinforced territorial actors, produce supporting documents and animate the community. Finally, in 2021, it was envisaged that cooperation would be carried out with Polynesia, UNESCO, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the French Development Agency in order to enable the international spin-offs of marine educational areas and terrestrial educational areas. One of the challenges is to strengthen the links between a marine protected area and a marine educational area in order to ensure that their objectives are taken into account in each other. The approach should also be tested with older students.

For a sea user, the information is abundant. They can be regulated (professional fishing, recreational fishing, navigation, maritime safety, etc.), affect the particularity and challenges of the area (marine protected areas, ASPIM, parks, Pelagos sanctuary, etc.) and do not all appear on a marine map. Not all of them are easily accessible to a user either. The aim of this action is to make all regulations and spatial information available to sea users in a simple, simultaneous and geo-referenced manner, in order also to steer their practice towards greater respect for the marine environment. This action is implemented in conjunction with the action DE-OSE-VII-II AF2 “Developing tools to facilitate sustainable nauticism” and it gives impetus to action DE-OSE-V-2-AF1 “Supporting fronting ports in the digital transition”.

Each façade has a marine environment monitoring and monitoring plan (PCSEM). The challenge is now to update and consolidate these plans in order to best meet the new objectives of the RSD and the strategy for managing marine protected areas 2020-2030, in particular through enhanced coordination of all the services involved in their implementation.

While the launch of the integrated Life MarHa has led to an increase in marine habitat management, the management of mobile species is still insufficient and needs to be strengthened. This need is underlined by the large number of new actions relating to these species (almost one third of the proposed actions). Of these, 8 relate to overmortalities at sea (capture and collision) or onshore (predation), 3 to disturbances, 2 to functional habitat restoration and 7 to more cross-cutting actions (species group action plan, strong protection, awareness raising and training). In addition, some measures responding to OES are likely to contribute to the good condition of the species (e.g. valorisation of best practices). Finally, the implementation of certain emblematic actions outside the PDA, such as the Balearic and Ctacea puffins action plans and the management of some designated MPAs for species (especially offshore) would require support.

The species of birds, turtles, marine mammals and amphihalins of Community interest are listed in the Birds and Habitats, Faune and Flore Directives. The Natura 2000 network is designed to ensure the good conservation status of these species. To that end, Article L.414-4 of the Environment Code provides that professional maritime fishing activities are subject to an analysis of the risks of undermining the conservation objectives of Natura 2000 sites. A methodology for risk analysis for habitats was published in early 2020 (Technical Note of 21 January 2020), and first risk analyses have already been carried out. However, there is not yet a national method of risk analysis for species of Community interest. As the life cycle of these species is not limited to the Natura 2000 network at sea, these risk analyses should be carried out at biogeographical level and subsequently at smaller scales in areas of potential risk. Where a significant risk is identified, it should be reduced by appropriate measures. N.B.: For marine mammals, this action corresponds to the implementation of Actions 1.2 and 2.2 of the Action Plan for the Protection of Cetaceans.

The purpose of this action is to prefigure and set up the National Offshore Wind Observatory announced by the government in August 2021. Since the beginning of 2022, the MTE (DEB, DGEC), the National Observatory for Offshore Wind will have two tasks (i) to group together, disseminate existing studies and data on offshore wind and the feedback of operating foreign parks, and (ii) to define and steer a knowledge acquisition work programme (naturalist data and impact knowledge). These two axes are the subject of sub-actions 2 and 3 respectively. The National Offshore Wind Observatory will rely heavily on the recommendations and guidelines of the fronting scientific advice, in particular for the definition of knowledge acquisition programmes.

Although the issue of seabirds is well identified within the various protected marine areas on the façade and is the subject of dedicated measures, the need for additional action has emerged in order to meet the environmental objective D01-OM-OE03 (avoiding loss of functional habitats for seabirds, especially in sea areas with maximum density). This includes the lack of mapping of functional sites at stake. Furthermore, the Balearic puffin is the only seabird species for which the objective was considered to have been achieved, due to the establishment of the Balearic National Plan. The aim of this action is therefore to implement similar local measures adapted to the species of concern identified on the façade.

Predation at seabird breeding sites is one of the important pressures on these species. The aim of this action is to establish and implement an intervention strategy at the sites concerned, depending on the natural intervention capacities and possibilities of reproducing sites by predators on or near the coast.

In addition to the loss of natural space due to land take, this is due to rising sea levels. The loss of coastal habitats is the result of the take that throws the upper limit of the high waters and the rise of the low-sea limit due to rising ocean levels. The existing measures are not sufficient to achieve the objectives of restoring salt meadows in areas threatened by rising waters, limiting physical habitat losses due to shoreline take, leaving the sea at a depth of 20 m and maintaining or restoring the functional seabird habitats in coastal wetlands. As regards Natura 2000 sites, not all DOCOBs necessarily incorporate the problems of rising sea levels or restoring functional habitats for seabirds, and, apart from Natura 2000 sites, the measures identified are geographically limited.

Disturbance by anthropogenic activities can lead to an overmortality of species: seabirds, marine mammals, pinnipeds, etc. may be disturbed at a lethal point (abandonment of small birds, loss of energy during migration, depletion to avoid areas occupied by activities, etc.). In the face of the exponential loss of biodiversity, particularly at sea, there is an urgent need to protect areas where activities could currently be authorised and which would generate lethal impacts on certain species. Authorisations not subject to an impact assessment or impact assessment are not based on a specific initial condition. The investigating department must therefore support the examination of such requests on the existing data made available to it. However, mapping the functional areas of marine species (birds, marine mammals, etc.) does not always exist. At present, projects not subject to impact assessment or impact assessment may therefore be authorised in unmapped functional areas, if this fundamental data is not available. Having a mapping of these areas (sub-action 1) will facilitate the verification of the compatibility of authorisations at sea with environmental objectives (EO), made mandatory by law to regain biodiversity, nature and landscapes. The analysis of the compatibility link with EOs is complex at this stage; guides clarifying this link will be drafted in conjunction with the state services and the OFB and will propose recommendations (sub-action 2). The mapping carried out will be made available to the managers of marine protected areas. Finally, new protection measures, regulating certain activities with the aim of limiting the disturbance of species, will be put in place (Subaction 3), in connection with the new protection measures provided for in sub-action 2 of action D01-OM-OE6-AN2 [for the record: D01-OM-OE6-AN2: Structuring the practice of coastal and coastal sport and recreation (information, awareness and regulation on species and environmental sensitivity issues – under Action 2: Establish spatial (and, where appropriate, temporal) protection measures within the framework of shared governance based on knowledge of practices and media sensitivity]

Coastal and coastal recreational sports provide a major socio-economic added value for the coastlines: they are also a privileged way of raising awareness and educating about the environment for their practitioners and managers. The action aims at structuring the network of nature sports and recreation in coastal and coastal environments to improve the ownership of environmental issues by free and organised practitioners. In particular, this ownership allows better account to be taken of the sensitivity of the environment and species by the practitioners and thus helps to reduce the pressures generated.