Do potential and proposed Marine Protected Areas in the Dutch part of the North Sea qualify as Marine Important Bird Areas (MIBAs)? Application of BirdLife selection criteria

The Important Bird Area (IBA) programme is a worldwide initiative of BirdLife International aimed at identifying and protecting a network of critical sites for the conservation of the world's birds. The criteria used by BirdLife to identify IBAs are clear, standardised and have been the framework for protecting and improving bird conservation around the world for decades. Recently these criteria have also been applied to the marine environment. In this report the Marine IBA criteria are applied to 12 identified potential Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Dutch part of the North Sea. Main question answered in this report is whether the sites qualify as Marine IBAs based on the criteria developed by BirdLife International. This study is based on existing data only. A full Marine IBA inventory (as carried out in e.g. Portugal and Spain in commission of the European Union) with a specially focussed research programme on seabirds including e.g. specifically designed aerial and ship-based surveys and the application of tracking seabirds was out of scope of this report. Four out of 12 potential MPAs (Frisian Front, Delta Coast, Mainland Coast and Wadden Coast) qualify fully as Marine IBAs. Out the four identified Marine IBAs, Frisian Front, Delta Coast and Wadden Coast have already been proposed as Special Protection Areas (SPAs) for Birds. Remarkably, the Mainland Coast has not been proposed as a MPA, yet this area holds internationally important numbers of several species. Especially the occurrence of more than 20,000 Great Crested Grebes in winter stands out. This number exceeds the threshold of 1% of the global population, meaning that this coastal area is a more than a serious MPA candidate. The Mainland Coast should be proposed as a SPA as this coastal zone contains also other bird values: large numbers of Red-throated Divers in winter, large numbers of tern and gull species during spring and autumn migration, and in summer breeding birds. Six out of 12 areas are meeting the criteria, but confirmation of independent data layers for these areas are lacking (Dogger Bank, Central Oystergrounds, Brown Ridge, Outer Banks, Borkum Reef, and Western Scheldt), so they can now only be identified as potential Marine IBAs. For these areas more ship-based survey effort over different years in different periods of the year is recommended, especially in the case of Dogger Bank and Central Oystergrounds in relation to the possible importance of these areas for large numbers of parent alcids with chicks of colonies of the Scottish East coast during the post-breeding period. A full Marine IBA inventory is a necessary next step to fully review the importance of the Dutch part of the North Sea for seabirds.