The rationale behind identifying threatened, rare or otherwise
exceptional species and habitats for priority conservation
attention is that, unless urgent action is taken, such species and
habitats could either be driven to extinction or reduced to tiny
populations or residual areas.
A separate report (
Lieberknecht et al 2004a)
identifies potentially important habitats and species of the Irish
Sea and discusses modification to the selection criteria developed
by the RMNC criteria group (
Connor et al (2002)pdf
size 730KB). The criteria for habitats species and areas were
tested by compiling easily accessible information relating to the
criteria for 25 test features selected to cover the range of
feature types in the Irish Sea. Sixteen of these test feature
"dossiers" were compiled by L.M. Lieberknecht (JNCC), and a further
nine were compiled by MarLIN/MBA. The dossiers, as well as the main
report on nationally important marine features, are available
(
Lieberknecht et al 2004a).
Modifications to the criteria for habitats and species are
suggested following the testing. As there was insufficient time to
develop a full list of nationally important marine features, a
provisional list was developed containing features which
potentially fulfil the criteria and may therefore qualify as
nationally important. A data quality control inspection on the JNCC
database was carried out to examine its comprehensiveness.