Lyme Bay
“Leave it be, and let it grow. Lyme Bay's thriving, don't you know.”
The story behind the song
Lyme Bay, off the Dorset and Devon coast, holds some of the UK's most significant reef habitat, including its largest colony of pink sea fans (Eunicella verrucosa). Decades of bottom trawling and scallop dredging had scoured much of that reef bare. In 2008, following years of campaigning and negotiation between conservationists, scientists and the local fishing community, a Statutory Instrument closed 206 square kilometres of the bay to bottom-towed gear, while still allowing static gear fishing, potting, netting and diving, to continue. The protected area was later expanded, and by 2017 stood at 312 square kilometres following the site's designation as a Special Area of Conservation.
Long-term monitoring, led in large part by the University of Plymouth and Blue Marine Foundation, has tracked a substantial recovery. Reef-associated species abundance rose by around 95% within the closed area, and the overall number of different reef species recorded increased by roughly four-fold over the following decade. Some individual indicator species recovered even faster: pink sea fan numbers rose sevenfold in the first six years of protection, before severe storms in 2014 set some of that recovery back. More recent research shows the reef community bouncing back from storm damage considerably faster than it did after the original closure, suggesting the ecosystem itself has become more resilient.
Lyme Bay is frequently cited as evidence for a “whole-site” approach to marine protection, closing an entire area to damaging gear rather than protecting a patchwork of individual reef features, since fish and mobile species don't respect boundaries drawn around isolated hotspots.
References
Blue Marine Foundation. (n.d.). Lyme Bay: Our model for sustainable fishing. bluemarinefoundation.com
Blue Marine Foundation. (2024). MPA Blueprint: Lyme Bay Reserve case study. bluemarinefoundation.com
Sheehan, E. V., et al. (2013). Recovery of a temperate reef assemblage in a marine protected area following the exclusion of towed demersal fishing. PLOS ONE, 8(12), e83883. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083883