Marine advice and evidence

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are legally safeguarded areas of our oceans and seas. Important habitats, species and geological features are protected. The management of MPAs aims to achieve long-term conservation and sustainable use of marine ecosystems.

Natural England are responsible for the sites within, or straddling, England’s inshore waters (up to 12 nautical miles). These include:

Special Areas of Conservation (SACs)
Special Protection Areas (SPAs)
Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) including Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs)
Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar sites)
Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs)

You can use Designated Sites View (DSV) to find information about MPAs. This includes details about the site and its features, conservation advice, condition assessment and site maps. Site details can be found by searching for a site of interest on the site search page and selecting the relevant link. Find out more about our advice and reporting tools below.

For further information about this page contact Natural England Enquiries. Telephone: 0300 060 3900. Email: enquiries@naturalengland.org.uk.

Grey Seal pup in sand dunes at Horsey, Norfolk

Conservation advice

Natural England has a statutory duty to provide conservation advice on MPAs in England’s inshore waters. Our conservation advice is site-specific. It provides simple, consistent and transparent guidance to help:

developers understand the impact proposed activities have on site integrity;
conservation managers understand how to achieve conservation objectives.

Search for an MPA's conservation advice. To do this, run the search, then click the 'Conservation Advice' link in the 'Sites found' list.
Access guidance and supporting materials. This includes instructional videos, guidance documents and details of updates made to the advice packages.

Condition assessment

Natural England has a statutory duty to report on the condition of protected features within MPAs in England’s inshore waters. Condition assessments use the best available evidence and a standardised approach to assess each feature within a site. They identify which features are healthy and appropriately managed. They also identify those which are currently not in favourable condition. The assessments report on each feature’s current state, threats to their condition, and trajectory of change. They also present the underpinning evidence.

Search for a condition assessment. To do this, run the search, then click the ‘Marine Condition’ link in the ‘Sites found’ list. This link is only available for sites with a published condition assessment.

MAGIC maps website

The MAGIC website provides reliable geographic information about the natural environment from across government. This includes site boundaries and protected feature information.

You can access the interractive MAGIC map for an MPA of interest using the site search. Alternatively, visit the MAGIC maps home page.

Other mapping tools

If you’d like to find out which MPAs exist in an area of interest, you can use the interactive index map. This links to our site-specific conservation advice.

Images are used under Creative Commons licence.