The National Bee Unit has confirmed a sighting of the Asian hornet at an apiary near Woolacombe in Devon.

The Asian hornet is smaller than our native hornet and poses no greater risk to human health than a bee. However, they do pose a risk to honey bees.

This is the first confirmed sighting since last year, when a nest was discovered in the Tetbury area in Gloucestershire. That Asian hornet incursion was successfully contained by bee inspectors who promptly tracked down and destroyed the nest.

Work to identify, destroy and remove any nests is already underway, which includes:

• setting up a surveillance zone around North Devon

• opening a local control centre to coordinate the response

• deploying bee inspectors across the area who will use infrared cameras and traps to track hornets and locate any nests

• readying nest disposal experts who will use pesticides to kill the hornets and destroy any nests

Nicola Spence, Defra Deputy Director for Plant and Bee Health, said:

While the Asian Hornet poses no greater risk to human health than a bee, we recognise the damage they can cause to honey bee colonies. That’s why we are taking swift and robust action to locate and destroy any nests in the Devon area following this confirmed sighting.

Following the successful containment of the Asian hornet incursion in Gloucestershire last year, we have a well-established protocol in place to eradicate them and control any potential spread.

We remain vigilant across the country, working closely with the National Bee Unit and their nationwide network of bee inspectors.

A local control centre will be opened this week in North Devon and bee inspectors from APHA National Bee Unit will be carrying out surveillance and monitoring initially in a 1-2 km radius around the initial sighting.

They will be supported by nest disposal experts who will use an approved pesticide to destroy any hornets and remove any nests.

The free Asian Hornet Watch reporting app, launched last March and downloaded 6500 times already, allows people to quickly and easily report possible sightings of the invasive species and send pictures of suspect insects to experts at the National Bee Unit.

• The cost of eradication on private land will be met by APHA.

• Anyone who believes they have found a nest should not go near it and report it using the Asian Hornet Watch app which is available to download from the Apple and Android app stores.

• The hornet found near Woolacombe is currently undergoing both DNA testing at the National Bee Unit in North Yorkshire to help establish how it arrived in the UK.

• Members of the public can also report sightings by email to alertnonnative@ceh.ac.uk with a photo or on the Great Britain Non-native Species Secretariat website.

• The Great Britain Non-native Species Secretariat is a joint venture between Defra, the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government to tackle the threat of invasive species. More information can be found on their website.

• For details on the appearance of an Asian hornet please can be found on Bee Base guide or the non-native species identification guide.

Requirement R104

Requirement detail

Human use of the marine environment exerts a range of pressures on marine species. Depending on the pressure type, pressure intensity, and sensitivity of the species to that pressure, significant negative impacts may occur.

To ensure robust, transparent and integrated decision making, the MMO seeks to identify and agree standardised methods applicable across scales that describe and define; the types of pressures generated by marine activities, pressure intensity and distribution in space and time, sensitivity of habitats and species to pressures in space and time and ranges and thresholds at which pressures impact species ultimately to support decision making.

Requirement R109

Requirement detail

Management measures for marine protected areas preclude certain activities because of the environmental risk resulting from the likely impacts of those activities. Novel solutions that can reduce the impact of activities on marine features, may potentially enable those activities to occur.

This work looks to identify current issues preventing access to marine protected areas for marine fishing and recreation activities to support development of novel technologies to address issues and inform adjustments to management measures.

This work would not require MMO itself to develop/test new technologies.

Requirement R110

Requirement detail

Species and habitats often have variable distribution and condition in space and time. Some are particularly dynamic such as those in transitional and intertidal waters that span the land and sea. Variability occurs over many different times scales from seasons to multi-year cycles and decades.

Temporal changes however, remain a challenge for management, particularly separating the different sources of natural variation including seasonal change or multi-year cycles like the North Atlantic Oscillation from human influences on natural variation including climate change impacts, or direct human induced variability. Similar challenges exist in defining the bounds of variability and accounting for the associated uncertainty in decision making.

This requirement is for mechanisms to describe temporal variability, differentiate sources and apply these to priority species/habitats. It will also examine how best to incorporate such temporal variability within marine management approaches.

Requirement R016

Requirement detail

Marine plans form a plan-led system for marine activities. Marine plans will ensure that different and competing activities are managed in such a way that they contribute to the achievement of sustainable development. A key issue in all marine plan areas is the optimisation of space through promoting compatibility and encouraging co-existence between different activities. As such co-existence or displacement of activities should be considered within marine licensing.

An evaluation approach providing integrated consideration of the environmental, social and economic impacts of co-location/displacement has been proposed in research project MMO 1049 but further research and development is required to put this approach into working practice.

Plan level evaluation of the impacts and risks for multiple use areas is required to inform plan development. Using an improved approach when identifying the issues stemming from co-location and displacement of activities at a plan area scale would allow better consideration of such issues at the project level through marine licensing.

A process has been scoped out but would need further development and incorporation into licensing processes to enable balanced consideration of co-location/displacement impacts. This project should build on the outputs of MMO 1049, which outlines a proposed framework of comparing co-existence versus no-coexistence and makes recommendations for next steps in terms of this piece of work.