In a speech to the Coastal Futures Conference in January 2021, Environment Minister Rebecca Pow declared 2021 to be a ‘Marine Super Year’, stating that the UK would use its presidency of COP26 to lead calls to restore the marine environment to health. The Minister stressed that global leadership ‘‘really starts with our ambition and delivery at home’’. This vision was very welcome and built on increasing public and political awareness of the role healthy seas play in building healthy communities and in fighting the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss.

To track the actions taken to match this ambition, Wildlife & Countryside Link have published a scorecard setting out what needed to be done for 2021 to be a ‘super year’ for our seas. Supported by a wide cross- section of the UK’s leading environment and wildlife groups, their proposals included ocean recovery targets, offshore planning reforms and progress on bycatch. These actions and policies were those we judged to be essential to tackle the urgent threats faced by the
marine environment.

There have been highlights where Ministers have demonstrated leadership on the marine environment. But these have not been matched by adequate progress on marine protections, bycatch, or offshore planning. The analysis concludes that the majority of priority areas saw little progress, with only 2 of the 17 interventions proposed seeing good progress. However, many opportunities remain to make 2022 the year where the tide is turned for UK seas given sufficient political will and commensurate support.

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