08 Nov 2022

The mysterious Greenland shark – thought to have the longest lifespan of any vertebrate – has been granted new, historic protections by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO). The US and Canada, with support from the UK and the EU, proposed and secured a science-based ban on retaining the species from international waters.     […]

08 Nov 2022

  The Marine Conservation Society has released its first Wildlife Sightings report, publishing last year’s findings from its long-running citizen science project.     The project asks the public to report jellyfish and marine turtle sightings in and around the UK and Ireland’s shores. The charity collects and analyses reports of these species to identify […]

08 Nov 2022

As the world meets to agree its latest plans to combat climate change at the UN Climate Change COP27, and others simultaneously meet in the often overlooked COP14 Ramsar discussions, WWT’s new Wetlands For Carbon Storage Route Map calls for the creation of at least 22,000 hectares of coastal saltmarsh by 2050 to help the UK government […]

08 Nov 2022

A new dataset of intentional disabling of Automatic Identification System devices by fishing vessels provides insights into illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing activity Data from the shipboard Automatic Identification System (AIS), which was created as a collision avoidance tool, can provide information about global fishing activity, including illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. Fishing vessels may […]

08 Nov 2022

Crown Estate Scotland has confirmed that all three successful ScotWind Clearing applicants now have seabed option agreements in place meaning that their projects can move into the development stage. Full seabed leases are granted at a later stage once applicants have the necessary consents from regulators, such as Marine Scotland, and have secured grid connections and financing. […]

08 Nov 2022

The UK government has announced £156,000 to protect England’s island seabird populations against the threat of invasive predators.     This is one of the first instances globally of a central government providing funding to protect seabird islands against these specific threats, Defra has said. The UK’s islands such as Coquet Island and the Isles […]

08 Nov 2022

The Chair of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee of the UK Parliament, the Rt Hon Sir Robert Goodwill MP, has written to Defra with its interim conclusions relating its exploration of the sealife mortality issue off the North East coast. The letter states: There is clearly a need for further data and research on […]

01 Nov 2022

Denmark to Launch North Sea Energy Island Tender in Spring 2023. The tender for the construction and operation of the Danish North Sea Energy Island is now expected to be launched in Spring 2023, as a new political agreement has been reached on the tender rules, which include significant requirements in the areas of working […]