22 Mar 2022

Views on a draft future catching policy are being sought along with plans to roll-out Remote Electronic Monitoring systems for boats fishing in Scottish waters. The proposals include: Additional technical and spatial management measures to reduce catches of unwanted fish and support the fishing industry to avoid bycatch of sensitive marine species such as seabirds, […]

22 Mar 2022

Both the Welsh Government and Defra have made announcements regarding end-of-life fishing gear. Firstly, the Welsh Government is taking action against marine litter as it becomes the first UK nation to introduce a recycling scheme for fishing gear. A press release has stated that: ‘The first collection, which took place today on Global Recycling Day […]

22 Mar 2022

Defra launches targets consultation and Nature Recovery Green Paper: The Nature Recovery Green Paper sets out our ambition to enable nature’s recovery in England, laying out proposals to support our aim to halt and reverse the loss of nature over the last 50 years. We want to seize the opportunity to update the existing legal […]

22 Mar 2022

Coastal engineers, waste management and pollution researchers at the University of Southampton and Queen Mary University of London have highlighted the increasing environmental risks associated with coastal landfill sites in the face of climate change. Rising sea levels may flood the landfills, flushing pollutants into the environment, whilst erosion could release waste onto beaches to […]

22 Mar 2022

We covered on 8th March the opening of Part A of the Fisheries Industry Science Partnerships scheme. Defra has announced that the Fisheries Industry Science Partnerships scheme is now open to bid for contracts to carry out full research projects (FISP Part B) until midday 16th May. Up to £300K is available per bid. You […]

15 Mar 2022

It has been widely reported that a new  independent Commission is being set up to assess tidal renewable projects in the Severn Estuary. The assessment of the feasibility of schemes within the estuary is not new – the  Sustainable Development Commission in 2007 released a comprehensive report and ten years later the ‘Hendry Review’ was […]

15 Mar 2022

Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister Edwin Poots MLA has said that we must all work together to protect and restore one of our important natural assets, our blue carbon habitats. The Minister made his comments during an Oral Statement in the NI Assembly, where he outlined his Department’s intention to develop an action plan […]

15 Mar 2022

As reported in ENDS [paywall] and the Independent, a new report by the Plastic Soup Foundation states that millions of waste plastic “nurdles” from UK sewage plants on the east coast are polluting the North Sea and reaching the Dutch coast. Sewage plants in Britain use black “bio beads”, also known as nurdles, to filter water, but spillages […]