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 […]

03 Nov 2022

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the World Bank, have launched the report State of the world’s drinking water: An urgent call to action to accelerate progress on ensuring safe drinking water for all. The report is a comprehensive survey of what is known about the links between water, […]

03 Nov 2022

The Environment Agency’s ‘Regulating for people, the environment and growth, 2021’ report has been published and highlights the organisation’s approach to regulation and the work it is doing to ensure regulation meets their ambition to create better places. In the Foreword by the Chief Executive of the Agency, the stark message was that in 2021, […]

03 Nov 2022

The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) has said it was considering enforcement action against Defra after it failed to meet the deadline to set statutory targets as part of the Environment Act. Utility Week reported that newly appointed secretary of state, Therese Coffey, said the department had struggled to analyse the 180,000 responses to a […]