The government has announced the first set of programmes to receive funding from the £500m Blue Planet Fund launched by the Prime Minister at the G7 summit. The Fund will support developing countries on the front line of climate change to reduce poverty and improve the health of their seas. The programmes, financed from the UK’s overseas aid budget, aim to increase marine protection, tackle plastic pollution and the decline of global coral reefs, as well as using the UK’s world-leading expertise to help respond to marine pollution disasters such as the Xpress Pearl in Sri Lanka. The five initiatives getting support are a new UK-led Ocean Country Partnership Programme, as well as contributions to the Global Fund for Coral Reefs, the Global Plastic Action Partnership, the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance and the Global Ocean Accounts Partnership. Click here