02 Feb 2021

Mark Avery – An active campaigner for the protection of peat has written an extensive blog on the Defra announcement. The announcement is good news – it regulates the environmental harm caused by burning of vegetation on peat soils, mostly upland peat soils. What is the harm? The harm is manifold: blanket bog is a […]

26 Jan 2021

From Defra A joint industry-government group established last year to tackle river pollution has today (22 January) agreed a new objective to prevent damage from storm overflows. The Storm Overflows Taskforce – made up of Defra, the Environment Agency, Ofwat, Consumer Council for Water, Blueprint for Water and Water UK – has agreed to set […]

26 Jan 2021

Learning from the Marine Pioneer – Aisling Lannin Marine Management Organisation  E: aisling.lannin@marinemanagement.org.uk The Marine Pioneer was set up by Defra to test the approaches outlined in the 25 Year Environment Plan (25YEP). The 25YEP’s vision is to improve the environment in a generation and it states that to achieve this we need to make […]

26 Jan 2021

Bryce Stewart: Here is a blog just after the deal was announced https://ukandeu.ac.uk/fisheries-trade-deal/. Since then a much larger report has been published by UK in a Changing Europe. I wrote the fisheries section for that as well, which is on pages 26 and 27. The Trade Deal: A Sellout on Fish but maybe not on enforcement […]

09 Jan 2021

New report finds bottom trawling taking place in 98% of UK’s offshore Marine Protected Areas Date posted: 6 January 2021 Marine Conservation Society ‘We’ve released our Marine unProtected Areas report which found that bottom trawling is taking place in a worrying 98% of the UK’s offshore Marine Protected Areas designed to protect the seabed. As a result of […]

15 Dec 2020

Defra  ‘On Saturday (12 December), the UK became one of the first countries in the world to fulfil a key commitment of the Paris Agreement, publishing our Adaptation Communication, setting out how we are enhancing our resilience to the changing climate. Published as the Prime Minister brought leaders together at the virtual Climate Ambition Summit, the […]

15 Dec 2020

Consultation description We’re asking for evidence to help us better understand the shark fin trade and its impacts in the UK and overseas. We’re looking for expert advice in the following 4 key areas: scale of shark fin trade in the UK conservation impacts of shark fin trade in the UK economic and social impacts […]