01 Sep 2022

News outlets have reported that the UK government’s plan to cut millions of hours of raw sewage discharges by water companies each year is facing a judicial review on the grounds that it is unlawful. The conservationist charity WildFish is calling for the storm overflow reduction strategy, published on 26th August, to be withdrawn immediately, […]

01 Sep 2022

Sir James Bevan, the CEO of the Environment Agency, has said that Britons need to be ‘less squeamish’ about drinking water from sewage. Writing in the Sunday Times [paywall] and reported in the Guardian and Evening Standard. He said it was “perfectly safe and healthy, but not something many fancy”. Sir James Bevan outlined measures […]

30 Aug 2022

The Marine Conservation Society is calling for volunteers across the UK to join them at the coast for a week of beach cleaning and litter surveying throughout the country in September, Oceanographic magazine reported. Last year, volunteers collected over five tonnes of litter, with an average of 3.85 items found for every metre of beach surveyed across the UK. “We wouldn’t […]

30 Aug 2022

A new study released which focusses on the scale of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) needed to protect large mobile marine animals. MPAs, particularly large MPAs, are increasing in number and size around the globe in part to facilitate the conservation of marine megafauna under the assumption that large-scale MPAs better align with vagile life histories; […]

30 Aug 2022

Saving the Whales Again: Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the International Whaling Commission’s global ban on commercial whaling and looking ahead. Lucy Babey, Head of Science and Conservation, Deputy Director, at ORCA and Chair of the Link Marine Mammals Group, reflects on the 40th anniversary of the International Whaling Commission’s global ban on commercial whaling.  […]

30 Aug 2022

New research on the vulnerability of the UK’s seabed carbon stores to the pressures from bottom trawling by fishing boats could help protect vulnerable shelf seas.     Researchers from the University of St Andrews have collaborated with Scottish Government scientists to develop a new predictive approach that will help assess how vulnerable the UK’s seabed […]

30 Aug 2022

Failure in efforts to create global ocean treaty A fifth effort to pass a global agreement to protect the world’s oceans and marine life has failed. Numerous news outlets, including the BBC, reported that talks to pass the UN High Seas Treaty had been ongoing for two weeks in New York, but governments could not agree […]