17 Jun 2025

Photo of the Houses of Parliament by R Spegel   A cross-party committee of UK MPs has called for a comprehensive reform of the nation’s marine governance system to better involve coastal communities in decisions affecting their local marine environments. The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) released a report on 5th June, 2025, recommending the establishment […]

10 Jun 2025

Photo: Fishing boat by Paul Einerhand   The UK Government has announced a major proposal to ban bottom trawling in 41 Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) across English waters. If implemented, it would expand existing ban on bottom trawling from 18,000 km² to 30,000 km², of the UK’s offshore areas, covering nearly a quarter of the […]

03 Jun 2025

Image: EU flag – Alexey Larionov   The United Kingdom is facing mounting criticism for its delay in ratifying the High Seas Treaty, also known as the Global Ocean Treaty, as the European Union and several of its member states move swiftly ahead. The treaty, aimed at protecting marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction, […]

27 May 2025

Image: Fishing boat by Michel Stockman   A new report from marine conservation organisation Oceana claims that bottom trawling continues to pose a serious threat to the UK’s offshore marine protected areas (MPAs), with over 20,000 hours of suspected activity recorded in 2024 alone. The report, titled The Trawled Truth, estimates that the suspected trawling would […]

11 Mar 2025

The UK Prime Minister and the Irish Taoiseach announced closer collaboration on energy production at the first of a series of annual summits between the two countries. The two prime ministers announced closer collaboration on subsea energy infrastructure to “harness the full potential” of the Irish and Celtic seas as part of ongoing efforts to reset post-Brexit relations.   […]

20 Sep 2024

The UK has become the first nation to map and estimate the amount of carbon stored in its seabed habitats, including in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). The Blue Carbon Mapping Project, completed by the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) on behalf of WWF, The Wildlife Trusts and the RSPB, reveals that 244 million tonnes […]

28 Nov 2023

Seafish’s Economics, Insight and Advice team has released the 2022 edition of Economics of the Fleet. This report provides economic estimates for the performance of the UK fishing fleet. The estimates are calculated based on samples of fishing costs and earnings gathered by Seafish as part of our Annual Fleet Survey. Findings from this report […]

10 Aug 2021

New Met office report The UK’s climate has continued to warm, with 2020 the first year to have temperature, rain and sunshine rankings all in the top 10. The latest analysis of the UK climate, State of the UK Climate 2020 published in The Royal Meteorological Society’s ‘International Journal of Climatology’, has shown that climate […]