25 Jun 2026

Description: A close up of someone’s hands as they count out coins. Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash   Southern Water has secured the final £300 million of a £1.2 billion equity package, with most of the new capital coming from Asterion Industrial Partners. The Madrid-based infrastructure investor will join the Macquarie-led consortium as a minority shareholder […]

25 Jun 2026

Image Description: The sun amid a fiery orange sky. Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash   The UK is in the grip of an exceptional June heatwave, with the Met Office issuing a Red Extreme Heat Warning, only the second it has ever declared. The warning came into force on Wednesday 24 June and runs […]

23 Jun 2026

Photo by Thimo van Leeuwen   Scottish Ministers have been both non-compliant with, and ineffective in implementing, their legal duties to protect and restore the seafloor, according to a new report published on 23 June by Environmental Standards Scotland (ESS), the independent body that monitors environmental law in Scotland. The findings landed on the same day campaigners […]

23 Jun 2026

Photo by Denys Nevozhai   The UK has committed £13.9 million to international programmes tackling ocean protection, coastal resilience and plastic pollution, with Marine Minister Emma Hardy announcing the funding at the eleventh Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa, Kenya. The money is channelled through the Blue Planet Fund, the UK’s flagship ocean financing vehicle, which marks its fifth anniversary this […]

23 Jun 2026

  Photo by Paul Einerhand   Global fisheries and aquaculture production hit a record high in 2024, even as the share of the world’s fish stocks classed as biologically sustainable fell for the second report running, according to The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2026 (SOFIA 2026), the Food and Agriculture Organization’s flagship biennial assessment. The […]

23 Jun 2026

Photo by Dylan Shaw   A vast area of winter sea ice has failed to form off West Antarctica’s Bellingshausen Sea, with scientists warning the region may now be entering a permanently reduced state with consequences for penguins, krill and some of the continent’s most significant glaciers. The gap was first reported in detail by […]

23 Jun 2026

Photo by Gerland Schömbs   French Polynesia has become the world’s largest contributor to the global 30×30 ocean protection target, after President Moetai Brotherson announced on 7 June that a further 520,000 km² of the territory’s waters will be fully protected from extractive industries. The move brings the total share of French Polynesia’s exclusive economic zone under full protection to around 30%, an area covering roughly 1.4 million […]

23 Jun 2026

Photo by Ian Hutchinson   The US National Science Foundation (NSF) has abandoned its plan to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), a $368 million network of more than 900 instruments, after a bipartisan revolt in Congress. The agency confirmed on 18 June that it “will not proceed with further removal or descoping of equipment from the […]