11 Aug 2026
Photo by Hamish Duncan Landings at Lerwick, Scotland’s second busiest fishing port, fell 31% in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period last year, a decline the Shetland Fishermen’s Association (SFA) has blamed largely on this year’s steep cuts to cod and saithe quotas. Marine Management Organisation figures show landings across […]
11 Aug 2026
Photo by Kate Joyce Cornwall Wildlife Trust has raised fresh concerns over the proposed £150 million redevelopment of Falmouth Docks, warning that sediment contamination testing carried out ahead of planned dredging operations may be too limited to reliably identify material unsafe for disposal at sea. The Trust’s own analysis of environmental data found that […]
04 Aug 2026
Photo by Ben Elliott The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) has launched a push to improve public understanding of the legal protections around Britain’s two native seahorse species, warning divers, snorkellers and film crews that intentionally disturbing them without a licence could result in enforcement action. Both the spiny or long-snouted seahorse (Hippocampus guttulatus) and […]
04 Aug 2026
Photo by Oleksandr Sushko Plans for Sussex’s first commercial seaweed farm have been submitted to Chichester District Council and the Marine Management Organisation (MMO), with the entrepreneur behind the scheme hoping it will be the first of many along the county’s coast. From Countryfile to Bracklesham Bay Andrew Payne-Cook, 48, plans to site the […]
28 Jul 2026
Photo Credit: AdobeStock Defra has rejected the central recommendations of a cross-party committee report on rebuilding trust with the fishing industry, including calls for a Sea Use Framework and new regional forums giving fishers a formal role in policy. The rejection came in the government’s formal response to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs […]
21 Jul 2026
Photo Credit: AdobeStock Every commercial fisherman in the UK should be granted a permanent, tradable share of the national catch, according to a new paper from the free-market Adam Smith Institute, which argues that the current system leaves the majority of the fleet dependent on short-term handouts and does little to arrest long-term stock […]
21 Jul 2026
Photo Credit: AdobeStock A new byelaw prohibiting anchoring across the entire Allonby Bay Highly Protected Marine Area (HPMA) will come into force on 30 July, the Marine Management Organisation has confirmed. The measure covers all 28 square kilometres of the site, which sits off the north-west coast of Cumbria in the Irish Sea, and […]
30 Jun 2026
Photo by Paul Einerhand The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) has confirmed it will publish a new dataset linking UK fishing landings to the exact locations where they were caught, in a pre-announcement covering the 2024 data year. The dataset, named the Landings Enriched Approach for Positional FISHeries data, or LEAPFISH, is provisionally due for release […]
