The first cetacean I ever saw was probably a harbour porpoise off the coast of Argyll – although I thought it was a dolphin. And the first whale I saw, which surfaced in a raft of Manx shearwaters off the north coast of Rhum, was probably a minke whale – although I thought it was…
Category: Marine protected areas
Struan Stevenson, do your maximum to yield sustainable fisheries
Tomorrow there is an important vote on the future of the Common Fisheries Policy. It seems likely that a UK (Scottish) MEP may hold the balance of power over whether overfishing continues or begins to diminish. That MEP is Struan Stevenson. When I wrote to Richard Benyon on this subject in the early part of…
Bitterly disappointed, hugely disappointed, shameful, pitiful, appalling, lamentable…
Bitterly disappointed, hugely disappointed, shameful, pitiful, appalling, lamentable… That’s how the Wildlife Trusts, Marine Conservation Society and RSPB described Defra’s announcement that it was consulting on designating just 31 of 127 marine sites selected by a lengthy, inclusive and costly process involving hundreds of people. Further progress might be made next year. Defra described this…
Come on chaps!
I’ve been thinking, off and on, about the marine wildlife riches around Pitcairn Island since the meeting at the Royal Society last week. It was wonderful to get some comments on this blog from Pitcairn Islanders too. I hope it’s not too presumptuous to think that the case for strong protection of the marine wildlife,…
An underwater bounty
On Wednesday evening I was in the Royal Society building in Carlton House Terrace (allegedly where Hitler would have lived if his plan to invade the UK had been more successful) waving at a bunch of kids on Pitcairn Island. Really, I was. Not alone of course, but in a room full of people. Through…