Marine Reserves campaign team member, Malcolm Hunter, draws our attention to the most recent post on Richard Black’s blog on the BBC website. It not only highlights the damage being done to deep water fish stocks and ecosystems, by unsustainable fishing, it also shows the UN in a pretty poor
light too:
Marine Reserves Leaflet - Sept 2009
We have created a new leaflet calling on people to contact their MP, urging them to support the soon-to-be-tabled MARINET amendment to the Marine and Coastal Access Bill. This amendment will establish a requirement within the bill to create an ecologically coherent network of Highly Protected Marine Reserves (or Highly Protected “Marine Conservation Zones”, to use the Government terminology).
Click on the picture of the leaflet to the right to access the PDF version and please print as many of these leaflets as you require for distribution. If you prefer, email bill.rigby@marinereserves.org.uk to request copies. The leaflets will also be available at the MARINET stall at the Friends of the Earth conference this weekend, so if you will be there, please come to the stall to collect your copies of the leaflet.
Dr Emma Sheehan talks to John Craven
Last Sunday’s episode of Countryfile, available now on BBC iPlayer, ran a ten-minute feature on the proposals in the Marine Bill for Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs). The segment starts at 21 minutes in to the programme.
John talks to Nicola Saunders, head warden of the Lundy No Take Zone, Melissa Moore of the Marine Conservation Society, Dr Emma Sheehan of the University of Plymouth and scallop fisherman Paul Wayson.
The scale of the problem that MCZs have to tackle was illustrated in Emma Sheehan’s answer to the question “So how long do you reckon it will take before the seabed makes a complete recovery?”
She said: “We don’t know what a complete recovery is because I don’t think we’ve got anywhere close to the UK that isn’t impacted by man so I’ve no idea of what a complete recovery even looks like.”
