Friday 15 December 2017

The Blue Belt initiative

I fully support this proposal and I am delighted the government are committing £20 million over the next few years to support the delivery of protecting four million square kilometres of marine environment. This money will help us improve our scientific understand of the oceans, develop and implement evidence based marine management strategies, and ensure the management of such a programme is sustainable for the long term.

A couple of months ago the government published its strategy for the British Overseas Territories, you can read in more detail what we are doing here:  


At a local level, I am chairman of the APPG for Protect Our Waves who work with the charity Surfers Against Sewerage. Together we have pressured the government to introduce the ban on microbeads, hold a consultation on the best way to introduce a Bottle Return Deposit scheme and pressure water companies to improve water quality around our beaches and shorelines.


A few weeks ago the Environment Minister, Therese Coffey announced a newly classified marine Special Protection Area which will come into force along a 24 mile stretch of coast from Falmouth to St Austell Bay. You can read more here: