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Dear readers,
Twenty years after the Kyoto Protocol first tasked the International Maritime Organisation with reducing ship GHG emissions and more than ten years after Seas At Risk started the push for shipping to make a fair contribution to tackling the climate crisis an important agreement has been struck this month to decarbonise the shipping sector. This is a huge success for the climate, for ocean & seas, and for Seas At Risk.
Elsewhere Seas At Risk has called for EU Member States to act to deliver on their commitment under the Marine Directive to restore our seas to good health by 2020. Backed by a 175,000 signature petition Seas At Risk is pushing EU environmental ministers to step up their efforts and put in place more ambitious measures. Ending the flow of plastics into the sea would be a major step to achieve clean and healthy seas, and together with the Rethink Plastic Alliance, Seas At Risk, has challenged the European Parliament to walk the circular economy talk and to go single-use plastic free.
Also find out how hundreds of divers have removed a million items of rubbish from our seas, and how to organise a successful campaign for return deposit schemes.
Enjoy the newsletter, the sun and the spring!
The Seas At Risk team
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Commitment to decarbonise shipping is welcome – governments can no longer shirk decisions on how to cut ship GHG emissions
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Today’s commitment by governments to require international shipping to decarbonise and at least halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 is a welcome and potentially game changing development, the Clean Shipping Coalition has said. But the lack of any clear plan of action to deliver the emissions reductions, including urgently needed short-term measures, is a major concern, according to the group of NGOs with observer status at the UN’s International Maritime Organisation.
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Clean Arctic Alliance hails IMO move to ban heavy fuel oil from Arctic shipping
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The Clean Arctic Alliance today applauded progress by International Maritime Organization member states towards banning use of the world’s dirtiest fuel - heavy fuel oil - from Arctic shipping, and called for Member States to make every effort to adopt and rapidly implement a ban by 2021, as proposed by eight IMO Member States and supported by other countries during the meeting.
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Save our seas: 172,120 EU citizens deliver demand to environment and fisheries ministers
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As the Council of EU Environment Ministers meeting started on 10 April 2018 in Sofia, 172,120 signatures from EU citizens calling for the EU to protect our seas and end overfishing were received by State Secretary for Environment of Sweden, Per Ängquist.
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Three steps EU countries must take to achieve clean and healthy seas by 2020
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With less than two years to go before the 2020 deadline, urgent action is needed to safeguard European seas and ensure their continued health and productivity, as required by the EU Marine Directive. An EU-wide coalition of NGOs, led by Seas At Risk, proposes a series of concrete actions to help Member States to deliver on their legal commitment to restore our seas to ‘Good Environmental Status’.
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Rethink Plastic Alliance challenges the European Parliament to ban plastic bottles
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Seas At Risk, together with its NGO partners in the Rethink Plastic Alliance, has sent an open letter to the President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, challenging the Parliament to move from rhetoric to practice and stop its use of enormous quantities of plastic water bottles.
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Europe’s plastic problem – EU and Norway join forces on legislating against single-use plastics
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On 5th March, the European Policy Centre, together with the Mission of Norway to the European Union, hosted the Policy Dialogue Plastics and Oceans: How can Europe end further discharge into the oceans? Seas At Risk’s Marine Litter Policy Officer, Emma Priestland, was in attendance, to share the message that ocean plastics are not an impossible problem to solve, provided immediate action is taken. Several solutions are already available to make this happen.
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England joins the deposit return scheme revolution
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After many years of campaigning for a deposit return scheme, the UK is finally taking real steps towards the introduction of deposit return schemes. Seas At Risk member, the Marine Conservation Society, is hopeful that deposit return schemes will soon be in place across the UK. With yet more countries taking this crucial step to reduce pollution from beverage containers, it increases the pressure on the EU to make this mandatory for all countries.
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One Million Less items of rubbish in the ocean thanks to scuba divers
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The unique citizen science survey Dive Against Debris®, launched by Seas At Risk member, Project AWARE, has removed one million items of rubbish from the ocean. This huge milestone in the fight against marine debris was reached by scuba divers around the world and serves to shine a light on the global marine litter crisis.
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Fish stocks being fished sustainably within the EU may have been overestimated
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For the third year in a row, Fundació ENT and Sciaena (member organisations of Seas At Risk), together with Ecologistas en Acción (a major Spanish environmental NGO), have compared and analysed European Commission reports on EU fisheries catch limits to assess their adherence to the legal requirement to stop overfishing. Analysis of the reports from 2015 to 2018 highlights some concerns about the methodology used by the Commission, and raises the possibility that the number of stocks assessed as being fished sustainably may have been overestimated each year.
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French citizens called to shape an environmental future for their seas and coastlines #DéfendsTaMer
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As the second largest maritime area in the world, France has a significant responsibility to protect marine ecosystems. Despite this, it has yet to adopt an ambitious, sustainable coastal and maritime policy. It is time for French citizens to speak up and insist that France develops a maritime policy that centres on environmental considerations and reflects the limits of marine ecosystems.
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Massacre of dolphins in French waters: Is the French government washing its hands?
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Fishing activities taking place in French waters pose a serious threat to the common dolphin (Delphinus Delphis), a protected species under French and international law. During the winter of 2017, about 4,000 common dolphins died at sea in the Bay of Biscay due to fishing activities. Since the beginning of 2018, 300 strandings of small dead cetaceans have been reported on the French Atlantic coast, 80% of which were common dolphins. It is possible that some of the boats responsible for maiming and killing dolphins were fishing in Natura 2000 Marine Protected Areas at the time. Seas At Risk member, France Nature Environnement, is alarmed by the French government’s failure to act and asks that it takes the necessary measures to stop this massacre.
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