Give Seas a Chance!

Kent Wildlife Trust launches vision for Living Seas

Kent Wildlife Trust has launched Living Seas, its vision for the UK’s marine environment – where wildlife thrives from the depths of the ocean to the coastal shallows; where rocky reefs are bursting with brightly coloured fish, corals and sponges, and dolphins and seals dart among the waves – at an event in the House of Commons on 19th January.

Kent Wildlife Trust’s Chief Executive, John Bennett, and Marine Officer, Bryony Chapman, are pictured with Dover MP, Gwyn Prosser (centre) at the launch of the Living Seas vision at the House of Commons. 

The launch follows the passing, in November, of the Marine and Coastal Access Act (MCAA), for which The Wildlife Trusts campaigned for nearly a decade.  The challenge for the next five years is to ensure the Act is effectively implemented – that urgent action is taken to turn the UK’s over-fished, over-exploited, and currently under-protected waters back into a thriving marine environment.  The Wildlife Trusts have a clear vision for how this should happen, and a plan for achieving it within 20 years, a single generation.

The Wildlife Trusts are achieving great things across the UK, working at the local level to understand, protect and raise awareness of our marine wildlife and habitats, from seagrass meadows to dolphins and seals. In Kent, hundreds of Trust volunteers have contributed their time and expertise in surveying shore and seabed habitats as part of the Trust’s Shoresearch and Seasearch programmes.   

In a few places, there are encouraging signs of our seas recovering.  Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust has recorded an increase in seal numbers at Donna Nook each year since 2007, and there are early signs of recovery in the fragile ecosystem of the Lyme Bay reefs, where The Wildlife Trusts’ campaign achieved a ban on scallop-dredging in 2008.

Professor Aubrey Manning, BBC television presenter and president of The Wildlife Trusts, launched the Living Seas vision¹.  He said: “The Living Seas vision is very direct in its aims.  It sets out a clear plan of how we, The Wildlife Trusts, and our partners and supporters, can help achieve them.
“The opportunities that the Marine and Coastal Access Act has opened up need to be seized on immediately. We can no longer continue to treat the oceans as limitless. In particular, we need an effective and well-managed network of Marine Protected Areas by 2012.

“We may not get another opportunity to make Living Seas a reality.  The future of our oceans hangs in the balance, and we want to tip it in the right direction for wildlife, and for the people – all of us – who depend upon it.”

Bryony Chapman, Marine Officer for Kent Wildlife Trust, said: “Now that we have the Marine and Coastal Access Act, all the data that we have been collecting with our many volunteers will be invaluable in identifying where Marine Conservation Zones should be located. 

“Finally, we have the opportunity to turn things around and care for our seas and our amazing marine wildlife – for its own sake and for our own.  We must make sure we seize it.”

 

 Kent Wildlife Trust : the largest active conservation charity in Kent, Reg Charity No: 239992

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