By Sharon Thompson, Senior Marine Policy Officer, RSPB
We have now submitted over a third of a million (over 350,000) pledges to No.10 Downing Street, urging the Prime Minister to designate an ecologically coherent network of Marine Protected Areas in England’s waters without further delay.
As you can see, we – that’s the RSPB, the Marine Conservation Society, The Wildlife Trusts, WWF and Wildlife & Countryside Link – started our journey to Downing Street on a windy Westminster Bridge in front of Big Ben and in front of Parliament.
Walking up Downing Street is quite intimidating – it’s a street that is both completely familiar but suddenly seen from a new and much more personal angle. However, it was very exciting to actually get to stand on that step and have that door opened to our knock and to hand over our pledges.
Our journey today was quite short and ended in success. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for marine protection in England’s seas. It has been a long a tortuous journey to get to today – over 1 million stakeholders (environmentalists, fishermen, industry and recreation representatives) were involved for over 2 years in regional projects around England. At the end of that process, the stakeholders recommended 127 Marine Conservation Zones, but to date, the Coalition Government are only proposing to designate a maximum of 31 sites, and with no timetable for the completion of the ecologically coherent network.
Today’s hand-in of pledges highlights the enormous public support for effective marine protection and we have asked the PM to commit his Government to completing the network and providing us with a timetable for that work.
You can see more picture son Twitter at http://mczpetition.tumblr.com/.
Photo credits: Chris Wood
Afraid it does not seem like enormous public support to me 0.58333% oh come on.
How about all these groups helping out save the Hen Harriers seeing as they are extinct as breeding birds in England due to persecution.Think all these groups owe RSPB a good turn.