As part of the International Whaling Commission’s Bycatch Mitigation Initiative (BMI), five members of the IWCs Bycatch Expert Panel (of whom I am one) contributed to a 10-day bycatch risk assessment workshop in the Republic of Congo. The Consortium for the Conservation of Atlantic Humpback Dolphins (CCAHD) helped to bring together all the relevant partners […]
The UK’s action to prevent whales, dolphins, porpoises and other marine mammals dying as a result of being caught in fishing nets – bycatch – has spared it from US Government trade sanctions on fish products. However, despite the UK’s actions to date, ongoing bycatch in British and European waters remains a significant concern. The […]
This Sunday (8 June) is United Nations World Oceans Day and the theme for 2025 is ‘Wonder: Sustaining what sustains us’. The ocean sustains we humans in many ways – capturing carbon, providing wellbeing and as a source of nutrition, with fishing an age-old world-wide tradition. Today, with a new production high of more than […]
Hundreds of thousands of dolphins, porpoises and whales (collectively known as cetaceans) are bycaught in fishing gear every year and tens of thousands die in European waters. This has been happening for decades. Governments have been slow to act, to understand bycatch impacts and, more critically, to prevent bycatch from happening despite stringent laws in […]
In the (potential) final year of negotiations for a new international legally binding instrument (ILBI) to end plastic pollution, negotiators will meet for its fourth session in Ottawa, Canada from 23-29 April.
In March 2022, the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) adopted resolution 5/14 titled “End Plastic Pollution: Towards an International Legally Binding Instrument.” The resolution convenes an intergovernmental negotiating committee (INC) to develop a new global agreement combatting plastic pollution, otherwise referred to as the global plastics treaty (GPT).