Posts Tagged ‘MPAs’
Location and size vital for whale and dolphin protection areas
WDC, together with more than 100 delegates from over 20 countries around the globe have been attending an international conference looking at protected sea areas for marine mammals like whales and dolphins. Around the globe, whale and dolphin populations are under threat and need places where they are protected. ‘Safe havens’ – effective marine protected areas…
Read MoreMarine Protected Areas doubled to tackle Scotland’s sealife declines
WDC has welcomed today’s decision by the Scottish government to double the number of areas it will protect in the seas around Scotland. In a bold move, Cabinet Secretary Richard Lochhead gave the go-ahead for 30 new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) as well as paving the way for urgent new protected areas for struggling populations…
Read MoreHow not to save a species!
Less than a week after the International Whaling Commission (IWC) urged the Government of New Zealand to do more to save the critically endangered Maui’s dolphin there has been a dramatic turn of events. Instead of establishing more protective measures to save this endemic species, the NZ Government have in fact opened up a potential…
Read MoreNew Australian Government Puts The World’s Largest MPA On Hold
The incoming Conservative Government has set aside previously agreed management plans and is instigating a review to determine future boundaries and acceptable activities. The Government has cited the reasons for its decision as a need for ‘genuine consultation with fishers and other stakeholders’. The Government has been caught hook, line and sinker by the commercial…
Read MoreA sense of porpoise…
About 15 years ago, WDC first called upon the UK government to put in place Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) for harbour porpoises to fulfil their European responsibility to do so. Denmark, Germany and Northern Ireland, amongst other European countries, have all put SACs in place to protect porpoises in their national waters. The deadline…
Read MoreNew Zealand Dolphin – How to lose the race to extinction, Part 1
Extinction is a sensitive word in New Zealand. Around the world, people have an image of New Zealand as a wild, natural landscape with protected oceans, a nuclear free zone in the glorious “land of the hobbit.” In fact, as relatively unspoilt as the country is and as much as I like New Zealand, it…
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