Blue Marine Foundation
{{Short description|Marine conservation organisation}}
{{Use British English|date=March 2023}}
{{redirect|Blue Marine|the fictional submarine|Star Fox 64#Vehicles}}
File:Blue Marine Foundation logo.png
Blue Marine Foundation (stylised as Blue Marine) is a marine conservation organisation. It was founded as a legacy project following the 2009 documentary film The End of the Line. It has been involved in establishing marine reserves in Lyme Bay, Turneffe Atoll and 4 million square kilometres of protection in the UK Overseas Territories.
History
Chris Gorell Barnes, the executive producer of the documentary film The End of the Line, co-founded the Blue Marine Foundation with Charles Clover (the author of the book The End of the Line) and filmmaker George Duffield, as a legacy project of the film. It was formed with the aim of fixing environmental issues impacting the oceans.
Blue Marine Foundation secured funding to enforce the protection of the no-take marine reserve created by the UK government around the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. At the time of its creation in 2010, it was the world's largest marine reserve. The Bertarelli Foundation funded the first five years, after which the government promised to internalise the costs and enforce the reserve. Henry Bellingham, a UK junior Foreign Office minister, described the initiative as a "great example" of government and the private sector working together and said the reserve would "double the global coverage of the world's oceans benefiting from full protection".
In July 2012, the charity helped start an alliance between fishermen and conservationists in the UK. This alliance was designed to protect Lyme Bay, a reef habitat on the southern coast of the UK. Scallopers and dredgers were banned from part of the bay, but overfishing continued. The deal brokered by Blue Marine and the Lyme Bay Working Group is designed to ensure fishing communities can continue to fish while the fragile ecosystem is protected and conserved.
The charity also played a central role in the creation of a marine reserve around the Turneffe Atoll, which is part of the Belize Barrier Reef. This project was completed in partnership with local fishermen and organizations and the Government of Belize. The Bertarelli Foundation also provided funding.
Blue Marine was a founder member of the Great Blue Ocean coalition,{{cite web |url=https://greatblueocean.org/|title=Great Blue Ocean|work=greatblueocean.org}} of six NGOs that in 2017 campaigned for the UK Government to establish the Blue Belt Programme{{cite news |url=https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-blue-belt-programme |publisher=UK Government |title=The Blue Belt Programme |date=28 September 2023 }} widely recognised as one of the world's leading marine conservation initiatives.{{cite news |url=https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/author/5398/zac-goldsmith |publisher=Prospect |title=Zac Goldsmith - Prospect Magazine }} Ten of the 16 UK Overseas Territories today participate in the programme, in partnership with local communities, the UK Government and NGOs, protecting more than 4.3 million square kilometres of ocean,{{cite news |url=https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-blue-belt-programme |publisher=UK Government |title=The Blue Belt Programme |date=28 September 2023 }} an area more than 20 times the size of Great Britain. The Programme is highly ecologically representative with protected areas in the Pacific, Atlantic, Southern and Indian oceans and the Caribbean.
Blue Belt Programme Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are monitored using satellite technology including Global Fishing Watch{{cite web |url=https://globalfishingwatch.org/|title=Global Fishing Watch|work=globalfishingwatch.org}} and OceanMind,{{cite web |url=https://www.oceanmind.global/|title=Stopping Illegal and Unreported Fishing|work=oceanmind.global}} and enforced via coordination between the UK Marine Management Organisation, INTERPOL and other international agencies.{{cite web |url=https://marinedevelopments.blog.gov.uk/2021/06/05/marine-protected-areas-showing-their-teeth-in-overseas-territories/ |website=Marine Developments |title=Marine Protected Areas – Showing their teeth in Overseas Territories – Marine developments |date=5 June 2021 }}
Duran Duran lead singer Simon Le Bon become an Ambassador for the Blue Marine Foundation in 2016 after his affinity for the sea.
In 2022, the organisation was part of a restoration project launched in the Solent, the Solent Seascape Project.
In the same year it partnered with Convex Insurance and University of Exeter to launch a global survey to assess carbon captured and stored in the seabed of the continental shelves, the Convex Seascape Survey.{{cite news |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-05/how-much-carbon-can-the-oceans-absorb?embedded-checkout=true |newspaper=Bloomberg |title=Scientists Want to Find Out How Much Carbon the Oceans Can Absorb |date=5 November 2021 }}
In 2023 the charity declared its intention to take the UK government to court for enabling decades of overfishing in UK waters.{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/21/conservationists-take-uk-to-court-for-illegally-squandering-fish-stocks |title=Conservationists take UK to court for 'illegally squandering' fish stocks |newspaper=The Guardian |date=21 December 2023 |last1=McVeigh |first1=Karen }}
References
{{Reflist |refs=
{{cite web|url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/environment/article/beauty-and-the-reef-billionairess-dives-in-to-save-coral-c566268vvjs|title=Beauty and the reef: billionairess dives in to save coral|first1=Robin|last1=Henry|first2=Frank|last2=Pope|date=25 November 2012|work=The Times|access-date=30 January 2023 |archive-date=30 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230130134306/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/beauty-and-the-reef-billionairess-dives-in-to-save-coral-c566268vvjs|url-status=live}}
}}
External links
- [https://www.bluemarinefoundation.com/ Official website]
Category:Marine conservation organizations
Category:Environmental organisations based in the United Kingdom
Category:Fisheries conservation organizations