14 Nov 2024

Wessex Water has been found negligent after sewage leaks killed thousands of fish – with the company failing to report incidents to the Environment Agency as early as it should have.   Photo credit: Rijk van de Kaa   Swindon Magistrates’ Court today sentenced the company to pay a total fine of £500,000 after it […]

14 Nov 2024

Ofwat, the economic regulator for water in England and Wales, has published a consultation on the proposed standards that all water companies are expected to achieve when using their priority services registers to support household customers in England and Wales from 1 April 2025 onwards.   Photo credit: Murilo Gomes   Priority services registers identify […]

12 Nov 2024

The global population of migratory shorebirds across the world saw a substantial decline, with some populations of migratory shorebirds decreasing by more than a third, according to the latest update to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.   Photo: Vilnis Husko   A re-assessment was carried out for around half of the 254 species […]

12 Nov 2024

Iceland’s last active whaling company, Hvalur hf., recently applied for an indefinite whale hunting licence, causing disagreement amongst the ministers in Iceland’s caretaker government over whether or not they will approve the application. While the country granted a one-year licence to Hvalur to kill more than 100 fin whales earlier this year for this hunting […]

12 Nov 2024

Scotland adopted its first National Marine Plan in 2015, with the aim of helping to manage the use of Scotland’s seas in a sustainable way. In 2022 work began to create an updated national marine plan, to better reflect how the sea is currently being used, and to plan for its continued and sustainable future […]

12 Nov 2024

One of the major challenges facing the offshore renewable energy industry is how to deliver the speed and extent of the dramatic increase in offshore wind deployment needed to meet the UK’s Net Zero targets. A new report by the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult lays out a new approach to environmental monitoring and consenting […]

12 Nov 2024

The Crown Estate has pledged to give £150,000 to support the Severn Estuary Commission’s work to explore the potential for sustainable energy from the Severn Estuary. The Severn Estuary has the highest tidal range in Europe and has been estimated to have the potential provide up to 7% of the UK’s total energy needs, but […]

12 Nov 2024

Clockwise from top left: a jellyfish-like hydrozoan (Aglantha digitale); a Pacific sea gooseberry (Pleurobrachia bachei); a new ctenophore species; a swimming crinoid known as a sea lily;  the Beroe ovata ctenophore, with another comb jelly (Biolinopsis) in its stomach; and a  Limacina helicina, a swimming snail known as a sea devil. Photograph: Leonid Moroz/University of […]