Blue Planet Fund hands out first £16.2m to global marine protection efforts

A series of UK-led projects that will bring together British scientific expertise and developing countries to assist the recovery of the world's oceans have been handed £16.2m of government funding, it has been announced.  

The projects will aim to help communities in developing nations better manage marine protected areas and improve understanding of the impacts of climate change and contaminants on the ocean.

The funding is the first to be allocated from the UK's £500m Blue Planet Fund and is being financed through the UK's Overseas Aid Budget.

The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which leads the Blue Planet Fund alongside the Foreign Office, said the first five programmes to receive funding through the scheme would exploit the UK's world-leading expertise to help respond to marine pollution disasters such as the Xpress Pearl grounding in Sri Lanka while also enhancing marine protection, tackling plastic pollution, and working to reverse the decline in global coral reefs.

In the run up to the UK hosting the COP26 Climate Summit in November, the government said it is wants to work with developing countries to better protect and restore ocean habitats.

Environment Secretary George Eustice said the world's oceans were a "vital resource [which] provides habitat to precious marine life, as well as supporting the livelihoods of one in every 10 people worldwide".

"The Blue Planet Fund will support many developing countries on the front line of climate change to reduce poverty and improve the health of their seas," he added. "Coral reefs support 25 per cent of marine life and provide benefits to thousands of species - qualities that make them one of the world's most valuable ecosystems.

"However, they are also extremely vulnerable to climate change and pollution. Today's investment will support work by the Global Fund for Coral Reefs (GFCR) in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean, Pacific and Southeast Asia by exploring techniques such as sewage treatment and the management of marine protected areas to help save these suffering ecosystems."

Another project, The Ocean Country Partnership Programme (OCPP), has already started work with UK scientists from the Centre for Environment, Fisheries, and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) providing analysis of water samples from Sri Lanka to contribute to the ongoing response to the Xpress Pearl environmental disaster in June.

However, Preet Kaur Gill, Labour's Shadow International Development Secretary, said the funding was simply belatedly delivering on an existing commitment from almost two years ago and comes at a time when the government is controversially cutting its Overseas Development Aid budget.

"This Conservative government have slashed aid to programmes tackling the climate and ecological emergency and protecting our oceans, like the Galapagos Conservation Trust's work protecting the Galapagos marine ecosystem from plastic pollution, yet they continue to claim to be a global leader in marine protection," she said. "This government's disconnect with reality is leaving us all less safe.

"With COP26 a matter of months away, our communities and planet need a leader who will take real action now and not the dither and delay of this Prime Minister."