the times | Wednesday April 13 2022 23
News
The Prince of Wales will call on con-
sumers today to help to protect oceans
from destructive fishing by choosing
products that are certified as sustain-
able.
He will warn about the “dire” impact
of human activity on ocean health and
call for a big expansion of marine pro-
tected areas.
The prince’s comments, to be made in
a recorded video address to the inter-
national Our Ocean conference, will be
delivered just as one of the biggest sea-
food certification schemes faces a re-
view into claims that it endorses indus-
trial fisheries that carry out unsustain-
able practices.
The review into the Marine Steward-
ship Council (MSC) was initiated by the
On the Hook campaign, which includes
ocean conservation charities and
scientists who say the Mon products
can mislead consumers because the
scheme “lacks teeth” to prevent harm-
ful activity.
The prince will say: “Human activity
over the past several centuries has con-
tributed to the rapid decline in ocean
Shoppers can help protect
our oceans, says Charles
health, be it from global warming; un-
sustainable, unreported, unregulated
and illegal fishing practices; or pollu-
tion. This situation is indeed dire and
the consequences of inaction and ‘busi-
ness as usual’ are unimaginable.”
He will call for at least 30 per cent of
the ocean to be protected by 2030, and
50 per cent by 2050.
“Today, less than 3 per cent of the
ocean is fully protected,” he will say.
“We know full protection is the quickest
return on investment from the ocean’s
miraculous regeneration, with in-
creased economic benefit for well-
managed fisheries and tourism.”
The prince will say consumers can
help by making “ocean and land-
friendly choices” when they shop.
Charles Clover, of the Blue Marine
Foundation, an ocean conservation
charity that is a member of the On the
Hook campaign, said: “The prince is
exhorting people to buy sustainable
fish, which is absolutely right, but some
of the certification schemes have been
losing credibility. We are increasingly
concerned that MSC is greenwashing
high-impact industrial fisheries.”
The Times revealed in 2018 that thou-sands of endangered sharks were being
killed by vessels targeting tuna sold
with MSC’s label by Tesco, Sainsbury’s
and Asda. Hundreds of sharks have had
their fins cut off and been discarded by
fleets endorsed by MSC, despite it
supposedly banning this practice.
The MSC has strengthened some of
its rules and is planning more changes
but the On the Hook campaign said its
proposals were “piecemeal and weak”
and the scheme was “currently failing
to deliver on its vision of an ‘ocean
teeming with life’ ”.
MSC said On the Hook’s review was
unnecessary and a distraction, as it had
just finished its own review, which was
“likely to result in significant changes to
the programme, including for example,
greater protection for endangered,
threatened and protected marine
species”.
The prince will also repeat his call for
action to tackle plastic pollution of the
ocean “at a massive scale”.
Other speakers during the two-day
conference, co-hosted by the United
States and Palau, an archipelago of
more than 500 Pacific Ocean islands,
will include Barack Obama.Ben Webster Environment Editor
Environment chief warns of
gangs behind waste exports
Ben WebsterWaste exports must be banned because
they are exploited by criminal gangs
and the rubbish can end up being
dumped illegally, the chief executive of
the Environment Agency says.
Sir James Bevan said waste crime was
rising and the government needed to
consider whether it was “morally right
to dump the waste we create on another
country to deal with”. He called for big-
ger fines and longer prison sentences to
deter criminals.
Waste can be legally exported for re-
cycling or incineration to generate
energy but investigations have shown
that rubbish recycled by British house-
holds ends up at illegal dumps overseas.
More than half of plastic waste col-
lected for recycling in the UK is export-
ed, with almost 700,000 tonnes sent
overseas in 2020, mainly to Turkey,
Malaysia and Poland.
Packaging and plastic bags from UK
supermarkets were found at ten sites in
Turkey’s Adana province last year by
Greenpeace. The waste may have con-
taminated soil, with analysis of samples
showing it contained levels of toxic
chemicals thousands of times higher
than at nearby control sites.
Malaysia, Poland and Sri Lanka areamong the countries which have re-
turned containers of waste to the UK
years after finding they had been ille-
gally exported. China has banned im-
ports of several kinds of waste, includ-
ing most plastics, and other countries
have introduced restrictions because of
the poor quality of materials they re-
ceive. Gangs can avoid landfill tax in the
UK by illegally exporting waste.
Speaking at a conference on waste
crime, Bevan said: “We should set our-
selves the challenge of getting to a posi-
tion where we process all our waste at
home and end all waste exports as soon
as possible.” Requiring all waste to be
managed within the UK would “drive
more recycling, more innovation and
new business in the UK”, he added.
Megan Randles, political campaign-
er at Greenpeace UK, welcomed his
call, saying: “The government is setting
new waste targets through the Envi-
ronment Act. It’s an opportunity they
must seize if they’re serious about tack-
ling the plastic crisis.”
Mike Brown, managing director of
Eunomia, an environmental consultan-
cy, said a blanket ban on waste exports
would damage legitimate trade and
could prevent reuse of materials such as
scrap metal, most of which is sent over-
seas to be turned into new products.Actress ‘gave
up on dream’
after assault
A renowned photographer who sexual-
ly assaulted an aspiring actress in his
studio more than a decade ago has been
jailed for three years.
Pascal Molliere, 55, attacked the
woman, then aged 22, during an hour-
long photo shoot at a warehouse in
Fulham, west London, in 2010.
Before the shoot he had asked the
woman whether she wanted “fashion or
sexy shots”.
Southwark crown court was told he
had locked the door and encouraged
her to remove more and more clothing
and pose for increasingly revealing
photographs before touching and kiss-
ing her genitals and forcefully kissing
her on the mouth.
Molliere, from Havant, Hampshire,
had previously being found guilty by a
jury of three charges of sexual assault.
Judge Philip Bartle QC said it was a
“clear case of abuse of trust”, which had
a “life-changing” impact on the victim.
“This would appear to be a case
where Mr Molliere exploited his posi-
tion as a professional photographer to
exploit the vulnerability of a trusting
young woman... to satisfy his sexual
desires,” he said.
The court was told that the woman
had moved to London to pursue an act-
ing career and had borrowed money
from her mother to pay for portfolio
images to publicise herself.
Tyrone Silcott, for the prosecution,
said Molliere was a “highly renowned
and highly regarded photographer of
celebrities and actors”, who was in a
position of power that he abused.
The woman said in her victim impact
statement:“The dream was to get into
theatre, film or television and for that I
needed professional head shots. “[What
happened] crushed me and I gave up on
my dreams.”
She said the #MeToo movement had
inspired her to report the incident in- During the original trial Molliere
denied all the charges but before
sentencing admitted his guilt.
S
ome of the
most famous
portraits of
Britain’s
queens from
Mary I to Elizabeth II
are being brought out
of private collections
for an exhibition to
mark the Platinum
Jubilee (Jack
Blackburn writes).
The artworks will be
on show from May 28
until June 15 at the
London auction house
Sotheby’s, which is a
partner of the Jubilee
Pageant. It will be free
to the public to visit.
The paintings
include the famous
Armada portrait of
Elizabeth I and an
extremely rare
contemporary picture
of Mary, Queen of
Scots. They continue
through the reigns of
Anne and Victoria, up
to the present Queen
as depicted by Andy
Warhol.
“It’s a really exciting
exhibition,” said Julian
Gascoigne, the
director of early
British paintings at
Sotheby’s. “It is
probably one of the
first times, if not the
first time, that all of
these portraits have
been brought together.
It will be interesting to
see the way these
portraits speak to each
other and how the
same themes of royalpower and female
authority are played
out through the
centuries.”
The portraits will be
part of a large
exhibition about the
history of the
monarchy, featuring
signed documents
including a death
warrant from
Elizabeth I and
exquisite book
bindings for royal
Bibles. The exhibition
will also include 50
tiaras lent by
aristocratic families.
Sotheby’s is keen foras many people as
possible to attend and
to dispel the notion
that auction houses
are only for the
extremely wealthy.
“There’s so often
this hesitancy that
somehow auction
houses are an
exclusive place people
can’t access,” said
Gascoigne. “But we
are open to the public,
we have these
exhibitions. It is very
exciting to able to do
something without the
commercial angle of
feeling like you haveQueens in
the frame
for jubilee
exhibition
Andy Warhol’s portrait
of the Queen from 1985,
left, will be displayed at
Sotheby’s alongside
Chris Levine’s study of
the monarch, above. The
Armada portrait of
Elizabeth I, below left,
will also be on showSOTHEBY’Sto have a large
chequebook in your
back pocket.”
For those with large
chequebooks, there
will be a large auction
of British art on June- It will include a
new version of Chris
Levine’s painting of
the Queen, Lightness
of Being, proceeds
from the sale of which
will benefit the
pageant. The picture
stands in stark
contrast to those of
the Queen’s
predecessors.
“It’s really
interesting to see how
approachable Queen
Elizabeth II appears,”
said Frances Christie,
a deputy chairwoman
at Sotheby’s. “There’s
no background, it’s
very plain and she’s at
the same eye level as
the viewer.”