Boat International - February 2016

Highly commended – Dr Sylvia Earle

Oceanographer and founder of Deep Ocean Exploration and

Research, SEAlliance and Mission Blue

For – her efforts to increase the proportion of protected water

from less than 3 per cent today to 20 per cent by 2020

Highly commended – Zac Goldsmith

MP for Richmond Park and North Kingston

For–hiscampaign,goingbacktowhenhewaselectedin2010,

forPitcairntobecomeaMarineProtectedArea

O

n 10 September 2014, Zac Goldsmith MP, Stanley

Johnson, the RSPB, Blue Marine Foundation

and Pew Trusts presented Parliament with

a pamphlet calling on the Government to commit to

creating Marine Protected Areas around three of its

OverseasTerritories:Pitcairn,Ascension,andSouthGeorgia

and the South Sandwich Islands.

Outstanding among the politicians who supported the

move and led the push towards the creation of a new MPA

around Pitcairn in the southern Pacific was the Rt Hon

Oliver Letwin MP, the Conservative member for West Dorset

andChancelloroftheDuchyofLancaster.Thisledtoits

inclusion of a commitment to create a “Blue Belt around

theUK’s14OverseasTerritories,subjecttolocalsupport

and environmental need [and] designate a further protected

area at Ascension Island, subject to the views of the local

community.[While]ofourowncoastswewillcompletethe

network of Marine Conservation Zones that we have already

started, to create a UK Blue Belt of protected sites.” This

formed part of the Conservative Party manifesto, published

before the May 2015 general election.

When fully implemented, the Pitcairn MPA will be the

largest in the world. The waters around the Pitcairn Islands

are home to some of the best-preserved marine ecosystems on

the planet and are of globally significant biological value. More

than 1,200 marine species have been recorded around the

islands, including whales, dolphins, fish, turtles, seabirds and

corals. Of these species, 48 are globally threatened, including

the hawksbill turtle and the Pitcairn angelfish, which is found

almost nowhere else.

Winner – Visionary*

OLIVER LETWIN

MP for West Dorset and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

For–committingtheBritishGovernmenttothecreation

ofanMPAaroundPitcairn,andtothecreation

of“BlueBelts”aroundthe14UKOverseasTerritories

THE OCEAN AWARDS 2016

*Criteria – the politician or thinker who has achieved most for ocean conservation in the past year

http://www.boatinternational.com | February 2016

JUDGE #9 ALANNAH WESTON
Among many original initiatives that helped reinvigorate Selfridges department stores and increase sales by 50 per cent during Weston’s decade as creative director
(she is now deputy chairman) was her decision to launch Project Ocean, the department store’s campaign to raise global awareness of the fragility of marine environments
and help consumers change their buying habits.
Each year it focuses on a diferent issue. For 2015 it alerted people to the dangers posed by plastics. “Eight million tonnes of plastic are dumped in the ocean every year,”
Weston says. “So we’re removing all single-use plastic water bottles from our food halls and restaurants, amounting to approximately 400,000 bottles a year.” There is,
she adds, “currently a plastics patch twice the size of Texas floating in the Pacific”.