Dear all,
Happy New Year to you all and thank you for your amazing support in 2012, without you we could not have done so much.
2013 is set to be a very busy year and we all need to push hard to help protect not just the Seahorses but our Oceans as well.
Sadly, in 2012 the government announced it’s watered down version of the Marine Protected Zones (MPZ’s), which means we now have to go through a long consultation process to get one of the most important sites for Spiny Seahorses in Europe put forward for protection in 2013.
Studland Bay is a proposed Marine Protected Zones (pMPZ’s); it is set to be made an MPZ in the future but Studland Bay in Dorset does not have the time as has been shown by a recent report by Dr’s Jackson and Collins in their MAIA Report. The seagrass at Studland is fragmenting and as our own research has shown the number of seahorses has dropped from 59 in the second half of 2008 down to 7 identified individuals in 2012; time is not on the seahorses side. Please lobby your MP and the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) urgently. Go onto the website below and look at the details and make your voice heard.
http://www.defra.gov.uk/consult/2012/12/13/marine-conservation-zones-1212/
Push to have Studland Bay put on the first tranche of MPZ’s for 2013 before we lose the Spiny Seahorses on the site forever.
Many thanks to one and all
Neil
Neil Garrick-Maidment Executive Director, The Seahorse Trust
