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<ul><li>The recently published EIP sets out our focus on enhancing nature in marine
and coastal environments, including the steps we are taking to restore and protect
marine habitats and marine wildlife.</li><li>These include delivering the UK Marine
Strategy, which sets our ambition for Good Environmental Status (GES) across our seas.</li><li>To
help achieve GES we have created a series of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to protect
and restore our marine biodiversity. We are focused on strengthening the protection
of this extensive network of 178 sites covering 40% of English waters, which represents
the range of species and habitats found in our seas.</li><li>To complement the MPA
network, the first three Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) in English waters came
into force on 5 July 2023. HPMAs will provide the highest levels of protection in
our seas, allowing nature to fully recover to a more natural state and helping the
ecosystem to thrive.</li><li>A number of estuarine and coastal habitat restoration
initiatives are also underway including the Environment Agency’s Restoring Meadow,
Marsh and Reef (ReMeMaRe) initiative which aims to reverse centuries of coastal habitat
decline by restoring seagrass meadows, saltmarsh and native oyster reefs to bring
benefits to people and nature.</li><li>In addition, the government’s £80m Green Recovery
Challenge Fund has supported a range of nature recovery projects across England, some
which have included saltmarsh and seagrass restoration.</li><li>We also protect marine
wildlife in a number of other ways in our domestic waters. This includes being fully
committed to tackling accidental bycatch in fisheries, which is one of the greatest
threats faced by sensitive marine species such as cetaceans.</li><li>In 2021, we introduced
new rules making it a mandatory requirement under fishing vessel licence conditions
for fishers to report any marine mammal bycatch to the Marine Management Organisation
(MMO). The Marine Wildlife Bycatch Mitigation Initiative sets out how the UK will
achieve its ambitions to minimise and, where possible, eliminate the bycatch (accidental
capture) and entanglement of sensitive marine species in UK fisheries.</li><li>To
help reduce disturbance to marine wildlife we published the Marine and Coastal Wildlife
Code on 24 May.</li><li>We are also working to reduce the harmful impacts on marine
wildlife and habitats arising from plastic pollution. We have taken measures to target
some of the most commonly littered plastic items, such as our carrier bag charge and
our bans on a range of single-use plastic items. Our restrictions on straws, stirrers
and cotton buds have had a big impact – these items used to appear in ‘top 10 littered
items’ lists, but this is no longer the case. We have also taken action on microbeads
in rinse off cosmetics, plastic pellets and ghost gear.</li><li>Internationally, we
are also leading global efforts to protect the ocean and champion the GBF Target 3
to effectively conserve and manage at least 30% of the land and 30% of the ocean globally
by 2030 (30by30). This includes through our role as Ocean Co-Chair of the High Ambition
Coalition for Nature & People, and our leadership of the Global Ocean Alliance.</li><li>The
adoption of the Marine Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement on 19 June
will also lead to much greater protection for the two-thirds of the global ocean that
lies beyond national jurisdiction, playing a key role in achieving the 30by30 target.
The UK will sign the Agreement early and work to ratify as soon as practicable, whilst
supporting others to do the same.</li><li>The UK’s Blue Planet Fund, a £500 million
programme, supports developing countries to protect the marine environment and reduce
poverty, by tackling threats to ocean health such as illegal fishing, pollution and
climate change; and at the UN Ocean conference in 2022, we committed up to £100 million
of Blue Planet Funding to support the implementation, management and enforcement of
Marine Protected Areas.</li></ul>
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