David Levy – Can government and environmentalists step-up to meet their commitments? – Jun 14
One of the on-going issues that still taxes me for a solution is when people fail to respond to specific matters that have been raised with them.
Recent correspondence sent by us to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee — which drew attention to clear issues about the Committee’s failure to ask the DEFRA Minister important questions about delivery of the MCZMCZ Marine Conservation Zone Network — was side-lined by the Committee. We requested that follow-up questions be sent on to the Minister for his response, but we were fobbed off with a non-response.
One has to ask oneself: what is the role of government when such a lack of standards is now an everyday occurrence?
So we wrote to the Marine Conservation Society and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s FishFight who both made a very public matter over the MCZ coherent network which the Government has failed to deliver.
Neither of these parties has bothered to reply. So one has to question: what is the strength of their motivation and continued support for the MCZ Network, and why have these organisations not supported our call for questions to be asked of the Minister when these questions address and facilitate the delivery of a coherent network?
Marinet members have spoken, and in a few days the official Steering Group will make the final official decision on independence from Friends of the Earth.
As your Chair I want to reach out to you all in gratitude, and also with a motivational approach. For Marinet to be successfully launched as an entity in its own right, it will be totally reliant on several things.
One will be securing financial security by means of altruistic donations, and everyone must step up and provide this. I can ask this because we have a record second to nobody, including those funded by charities or Government, and we have achieved this record on a pittance.
Another is that the direction Marinet will take will be guided by your thoughts, and more importantly by your actions. Success breeds more success, and ideas can move mountains. So the baton passes to you as members of our team.
So long as I can, I will work closely with Stephen to sharpen the focus of our direction. That direction is: the protection of the marine world, and working for management solutions which provide for a sound future for the marine environment for both our children and our children’s children.
