Our campaign

Less than 1% of our seas is fully protected from damaging activities. Good science says that between 10% and 40% of marine habitats should be fully protected.

What do we want?

1. MCS is campaigning for laws that will make it possible to fully protect some parts of our seas.

2. With these laws in place MCS will campaign for 30% of our seas to be fully protected.

Recent campaign highlights

July 2011: MCS and Welsh Co-op members start to lobby their Assembly Members about marine reserves.

July 2011: MCS sends four English regional MCZ projects analysed Your Seas Your Voice data to include in their 'impact analysis'.

June 2011: MCZ projects in England publish their final draft site maps and accompanying draft conservation reports. 24 out of 27 English MCS recommended sites are included, but none of these will be marine reserves.

June 2011: 20,000 votes posted on YSYV website (14,000 'yes', and 6,000 'no' votes).

June 2011: MCS launches the marine reserves manifesto with colleagues Greenpeace, Clientearth, Pew and ZSL » marinereservesnow.org.uk

May 2011: MCS contribute to the development of the Welsh stakeholder engagement plans.

May 2011: E-newsletter sent out.

April 2011: Welsh government respond to the site selection consultation.

April 2011: MCS starts analysing Your Seas Your Voice data for regional English MCZ projects.

March 2011: Marine Scotland confirmed that they would be interested in YSYV data to feed in to the wider process of identifying and preparing socio-economic impact assessments of Scottish MPA proposals now that process is underway. MCS Seasearch and basking shark data is already being used.

January 2011: One year campaign update distributed.

November 2010: MCS respond to guidelines for Welsh sites.

November 2010: One year anniversary of Your Seas Your Voice - the website hits the 10,000 vote mark.

October 2010: MCS Representatives involved in completion of the second iteration of planning for the MCZ network in England.

Autumn 2010: Co-op members at the regional level support the Your Seas Your Voice campaign in the southwest, Wales and southeast.

June 2010: MCS Representatives involved in completion of the first iteration of planning for the MCZ network in England.

Spring 2010: Marine Conservation Zone projects commence in England with MCS representatives in all regions.

March 2010: Marine (Scotland) Act passed by Scottish government.

November 2009: MCS sits on Stakeholder Group for the designation of Welsh Highly Protected Marine Conservation Zones.

November 2009: Marine and Coastal Access Act passed by UK government.

November 2009: Your Seas Your Voice website launched at Westminster with TV presenter Miranda Krestovnikoff.

November 2009: Your Seas Your Voice adopted as the National Aquarium Workshop campaign for 2010.

October 2009: Co-op does another ask at its stores and raises another 200,000 votes in support of marine reserves.

May 2009: MCS Your Seas Your Voice promoted on BBC Springwatch.

May 2009: MCS and other NGOs take part in a mass lobby of the House of Commons.

May 2009: Countryside Council for Wales funds MCS to promote the need for highly protected marine sites in Wales.

April 2009: A Scottish Marine Bill is introduced to the Scottish Parliament for Scottish inshore waters, including powers to set up marine protected areas.

April 2009: The first no-take marine reserve in the North Sea is announced to the south of Flamborough Head.

April 2009: MCS visits the Channel Islands (Guernsey and Jersey) to promote marine protected areas with Finding Sanctuary manager Tom Hooper.

February 2009: Co-op asks customers to support marine reserves, and gets 298,000 votes in one week.

November 2008: MCS joins forces with the Co-operative Group to campaign for marine reserves.

November 2008: UK government debates the Marine Bill in Parliament.

September 2008: Scottish Government protects Lamlash Bay as a no-take zone.

July 2008: Scottish Government launches Scottish Marine Bill consultation.

June 2008: Government stops damaging fishing in Lyme Bay, southern Devon / Dorset.

April 2008: MCS and British Sub Aqua Club divers deliver the petition to MP for Biodiversity, Joan Ruddock at the House of Commons.

April 2008: 101,713 signatures calling for Marine Reserves Now received from UK public aquaria.

March 2008: Government protects Fal Bay in Cornwall from damaging fishing after a year-long MCS campaign.

March-June 2007: Marine Reserves Now gets support from celebrities and members of the public.

April 2007: UK aquaria start gathering petition signatures in support of our Marine Reserves Now campaign objectives.

March 2007: MCS launches Marine Reserves Now campaign with Kate Humble at the dive show with partners the British Sub Aqua Club

Message from our sponsor: Fat Face loves life outside the 9-5 and being outdoors. So to do their bit to help protect the places we play in and get more people out there they've set up the Fat Face Foundation. The Foundation works with organisations to enable people to actively enjoy the outdoors and respect the environments we play in. Fat Face has always had the sea close to its heart and sees the link between the Foundation and the Marine Conservation Society as being a natural fit. The Fat Face Foundation has already adopted a beach to clean to be part of the fight against beach litter. The Foundation believes that we all have a part to play in protecting our seas as well, so is proudly supporting the Your Seas Your Voice campaign to highlight the lack of protected areas around the UK coasts and would urge individuals to do the same.

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