• UKOTCF Montserrat workshop on Environmental Impact Assessment


• UKOTCF and TCI National Museum open Wise-Water-Use Garden


• Guide-books for bird-watching and other heritage- sites published – on sale in TCI and by mail or download from UKOTCF


• Montserrat Endangered Archives Project Launch; Montserrat Endangered Archives Project Launch; Wetlands Preserved on Cayman Brac....

All participants found both the EAC report and the workshop on it very positive, and hope that both can assist the UK Government in delivering
its important responsibility to conservation and sustainability in the UK Overseas Territories. The full meeting report can be viewed here

UKOTCF, today hosted a workshop with the UK Parliament's Environmental Audit Committee to encourage UK Government to protect threatened UK biodiversity in the UK Overseas Territories. Read more

• Demonstrating conservation and effective use of water in the Turks and Caicos Islands
• Ascension frigate bird breeds again on main island
• New plant species discovered on Anegada
• Threats to biodiversity and the community on Sark
• Follow-up to the UKOTs White Paper: UKOTCF workshop and UK Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee Inquiry
• Environment Charters are legally binding agreements

The main conclusions are that:

• the basis for Gibraltar's environmental protection laws are sound;
• information currently available is insufficient to provide clear results on the state of fish stocks;
• HMGoG should therefore continue to act in keeping with established precautionary principles of conservation and pursue active management of the marine environment; and
• future changes to environmental management must be dependent on these issues.

UKOTCF is pleased to note that HMGoG is planning to act rapidly in response to this report with a strategy of measures in order to improve monitoring systems whilst nurturing and enabling the sustainable use of the habitats naturally surrounding Gibraltar.

As the project moves into its final 18 months, the 9th international Project Steering Committee meeting was held in June 2013, reported here by TCI’s Channel 4 News.

The full abstract and article is available in the Journal of Heritage Tourism.

Full citation: To Hell and Back: towards protecting our natural assets through tourism? (Wensink, C.M & Pienkowski, M.W (2013) Journal of Heritage Tourism Vol. 8, 89-98

This workshop follows on from workshops organised by UKOTCF in 2010 and 2011 on biodiversity strategies, trying to complement the UK Government biodiversity 'strategy' for UKOTs – which was really a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between UK ministries, rather than a strategy – and attempting to relate this to other commitments, such as the Environment Charters and the Aichi Targets. The reports of these workshops are available at the links to the years above.

The 2012 workshop arose from concerns that the UK Overseas Territories Conservation Forum network believes exist with the environmental aspects of UK Government’s White Paper The Overseas Territories: Security, Success and Sustainability (Cm 8374)

Following the publication of the White Paper, UKOTCF put considerable effort into analysing the White Paper and produced a review and a look at priority needs.

Colour version (2Mb). Leading article: "Moving Backwards in Conservation of the UK Overseas Territories: Comments by UKOTCF on UK Government’s White Paper” Also including:

• W(h)ither BEST? UKOTs written out of future funding?
• Environmental initiatives by Gibraltar’s new Government
• The importance and vulnerability of woody species and habitats in the UKOTs
• Bermuda Ombudsman underlines that Environmental Charters are binding, confirming that Bermuda Government acted unlawfully
• UKOTCF/TCI “Wonderful Water” curriculum and courses in place in Turks & Caicos schools
• The Convention on Biological Diversity and the Isle of Man
• UKOTCF Virtual Tours

.....and a lot more!

• "When is national heritage not national heritage?"
• "Still paving Paradise?"
• Bonaire: a year living and working in the Dutch Caribbean
• New UKOTCF Council Members elected at the AGM
• New UKOTCF Associate: the United Kingdom Antarctic Heritage Trust
• A visit to the Falklands, South Georgia and Antarctica

All Reports...

• Middle Caicos Conservation Centre
  
• South Atlantic Invasive Species Project
  
• Seabirds on Ascension Island
  
• Cayman Islands Bat Conservation....