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Scottish political parties have given their support to an environmental campaign group seeking to better protect Scotland

A plan for a reserve to protect marine life along the southern and western coasts of Australia has been released by the Federal Government.

It would restrict fishing in waters around Kangaroo Island and off the west coast of South Australia.

The proposal is separate from the South Australian Government’s proposed marine parks, which already have antagonised recreational anglers.

The 1.3 million-square-kilometre south-west marine reserve will stretch from the eastern end of Kangaroo Island to Shark Bay in Western Australia.

The aim is to protect Commonwealth waters which start five-and-a-half kilometres off the coast and end 370 kilometres out to sea.

Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke has announced the plan.

“For a long time in Australia it has been commonplace to protect our most pr...

An explosion in the population of the predatory lionfish in Caribbean waters, where it has no natural predators, is posing a widespread threat to marine wildlife.

Just off the north shore of Little Cayman, I sink into the blue abyss.

I am descending the vertical coral wall at Bloody Bay Marine Park.

Straight ahead and straight down there is nothing but blue – a dizzying empty space where sunlight streams down and down into darker places well beyond my reach.

But up close, the wall of coral is covered in giant barrel sponges as tall as a man, bright purple vase sponges, green and red corals and creatures that creep, crawl and swim within and among them.

I spot a seahorse, clinging to a whip coral by its tail, a spider crab with legs almost 3ft (1m) wide and a baby hawksbill turtle rocketing...

Sponges are a group of common and diverse aquatic creatures, very abundant in coral reefs where they are an important part of the ecosystem. But new research has found that if the balance is disturbed, sponges can outcompete the corals and damage the reef in the long term.

Coral reefs are home to many species and are probably the most diverse habitats on Earth. ‘Corals are the bioengineers of these systems, providing the habitat for many species of algae, fish, crustaceans or sponges,’ says Manuel Gonz

Consumers are not being given enough information on labels to allow them to make the choice to buy sustainable fish, according to conservationists.

The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) said it is still “virtually impossible to tell precisely where most fish and fish products have been caught”.

But the British Retail Consortium said retailers do “give consumers as much information as possible”.

The MCS’s views come amid the launch of its new website aimed at consumers.

Where labelling by retailers is concerned, the MCS said information that is more detailed than the species, the ocean it comes from and the fishing method is needed to help people discriminate between sustainable and unsustainable seafood.

The MCS has published comprehensive updated advice on buying fish caught from sustaina...

Scientist are venturing to where no man has gone before in the Coral Sea in the hope of discovering creatures of the deep.

A team comprising Japanese and Australian explorers headed for Osprey Reef yesterday with a newly designed remote operated robot to dive to 650m and visit the sea bed and everything in between.

“Our chief engineer was Hiroshi Yoshida,” said Dr Dhughal John Lindsay, an Australian researcher working with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science & Technology.

“Hopefully, we will see Antarctic animals and can discover their ecology and niches and see what happens to them in the tropics.”

The deep sea trip will be filmed by Digital Dimensions as part of documentary about the Great Barrier Reef for the BBC that is co-produced by Channel Nine and the Discovery Channel.

Litter on the UK’s beaches increased last year, fuelled by people flushing rubbish down the toilet instead of in the bin, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) has said.

Litter levels fell in 2009 from an all-time high in 2008, but the group’s annual survey for 2010 showed a 6 per cent rise in rubbish on the nation’s shores.

The MCS said there was a 40 per cent increase in sewage-related debris such as cotton buds, condoms and sanitary products, which were being flushed down the toilet instead of being put in the bathroom bin, then ending up on beaches.

MCS’s beachwatch officer, Lauren Davis. said people appeared to be flushing away rubbish with an “out of sight, out of mind” attitude...

The Living Oceans Foundation opened its Global Reef Expedition in Freeport, Bahamas to be in the Cay Sal Bank from April 26 to May 18 and will sail across the globe, studying the health of coral reef environments for the next five years.

Discarded plastic, industrial waste and unwanted fishing nets are still a growing problem for the world

A team of researchers have been trying to identify how jellyfish may benefit from marine ecosystems destabilised by climate change and overfishing.

There is concern that a rise in jellyfish numbers could prevent depleted commercially important fish stocks recovering to historical levels.

However, a study by European scientists says more data is needed to understand what is happening beneath the waves.

The findings are set to be published in the journal Global Change Biology.

Researchers from the UK and Ireland said samples collected from the Irish Sea since 1970 have recorded an increase in material from cnidarians (the division of the animal kingdom that includes jellyfish and coral), “with a period of frequent outbreaks between 1982 and 1991”.

“There does appear to have been an increase ...