To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether his Department still plans to allocate £4.8 million each year over the course of the 2017 Parliament to support the delivery of the Blue Belt policy to increase marine protection within the UK Overseas Territories.
Answered on
25 July 2017
The Government is fully committed to creating a Blue Belt around the UK Overseas Territories (OTs). We remain on track to deliver four million km2 of protected ocean around our OTs by 2020. In support of our commitment, I was please to announce £20 million of funding to support our Blue Belt commitments over the next four years at the Our Oceans Summit in Washington DC last September.
So far, that funding has provided support to develop management, surveillance and enforcement plans to very large marine protected areas already announced. It has also supported the development of marine protection strategies to Territories committed to developing marine protection regimes by 2020. Specific funding arrangements for future years are under discussion.