Ministers updated Parliament on Wednesday on a major step forward by the UK’s Overseas Territories to help improve global corporate transparency. The written statement welcomes commitments from eight Overseas Territories to introduce publicly accessible registers detailing who owns the companies in their Territory.
A ten week Call of Evidence was launched by the UK Government on Friday, to gather knowledge on safeguarding nature in the UK Overseas Territories. Many of the Overseas Territories are globally significant in their ecological richness, containing over 90% of UK’s marine and terrestrial nature. They are hotspots for biodiversity with an estimated 3,300 endemic species, but they are also highly vulnerable to environmental change.
The two-day Overseas Territories Attorneys General Conference 2019 kicked off Tuesday morning, with AGs and other delegates from 13 jurisdictions gathering in Cayman to discuss issues of mutual interest. The issues scheduled to be discussed included Brexit, anti-corruption, natural disasters, criminal justice and human rights.
The United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) have launched a five-day capacity building seminar to help UK Overseas Territories, including the Falkland Islands, support safe maritime trade. The seminar, delivered as part of the government’s Overseas Territories Seabed Mapping Program, will focus on international regulations, with sessions on maritime safety information training, best practice governance and maritime law.
Students from the UK Overseas Territories are being invited to submit minute-long videos about their territory and its ‘Identity’ as part of an event to be hosted at the Natural History Museum in London in November 2018. This will be the third event of its kind organised by the UK Overseas Territories Association (UKOTA), after events in late 2015 and 2017 hosted at University College London and the London Maritime Museum respectively.
The pollution of oceans with plastic litter, discarded nylon fishing nets and eco-toxic micro-beads is well known as one of the great scourges of the modern age ― not just entangling and choking endangered, charismatic species like sea turtles, dolphins and even great whales, but attracting long-lived organic pollutants that end up permeating the entire marine food chain, right up to the fish on our plates.
The United Kingdom is showcasing its expertise in marine conservation and protection at the 4th International Congress of Marine Protected Areas in La Serena, Coquimbo, Chile, which extends until next 8 September.
The United Kingdom and British Overseas Territories have agreed to work together to counter hostile sovereignty claims and defend the right to self determination, according to a communiqué issued by the Joint Ministerial Council meeting in London which also touches upon the EU Referendum, tax and banking.
The Queen of Gibraltar and the Rock’s evacuation generation were honoured on National Day Thursday by thousands of Gibraltarians who crammed into Casemates Square dressed in red and white.
Leading conservation groups, scientists and residents of Pitcairn Island congratulated the UK Government on its decision to create the world’s largest marine reserve around the Pitcairn Islands, a UK Overseas Territory in the South Pacific.