Busy summer for the Falkland Islands elected lawmakers: eight Members of the British Parliament are visiting the Islands, next week British ambassador in Uruguay plus Foreign Office members are scheduled for talks with local authorities, Premier Oil briefed MLAs on the Sea Lion development, and government and MLAs will be holding an “away day” at Darwin to address the Islands Plan draft.
The Falkland Islands Government are currently going through the annual process of licensing fishing vessels for the Illex squid fishery in their Conservation Zone. Illex are a migratory species of squid, caught in significant quantities in the South-West Atlantic annually. The product is mainly shipped to the Far East where it is consumed.
Everyone admired the rare phenomenon of the supermoon recently. Pictures of the lunar eclipse flooded the social media platforms. But for astronomy enthusiasts, there is another celestial event happening this week. On the 15th of February, a partial solar eclipse is going to take place. However, the celestial event will be seen over parts of Antarctica, southern parts of the Atlantic ocean and South America's Patagonia, including the Falkland Islands.
A team of scientists, led by British Antarctic Survey (BAS), heads to Antarctica this week (14 February) to investigate a mysterious marine ecosystem that’s been hidden beneath an Antarctic ice shelf for up to 120,000 years. The iceberg known as A-68, which is four times of London, calved off from the Larsen Ice Shelf in July 2017.
Ministers and senior officials from UK Overseas Territories (OTs) and Crown Dependencies (CDs) travelled to the Isle of Man last week to discuss the future of the environment in their jurisdictions. This was the third Council of Environment Ministers of UK Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies and took place in Douglas, on 6th and 7th February. Previous meetings took place in Gibraltar in 2015 and continued in Alderney in 2017.
Hundreds have attended the funeral of a Royal Navy medical officer who saved hundreds of troops during the Falklands War. Surgeon Capt Rick Jolly, who reputedly saved the life of every British serviceman he treated, died aged 71 on 13 January.
The Falkland Islands elected government has reacted to a raft of reports from Argentina announcing a trip to the Islands, sometime in the second half of March by the relatives of the 88 soldiers, buried at Darwin cemetery, which have been recently identified by a team of forensic experts working under the International Red Cross Committee.
National Geographic has apologized to Tierra del Fuego governor Rosana Bertone for publishing in Instagram pictures identified as taken in the Falklands, instead of the Malvinas Islands. According to Ushuaia reports, aware of this situation, the Environment Secretary of Tierra del Fuego Mauro Pérez Toscani, on instructions from Ms Bertone addressed the National Geographic Foundation to express disappointment and demaning rectification of the Malvinas controversy.
As Mercopress have reported in a series of articles over the past eight years, the Falkland Islands are slowly being cleared of the landmines laid by Argentine forces during the 1982 war. Last week this process reached a key milestone when Goose Green settlement, the site of a key battle in late May 1982, was announced as being mine-free.
A state of the art jetty which will improve military capability in the Falkland Islands and improve life for personnel on the Islands has been completed by Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO). Work to upgrade the jetty in Mare Harbour was officially opened recently by Geoff Robson, DIO’s Chief Operating Officer.