What price is nature paying for the UK’s transition to clean energy? We talk to Joan Edwards OBE, Director of Policy and Public Affairs at The Wildlife Trusts and Dr Tom Appleby, Chief Legal Affairs Advisor at The Blue Marine Foundation about whether we can mitigate the devastating effect offshore energy projects are having on the marine environment. What can listeners do to help?
Our guests:
Dr Tom Appleby is Chief Legal Affairs Adviser to UK based ocean conservation charity, the Blue Marine Foundation and has been part of the Blue Marine’s team since it began. He has worked in 30 jurisdictions and this has taken him to review international law and the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction negotiations at the UN, to reshaping the EU’s common fisheries policy, to projects in the UK’s overseas territories and Crown Dependencies.
He is also an Associate Professor at UWE and a member of the Centre for Architecture and Built Environment Research. Tom has led two impact case studies for UWE and has his work was integral to the protective measures taken by the UK government on the Dogger Bank.
Tom has worked in and around marine conservation for nearly 25 years. He helped set up Scotland’s first no take zone and worked with a number of environmental NGOs to apply the European environmental law to fisheries. He has researched the impact of Brexit on UK fisheries law, given evidence to Parliament. Tom has a DPhil in marine and fisheries law from UWE, was formerly a practising commercial property law for nearly 10 years and is still a non-practising solicitor.
Joan Edwards OBE is Director of Policy and Public Affairs at The Wildlife Trusts. She has worked in marine conservation for over thirty years, having joined The Wildlife Trusts movement in 1987 when she began working for Devon Wildlife Trust. Since then she has worked on key pieces of environmental legislation and policy across land and sea, from the expansion of protected areas in the marine environment to the 2021 Environment Act, securing a brighter future for the UK’s wildlife.