The Marine Conservation Society is the UK’s leading marine charity. We work to ensure our seas are healthy, pollution free and protected.
Our seas are under immense pressure: too many fish are being taken out, too much rubbish is being thrown in and too little is being done to protect our precious wildlife. Our vision is for seas full of life where nature flourishes and people thrive.
41% of North East Atlantic stocks including those around the UK are subject to overfishing
21.7 million tonnes of wild caught fish are not for people to eat; almost 75% of this is to feed farmed fish
Shop
Our shop is full of lots of beautiful products, ideal for gifts or for yourself.
Discover our wildlife
and report your sightings
Use our guide to find out more about our marine wildlife and where it lives.
Good Fish Guide
The latest advice, top tips and recipes for buying and cooking fish that is sustainably sourced.
In a performance report, the Environment Agency has said water companies must do more to cut down on serious pollution that’s blighting rivers and beaches. But, despite that call, the majority of England’s nine water companies assessed delivered ‘Good’ or ‘Leading’ performance – with improvement in self-reporting of pollution incidents and delivery of environmental improvement schemes.
MCS says the Government’s post-Brexit fisheries proposals are vague on how they will achieve world leading sustainable fisheries, with a lack of detail on sustainability objectives for a new Fisheries Bill.
The Scottish Government has launched a public consultation on the proposed deposit return scheme for drinks containers to find out, among other things, how much people think the deposit paid should be and what sort of containers should be covered.
This July we launch our third Plastic Challenge, and it looks like it’ll be bigger than ever. Nearly 8,000 of you and counting have signed up.
Survey finds that few people are aware they can see whales and sharks in UK waters, and surprisingly few have spotted some relatively common species.
Disposable clothing and its effect on the environment is to be the subject of a House of Commons inquiry. Clothes bought cheaply and worn only a few times can release toxic chemicals during production, release plastic fibres in the wash and then end up in landfill.
It’s the summer of love - Love Island, the World Cup and the Marine Conservation Zone consultation. They’re not so very different - tight timescales and life changing. If you love the Island and want football to come home - make sure you’ve just enough love left to give our seas a hug.
When Scottish content creators clean a beach, you can be sure you’ll hear about it. Bloggers, vloggers and social media masters do a beach clean to raise awareness about Scotland’s marine environment and plastic pollution.
We Brits love our prawns – in fact, we love them so much they make into our top five seafood choices alongside salmon, cod, haddock and tuna. However, we can’t ignore the alarming environmental messages we hear about them.
A few summers ago, on my first Plastic Challenge trip to the supermarket, the great wall of plastic, quilting the supermarket shelves, knocked me back. Plastic – thick or thin - disguised and impounded my usual products, severely limiting my choice for the Plastic Challenge month ahead.
Joshua Pedley, a 23-year old Waitrose partner is walking 1600 miles along the west coast of England and Wales from March to September 2018 to raise funds for the Marine Conservation Society.
Chef Caroline Rye, The Urban Fishwife, tells us her experiences using MCS’ Good Fish Guide to make informed choices when buying fish.
Marine Conservation Society seeks hundreds of volunteers for its 25th annual clean-up
The Marine Conservation Society seeks thousands of volunteers for its 25th annual clean-up
The long-awaited Government White Paper outlining post-Brexit plans for fisheries management in its waters has been published. MCS says the resulting Fisheries Bill seems like it will be far too narrow in scope, missing an opportunity to make our future fisheries truly world-leading and sustainable.
Now ban must be extended to cleaning and other products says Marine Conservation Society
Marine Conservation Society attends the Royal Cornwall Show to help celebrate its President’s lifelong contribution to rural life
Marine Conservation Society hopes volunteer cleaners will come and give Gower beach a spruce-up after a busy spring
In a performance report, the Environment Agency has said water companies must do more to cut down on serious pollution that’s blighting rivers and beaches. But, despite that call, the majority of England’s nine water companies assessed delivered ‘Good’ or ‘Leading’ performance – with improvement in self-reporting of pollution incidents and delivery of environmental improvement schemes.
MCS says the Government’s post-Brexit fisheries proposals are vague on how they will achieve world leading sustainable fisheries, with a lack of detail on sustainability objectives for a new Fisheries Bill.
It’s the summer of love - Love Island, the World Cup and the Marine Conservation Zone consultation. They’re not so very different - tight timescales and life changing. If you love the Island and want football to come home - make sure you’ve just enough love left to give our seas a hug.
The Scottish Government has launched a public consultation on the proposed deposit return scheme for drinks containers to find out, among other things, how much people think the deposit paid should be and what sort of containers should be covered.
This July we launch our third Plastic Challenge, and it looks like it’ll be bigger than ever. Nearly 8,000 of you and counting have signed up.
Our RSS feed
Social media…