Cortes chairs London session on environment

The Minister for the Environment and Climate Change, Dr John Cortes has chaired a working session of the Gibraltar-UK Brexit Environment Working Group at Gibraltar House.

During the session, a large number of matters were discussed with officials from DEFRA and the FCO.

In addition, the Minister and the CEO of the Department of the Environment, Dr Liesl Torres, were guests at an evening event at the British Museum of Natural History hosted by Secretary of State for the Environment Michael Gove.

The event was to promote the protection of the oceans.

Mr Gove addressed the attendees as did Jeremy Darroch, Group Chief Executive of Sky who are running a campaign on Ocean protection through their Sky Ocean Rescue initiative.

Dr Cortes took the opportunity to talk to Sir David Attenborough, with whom he had worked in Gibraltar on the Life of Birds TV series. Sir David recalled the visit fondly and showed great interest in progress being made in environmental protection in Gibraltar.

The Minister also met up with an old University friend, Mark Rose, who is now CEO of Fauna and Flora International.

In conversation with both Michael Gove and Under Secretary of State Dr Thérèse Coffey, Dr Cortes took the opportunity to update them with current environmental work in Gibraltar.

Including plans to introduce further initiatives in particular, in the context of the event, on protection of the sea and reducing the use of plastic.