Those of you who read Vicky’s post titled ‘cycling to save our seas’ on August 20^th may have wondered how my sponsored bike ride went and how the campaign is going. Well, the three day bike ride and tour of Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight was a great success – the sun was shining and we saw some beautiful British coastline and countryside.

The aim of the sponsored bike ride was to help raise some funds and create public awareness for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust’s ‘Operation Seahorse’ campaign. We raised over £200 in the end, which is not bad as it was a rather last minute idea. However the Hampshire and IOW Wildlife Trust still require a significant amount of funding so that they can carry out important surveys of the marine environment. If you would like to help then please purchase a limited edition Operation Seahorse T-shirt or make a donation.

The Operation Seahorse campaign is part of a network of campaigns being conducted by the Wildlife Trust movement and other members of the Wildlife & Countryside Link. The aim of these campaigns is to raise awareness about the UK’s diverse marine life and to lobby the government to designate sites as Highly Protected Marine Reserves.

If you are a UK citizen and would like to help protect our seas then please sign the Wildlife Trusts online petition fish.

But hurry because signatures collected via the online petition and the 200 petition fish which have been on display at Wildlife Trusts’ events throughout the UK will be taken to Westminister on Wednesday 10^th October for an event with MPs. Then the following week, the petition will be delivered to Downing Street, in a final bid to keep the Marine Bill afloat. I will hopefully be attending the event on the 10^th October as a representative of Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust, thus I will keep you posted about the progress of this campaign.