Letters | 10 July 2010

How to save the seas

Sir: We can predict, sadly, that the so-called management of the ocean mining described in Charles Clover’s article (‘The scramble for the seas’, 3 July), will be as poor as the current management of the oceans’ fish stocks. To save the world’s oceans, we need much better policy, coupled with credible enforcement wherever exploitation is permitted, and the establishment of large protected marine reserves where fish and ocean beds are completely protected. Large marine reserves are vital guarantors that will allow ocean resources to survive if the fishing and mineral extraction which are permitted elsewhere fail to be sustainable. The protection of the Chagos archipelago by the UK government is an enormous step in the right direction — we need many more such marine reserves if we are to hand to future generations oceans that live.

Alistair Gammell, OBE
Pew Environment Group, London SW1



Do atheists exist?

Sir: Of course Matthew Parris is right (Another Voice, 3 July): today, most professed Christians and Muslims are not genuine — probably they never were.