The Herts & Middlesex Wildlife Trust is calling on readers to help save marine life

DID you know that no one in Britain lives further than 72 miles from a stretch of coastline? Hertfordshire may be a county without coastline, but we still benefit from the sea through the cod and chips we take for granted (as well as the other fish that we eat), the seaside holidays we take and even the removal of our sewage waste. So you may be surprised to learn just how poorly our seas are protected. Currently less than one per cent of the UK's sea area is included within Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), and commercial fishing continues within these sites. Lundy, just off the North Devon coast is the only site that is fully protected from fishing and all damaging activities - representing an area approximately equivalent to the size of Kensington Gardens. We urgently need a Marine Bill to deliver more robust marine nature conservation laws and create Highly Protected Marine Reserves in our seas. HMWT is joining the UK's 46 other Wildlife Trusts to keep up the pressure for the Bill to be included in the 2007 Queen's Speech in November and the Petition Fish is our latest campaign.The campaign was launched to MPs in Westminster on June 5 and it's now your turn to get involved. If you care about the seas that surround us, please show your support by letting us sign your name on a 'scale' that will be attached to a 1.5metres long Petition Fish. HMWT will be gathering signatures from now until the end of August. Completed Petition Fish will be taken to the Houses of Parliament in late October and presented to Environment Minister Elliot Morley and John Randall, MP for Uxbridge, who will carry the campaign on to the next stage of the Bill.To get involved, simply print your name and address on a postcard and send it to: The Petition Fish, Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, Grebe House, St Michael's Street, St Albans, AL3 4SN before the end of August. We need your address to verify your participation and to send you information about the campaign. Alternatively, email info@hmwt.org using the words 'Sign me up to the Petition Fish' in the subject bar and ensuring you include your name within the email message section. Once we have received your name, we will complete a scale on your behalf and attach it to the fish.Please sign up today - and with your help, we can protect marine wildlife and ensure that, in the future, there are always plenty more fish in the sea.