The Minister for the Environment and Climate Change, the Hon John Cortes has chaired a working session of the Gibraltar-UK Brexit Environment Working Group at Gibraltar House where a large number of matters were discussed with officials from DEFRA and the FCO.

In the evening, the Minister and Dr Liesl Torres were guests at an event at the British Museum of Natural History hosted by Secretary of State for the Environment Michael Gove to promote the protection of the oceans. The event was addressed by the Secretary of State as well as by Jeremy Darroch, Group Chief Executive of Sky who are leading on Ocean protection through their Sky Ocean Rescue initiative.

Minister 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, the Minister took the opportunity of briefly updating them with current environmental work in Gibraltar and plans to introduce further initiatives in particular, in the context of the event, on protection of the sea and reducing the use of plastic.