§ Mr. RuaneTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement on the international 60-year programme of continuous plankton recording around the British Isles. [47736]
§ Angela EagleThe continuous Plankton Recorder Survey was started by Sir Alister Hardy in the North Sea in 1931. It is now operated by the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science in Plymouth. The survey is funded by an international consortium. My Department and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food are long-term supporters of this work. They met approximately 40 per cent. of the costs of the core survey in 1997. The survey is one of the most important sources of information about long-term trends in the marine environment. Recent work suggests that changes in plankton frequency over recent decades may be linked to changes in the temperature of the North Atlantic.