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Around two-thirds of the world's land-based species of plants and animals live in ancient forests. That's hundreds of thousands of different plants and animals, and literally millions of insects. Millions of people depend on forests for their survival.

In the UK we are working to change the UK market for timber and paper, through exposing examples of the trade in timber products from illegal and destructive logging in ancient forest areas.

The World's Oceans

According to the United Nations, 71-78 of the world's fisheries are 'fully exploited', 'over exploited' or significantly depleted'. Some species have already been fished to commercial extinction. More are on the verge of extinction.

Fishing does not only threaten the fish species we target for food. Other species -such as marine mammals and seabirds- are caught incidentally in fishing gear and killed. Moreover, the fishing practicesare are destructive . Bottom trawling, for example, is a destructive way of 'strip mining' the ocean surface, harvesting the species that live there. It can destroy entire habitats found on the ocean floor.

The impacts are felt throughout the marine ecosystems. Scientists are already warning that the oceans will suffer profound changes as a result of overfishing and destructive fishing practices. Most fishing gear is not selective. This means that as well as the 'target' species of fish it catches, any number of 'non-target' species may also be hauled in. This 'incidental' catch of other species is referred to as 'bycatch'. Globally, it is estimated that almost a quarter of what is caught is merely killed and discarded.Bycatch is not limited to unwanted fish species. All types of marine life including whales, dolphins, porpoises, fur seals, albatrosses and turtles are killed as bycatch.

For example, a staggering 100 million sharks are killed each year. Tuna fisheries, which in the past had high dolphin bycatch levels, are still responsible for the deaths of 1 million sharks.