Guidance

The Blue Belt Programme

The Blue Belt Programme supports the UK Overseas Territories with the protection and sustainable management of their marine environments.

From:
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Marine Management Organisation and Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
Published
24 October 2017
Last updated
14 April 2025 — See all updates

The Blue Belt is the UK Government’s international marine conservation Programme. It works closely with UK Overseas Territories to assist them in creating and maintaining healthy and productive marine ecosystems.

The UK Overseas Territories are estimated to be home to up to 90% of known endemic UK biodiversity, and host a huge range of unique and endangered species, some of which are found no-where else on earth.

This programme has been central to the UK Government’s ambition of leading action to tackle the serious global problems of overfishing, species extinction and climate change.

Objectives and funding

The Overseas Territories within the Blue Belt Programme are highlighted in the above image.

The Blue Belt aims to assist the UK Overseas Territories in protecting and enhancing ocean health to halt biodiversity loss, enable sustainable growth, ensure climate change resilience, and to connect people with the natural environment.

This highly ambitious Programme is leading the way in supporting the Territories in the effective management of their marine environments, and in ensuring they are safeguarded for future generations.

The Blue Belt Programme works across these core themes of work:

  • understanding and protecting biodiversity
  • strengthening governance and management frameworks
  • managing human impacts
  • assisting compliance and enforcement
  • capacity building and ocean literacy.

Between 2022 – 2025, the Programme will be funded directly by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s International Programme Fund.

The funding will provide ongoing support for the management, enforcement and scientific monitoring of Marine Protected Areas, and will allow us to develop our understanding of the effectiveness of the marine protection in place. We will also be able to support other OTs who wish to enhance their marine protection and sustainable management.

The Blue Belt Programme is supported by two world leading organisations – the Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) and the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) on behalf of the UK Government.

Achievements

Clockwise from top left: two boats in the sea, a bird flying across the horizon, a person lowering a camera into water from a boat, a large vessel in sea by an island, penguins, two people fixing a drone, a whale shark.

The Blue Belt Programme has supported the UK Overseas Territories to enhance marine protection across more than 4.4 million square kilometres of marine environment.

See latest work and highlights from the Blue Belt Programme with the Annual Update 2023-2024:

For a detailed breakdown of Blue Belt Programme activities and achievements, see the below publications:

Sub-Programmes

The Blue Belt Programme provides funding to two sub-programmes: the Blue Shield Programme, and the Global Ocean Wildlife Analysis Network.

These Programmes work with UK Overseas Territories to support them with specific elements of the marine conservation and management process.

The Blue Belt Ocean Shield

The Blue Belt Ocean Shield is a maritime domain awareness project, which works to assess and understand the activities that take place within the marine zones of Overseas Territories.

The Programme assists UKOTs to better understand the potential impacts of activities on the health and sustainability of their marine environments, and ultimately protect them from harmful activity.

The Blue Belt Ocean Shield

PDF, 1.41 MB, 3 pages

The Global Wildlife Analysis Network

This network of underwater cameras, known as Baited Remote Underwater Video Systems (BRUVS), will monitor biodiversity and marine ecosystems across the Overseas Territories.

Cameras will be deployed across the Atlantic, Indian, Pacific and Southern Oceans, and will improve understanding of these marine environments, helping ensure they are protected and sustainably managed for future generations.

Find out more:

Global Ocean Wildlife Analysis Network Summary (PDF, 2.45 MB, 4 pages)

Additional resources and publications

Below are a selection of public facing documents that have been produced by the Blue Belt Programme’

Research topic:

Working towards a blue future is a collection of recent research papers undertaken by both the Blue Belt Programme and key partners.

Pitcairn Islands whale watching code of conduct resources:

Climate change report cards:

Additional resources

Further information

To keep up to date with the Blue Belt Programme:

Blue Belt Logo

Updates to this page

Published 24 October 2017
Last updated 14 April 2025 show all updates

  1. Blue Belt Programme UKOT Marine Biosecurity Roundtable Report FINAL added.

  2. New 23-24 annual update. Small change to text, namely removing the word 'flagship'

  3. fixing logos

  4. New map with Cayman Islands added

  5. Blue carbon report added.

  6. Blue Belt Annual Update attachment updated

  7. Blue Belt Programme annual update 2022/23 added

  8. new image uploaded

  9. BB Ocean Shield update

  10. BB Ocean Shield amend

  11. Updated

  12. Blue Belt Ocean Shield update

  13. Roundtable report update

  14. New BB Annual Report

  15. WOD Update

  16. Page updated with Socio-economic Roundtable report

  17. Addition of Blue Shield material

  18. Page updated with: Blue Belt Programme Roundtable: Protected Area Management Effectiveness

  19. Climate change removed

  20. Gov logo added

  21. New file

  22. First published.

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