Foulness Island of plants and invertebrates thrive there. Other birds which use the island for breeding include avocet, common tern, little tern, Sandwich tern and ringed plover. During the winter months, in excess of 100,000 waterfowl have been reported. The avocet population is the second largest in the United Kingdom. The Foulness SSSI has been designated as a Special Protection Area for Birds under the EC Birds Directive, and is also a Ramsar site under the Ramsar Convention because of its importance as a wetland. Foulness Island Foulness Island () is an island on the east coast of Essex in England, which
Piracy off the coast of Somalia will not prevent waste dumping: Somali pirates which captured MV "Faina", a Ukrainian ship carrying tanks and military hardware, accused European firms of dumping toxic waste off the Somali coast and declared that the $8m ransom for the return of the ship will go towards cleaning up the waste. The ransom demand is a means of "reacting to the toxic waste that has been continually dumped on the shores of our country for nearly 20 years", Januna Ali Jama, a spokesman for the pirates said. "The Somali coastline has been destroyed, and we believe this money is nothing compared to