There's hope for our blue planet, despite what you see on the news | Fiona Gell

After the mass die-off of starfish, it's easy to despair. But conservation success stories show what ordinary people can doI recently helped to organise an environmental meeting and found myself checking our video link by calling home. Beamed on to the screen was my four-year-old son, hair sticking out and school jumper on back to front. As we checked the sound, I asked him what message he would like to send. Without hesitation he said: "Why do people have to throw rubbish in the sea and hurt marine creatures?" His worried little face, now filling the 2m-wide screen, stayed with me throughout the meeting (along with the hope that he'd turned his jumper round before going to school).His message was with me again as I watched distressing footage of thousands of dead starfish and other creatures washed up on the beaches of Kent and the east coast. Conservationists believe last week's freezing weather was behind the mass die-off. Continue reading...