It will also reinforce the positive impact of WWF Norway's Endangered Seas Programme.

Wallenius Wilhelmsen, jointly owned by Wallenius Lines of Sweden with Wilh. Wilhelmsen of Norway, has already made extensive moves to become more environmentally friendly.

Operating on the principal that environmental care spurs economic development, it signed a contract last year to purchase 200,000 tons of bunker fuel with a sulphur content of just 1%, well below that required by current legislation. Already 60% of the company's annual bunker fuel supplies of 800,000 tons have been sourced at or below a sulphur content of 1.5%.

Other measures already undertaken by the company's owners include altering main engine fuel combustion to minimise emissions, implementing the use of tin free bottom paints on hulls, employing innovative methods of treating ballast water, using double hulled vessels, changing cooling agents used in refrigeration plants, using biodegradable oil in the stern tubes, finding more environmentally friendly systems to put out fires, deploying biocide free anti-foulants, and using bilge water treatments achieving a content of 5ppm.

Wallenius Wilhelmsen's support will help the WWF improve the governance of the high seas in protecting marine life and developing practical conservation solutions such as the established High Seas Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).

Effectively national parks in the seas, these currently encompass an unmanaged 1% of the world's seas. The WWF aims to establish a network of effectively managed, ecologically representative MPAs covering at least 10% of the world's seas by 2020.

WWF's high seas conservation strategy also aims to address wider environmental issues such as reducing the threats of illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing. It seeks to address fishing subsidies, which contribute to the current 250% overcapacity of the global fishing fleet and result in massive 'bycatch' which threatens species such as dolphins, marine turtles and sharks.

Simon Cripps, director of the WWF's Global Marine Programme said, 'By joining forces, Wallenius Wilhelmsen and WWF will be making a significant contribution to securing marine conservation in the last frontier of the oceans, the high seas. WWF is pleased to be working with such a forward thinking company that recognises the importance of conserving the open ocean, a global resource for all users'

MJ Information No: 20616