The Guardian

August 27, 2022
The latest round of talks at the United Nations aimed at securing protections for marine life in international waters that cover half the planet ended without agreement Saturday.

The fifth round of discussions, which began two weeks ago, were designed to establish a UN Ocean Treaty that would set rules for protecting biodiversity in two-thirds of the world’s oceanic areas that lie outside territorial waters.

But UN members failed to agree on how to share benefits from marine life, establish protected areas, or to prevent human activity with life on the high seas.

“Although we did make excellent progress, we still do need a little bit more time to progress towards the finish line,” UN oceans ambassador Rena Lee said, according to Agence France-Presse.

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Al Jazeera

August 27, 2022
Two weeks of negotiations to finally agree a treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas, have ended in failure.

The latest talks among United Nations member states came to an end on Friday with negotiators unable to thrash out a legally binding text to address the multitude of issues facing international waters – a zone that encompasses almost half the planet.

Formal and informal discussions have been continuing for some 15 years.

“Although we did make excellent progress, we still do need a little bit more time to progress towards the finish line,” AFP reported conference chair and UN oceans ambassador Rena Lee as saying.

It will now be up to the UN General Assembly to resume a fifth session of formal talks at a date still to be determined.

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World Economic Forum

May 5, 2022
The ocean is a vital life support system for the planet, and we are running out of time to preserve the marine biodiversity that it is home to and upon which we all depend.

Having played a key role thus far in the mitigation of climate change, our blue ally is quickly running out of steam. With water temperature and sea levels rising, acidification, pollution, unsustainable exploitation of marine resources, depletion of fish stocks, the near disappearance of coral reefs, and the destruction of fragile ecosystems, the ocean is being disproportionately impacted by human activities.

Now, more than ever, we must consider the possible implications of its demise.

The ocean plays an indispensable role in providing and regulating resources that are vital to sustaining life on Earth — from rainwater to drinking water, and as a source of our food, weather, and the oxygen we breathe.

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Campaign For Nature

March 23, 2020
Coastal community mayors and local government leaders from 8 countries have issued a statement calling for both the protection and responsible use of coastal waters, which they say benefit the world’s coastal habitats and many of the 500 million people worldwide who depend on fisheries for food and income. 

The statement asserts that by “combining local efforts to protect critical biodiversity with effective co-management for coastal fisheries, we can ensure food security, support the productive economy, safeguard livelihoods, and contribute to achieving national and global biodiversity targets including 30x30.”

The Coastal 500 group consists of over 110 mayors and other city-level leaders  from the countries of Brazil, the Federated States of Micronesia, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Mozambique, Palau, and the Philippines.  

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BBC

March 16, 2022
Made up of 115 islands dotting the Indian Ocean off East Africa, Seychelles is known as a global hotspot for biodiversity. With as much as 85% of its animals and 45% of its plant species considered endemic, the archipelago is sometimes called the "Galapagos of the Indian Ocean". And both on land and in the ocean, different groups are working to preserve this ecological paradise.

This year, after creating a sophisticated zoning plan and completing extensive conversations with representatives from the country's tourism, fishing, petroleum and conservation efforts, the island nation is prepared to fully implement the landmark Marine Spatial Planning Initiative it announced several years ago: to protect 30% of its ocean territory. Tourism, climate change and other factors have already greatly impacted the environment of the Seychelles' more populated "Inner Islands", so this agreement – part of a deal to write off its national debt in exchange for conservation measures – is now aimed at protecting its 72 low-lying coralline "Outer Islands" from development before it's too late.

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RAZOR Science Show

The 30 by 30 framework is a global plan that seeks to stop the extinction of species and habitats in our oceans by protecting 30 per cent of the world's oceans within the next decade. Neil Cairns spoke to leading scientists who helped to formulate the plan.

Watch

Inter Press Service - OpEd

January 10, 2022
There is no other place in the world like Costa Rica’s Cocos Island National Park. The waters surrounding the island–covered with tropical forests–are a playground to countless shivers, or schools, of sharks, including hammerhead sharks, whitetip reef sharks and whale sharks.

Also boasting rays, turtles, whales and dolphins, It’s one of the world’s most biodiverse waterways. In recent years, however, industrial fishing activity has encroached on the area, threatening this unparalleled marine life.

Fortunately, Costa Rica took decisive action this month by expanding the protected waters by 27 times. They also protected an additional marine area–the Bicentennial Marine Managed Area, which is twice the size of the expanded Cocos Island National Park. The area includes no take zones and will closely monitor fishing activity.

Stories like this one are all too rare. In the last century alone, we have removed over 90% of the ocean’s large fish, yet less than 8% of the ocean is under some kind of protection. We’re still learning about the collateral damage from destructive fishing activities, like bottom trawling, which scrape up the ocean floor—the world’s largest carbon storehouse.

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Mongabay

January 6, 2022
Ten countries in the western Indian Ocean are banding together to create a network of marine conservation areas under the banner of the Great Blue Wall.

The idea is to push through conservation areas, including those that straddle national boundaries, to bridge the gap between how much of the ocean is protected and how much needs to be secured. A recent assessment revealed the cost of failing to do so: coral reefs in the region are at high risk of collapsing in the next 50 years.

“Most of what needs to be done is already happening, governments are creating Marine Protected Areas [MPAs], local communities are setting up locally managed marine areas,” said Thomas Sberna, a regional head for Eastern and Southern Africa at global conservation authority the IUCN. “But is it happening fast enough, is it big enough? No.”

Only around 5-8% of the marine area in the Indian Ocean is under some form of legal protection, a far cry from the goal of protecting 30% of Earth’s land and oceans by 2030. Known as “30 by 30,” this goal has gained traction globally ahead of a landmark biodiversity summit this year.

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The Washington Post

November 2, 2021
Whales, sea turtles and hammerhead sharks will be able to swim more safely through the Eastern Pacific, thanks to a chain of new marine protected areas announced Tuesday by Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Panama.

The newly established “ocean highway” will stretch from the Galapagos to the Pacific coast of Central America, officials said, encompassing waters used by many species for hunting, mating and giving birth. This stretch of the tropical Pacific Ocean harbors some of the most productive fisheries on the planet. But it is also threatened by overfishing and the steady warming of the world’s seas.

“This is an unprecedented collaboration,” said conservationist Enric Sala, an explorer-in-residence at National Geographic. “Protection of these waters will not only protect marine life, but it will also help to replenish the waters around them.”

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The New York Times

October 4, 2021
The world lost about 14 percent of its coral reefs in the decade after 2009, mainly because of climate change, according to a sweeping international report on the state of the world’s corals.

The report, issued late Monday, underscores the catastrophic consequences of global warming while also offering some hope that some coral reefs can be saved if humans move quickly to rein in greenhouse gases.

“Coral reefs are the canary in the coal mine telling us how quickly it can go wrong,” said David Obura, one of the report’s editors and chairman of the coral specialist group for the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The 14 percent decline, he said, was cause for deep concern. “In finance, we worry about half-percent declines and half-percent changes in employment and interest rates.”

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Triple Pundit

June 8, 2021
From fishermen to fish to reefs, the theme of this year’s United Nations World Oceans Day, “Life and Livelihoods,” connects to just about every aspect of ocean health and coastal economies. After all, ocean health affects industries and flood resilience our ability to sequester carbon. But how do we secure ocean health? A global community of scientists agree that the foolproof way to support ecosystems and their services is to conserve them.

Research backs them up. A study published earlier this year in the journal Nature outlines three main benefits to protecting ocean areas: preserving biodiversity, increasing the yield of fisheries and storing marine carbon. Global coordination, as opposed to independent national action, authors say, has the potential to double the effectiveness of conservation efforts. The body of research backing up the economic benefits of marine protected areas (MPAs) is broad. One meta-analysis found a 670 percent increase in the biomass of whole fish assemblages in no-take marine reserves compared to unprotected areas outside their boundaries.

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UN News

April 21, 2021
The second World Ocean Assessment (WOA II) is the work of hundreds of scientists from across the globe and follows an initial report published in 2015.  

It warns that many benefits the ocean provides are increasingly being undermined by human actions, the UN chief said, describing the findings as alarming. 

“Pressures from many human activities continue to degrade the ocean and destroy essential habitats – such as mangrove forests and coral reefs – hindering their capacity to help address climate change impacts”, Mr. Guterres said in a video message. 

“These pressures also come from human activities on land and coastal areas, which bring dangerous pollutants into the ocean, including plastic waste. Meanwhile, overfishing is estimated to have led to an annual loss of $88.9 billion in net benefits”. 

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Campaign for Nature

April 21, 2021

Today, the United Nations launched its Second World Ocean Assessment on the global state of the world’s oceans. 

“The Second World Ocean Assessment warns that many benefits that the ocean provides to humankind are increasingly being undermined by our actions. [...] The findings of this assessment underscore the urgency of ambitious outcomes in this year’s biodiversity, climate and other high-level summits and events. Together we can foster not only a green, but also a blue recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and help ensure the long-term resilience and sustainable relationship with the ocean,” said UN Secretary General António Guterres in his remarks at the assessment’s launch. 

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Mongabay

March 26, 2021
From the eye of a satellite, the ocean is streaked with smoky white lines that flow and twist like scribbled handwriting across the surface. But these lines aren’t naturally occurring features — they’re sediment plumes from large trawling vessels that scrape the seafloor with nets and heavy equipment, trying to catch bottom-dwelling species like shrimp and whiting.

The environmental consequences of trawling are still being investigated since the plumes were first noticed in satellite imagery in 2008. But a new study in Nature suggests that it churns up and releases carbon that’s been locked up inside sediment at the bottom of the ocean — between about 600 million and 1,500 million tons, according to the study’s initial estimates, which is about the same amount as the global aviation industry.

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The Washington Post

March 18, 2021
Humanity has no better friend on this planet than the ocean. It provides more than half the oxygen we need to breathe. It supplies food that helps sustain more than 3 billion people. It absorbs many of the pollutants we keep pumping into the atmosphere: carbon dioxide, ozone-depleting chemicals.

The ocean is the kind of unwaveringly supportive friend who tolerates our toxicity and shields us from the worst consequences of our actions. It’s the friend that people have taken for granted for far too long. By overfishing and mining and drilling the sea floor, humanity is risking not just the ocean’s health but our own.

But new research suggests a strategic, globally coordinated effort to protect more of the world’s waters could not only bolster marine biodiversity but dramatically increase the number of fish available for harvest and boost the amount of carbon taken up by the ocean, aiding the fight against climate change.

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