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.

Read More

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.

Read More

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.

Read More

Time Magazine

March 17, 2021
It’s been well established by now that the agricultural systems producing our food contribute at least one fifth of global anthropogenic carbon emissions—and up to a third if waste and transportation are factored in. A troubling new report points to a previously overlooked source: an industrial fishing process practiced by dozens of countries around the world, including the United States, China, and the E.U.

The study, published today in the scientific journal Nature, is the first to calculate the carbon cost of bottom trawling, in which fishing fleets drag immense weighted nets along the ocean floor, scraping up fish, shellfish and crustaceans along with significant portions of their habitats.

Read More

The Hill

February 25, 2021
One of the most critical ocean circulation patterns that helps the Earth regulate its temperature has recently reached its weakest state in a millennium, making it more difficult to effectively distribute heat on the planet. 

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a series of currents that flow across the Atlantic Ocean, as well as the Nordic and Labrador Seas, helps transport heat from the South Atlantic and North Atlantic to more polar Atlantic waters.

Published in the journal Nature Geoscience, a new study examines evidence pointing to the AMOC’s slowdown due to anthropogenic climate change, or climate change caused by humans. 

Read More

National Geographic

December 4, 2020
When the heads of state of 14 nations sat down together in late 2018 to discuss the grim condition of the world’s oceans, there was no certainty that anything consequential would result. The leaders planned 14 gatherings, but met only twice before the pandemic upended their talks.

So when the group announced this week the world’s most far-reaching pact to protect and sustain ocean health, it signaled a bit more than a noteworthy achievement in a complicated time. The agreement, negotiated via the nuance-free tool of video conferencing, also offered hope of a renewed era of global accord on climate, where issues grounded in science might finally trump political posturing.

Overall, the 14 leaders agreed to sustainably manage 100 percent of the oceans under their national jurisdictions by 2025—an area of ocean roughly the size of Africa. Additionally, they vowed to set aside 30 percent of the seas as marine protected areas by 2030, in keeping with the United Nations’ campaign known as “30 by 30.”

Read More

Forbes

October 26, 2020
A new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that protecting an additional 5% of the ocean can increase future fish catch by 20% or more. Growing up in a fishing community in the Philippines, lead researcher Dr. Reniel Cabral believes that marine protected areas (MPAs) can benefit both conservation and fisheries goals simultaneously. In the past, MPAs have been used as conservation tools, however a focus on fisheries may provide a necessary incentive for many coastal nations to adopt or expand them.

Read More

BBC Future

August 3, 2020
After defaulting on its substantial national debt, the Seychelles was offered an unusual deal.

Located around 1,600 kilometres (994 miles) off the coast of East Africa, the Seychelles is an ecological paradise. The archipelago of 115 lush and rocky islands sits amongst vast swathes of ocean, covering some 1.35 million square kilometres (521,000 square miles). They’re home to some of the world’s last pristine coral reefs and are teeming with endangered species, including the southern fin whale and the Indian Ocean’s only dugongs – large marine mammals also known as “sea cows”.

Read More

The Revelator

May 7, 2020
Most of us have never been to the world’s immense last wilderness and never will. It’s beyond the horizon and often past the limits of our imaginations. It contains towering underwater mountain ranges, ancient corals, mysterious, unknown forms of life and the largest seagrass meadow in the world.

Yet it begins just 200 nautical miles off our shores. Technically referred to as “areas beyond national jurisdiction,” these remote expanses are known to most people simply as “the high seas.”

Their vast, dark waters encompass roughly two-thirds of the ocean and half the planet and are the last great global commons. Yet just 1% are protected, leaving these vital but relatively lawless expanses open to overfishing, pollution, piracy and other threats.

Read More

CNN

April 7, 2020
Australia's Great Barrier Reef has experienced its most widespread bleaching event on record, with the south of the reef bleaching extensively for the first time, a new survey has found.

This marks the third mass bleaching event on the reef in just the last five years and scientists say that the rapid warming of the planet due to human emissions of heat-trapping gases are to blame.

Aerial analysis conducted by Terry Hughes, director of the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, and others from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, found that coastal reefs along the entire length of the iconic reef -- a stretch of about 1,500 miles (2,300 kilometers) from the Torres Strait in the north, right down to the reef's southern boundary -- have been severely bleached.

Read More

CNN

April 2, 2020
Marine life in the world's oceans could recover to healthy levels in the next thirty years if decisive and urgent action is taken, an international review has found.

A team of scientists from around the world found marine life to be "remarkably resilient" despite damage caused by human activity and interference, they said in a review published Wednesday in science journal Nature.

Researchers said ocean populations could be restored as soon as 2050, but warned that there is limited time to achieve this change.

Read More

Euronews

April 1, 2020

Scientists estimate that roughly one million land and marine species may become extinct in the foreseeable future. Many within decades.

What are the main reasons for the decline of underwater ecosystems?

Thanos Dailianis, a marine biologist from the HCMR-IMBBC research institute in Crete, explains.

“Marine ecosystems are threatened both locally and globally. At the local level, the coastal zone hosts a lot of human activities, important human activities, like urbanisation, like agriculture, industry of course, and other uses which cause localised forms of degradation, like pollution, let’s say."

"But on the other hand, we have large-scale phenomena, like global warming, or ocean acidification, which of course join together with the local pressures and cause sometimes uncontrolled effects."

Read More