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	<channel>
		<title>Conservation news</title>
		<atom:link href="https://news.mongabay.com/feed/?topic=molluscs&#038;type=post" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/molluscs/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Thu, 20 Aug 2026 19:50:33 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<url>https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/05/16160320/cropped-mongabay_icon-32x32.png</url>
	<title>News on Molluscs</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/molluscs/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Mobile queen conch hatcheries strive to help the species, engage Caribbean communities</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/mobile-queen-conch-hatcheries-strive-to-help-the-species-engage-caribbean-communities/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/mobile-queen-conch-hatcheries-strive-to-help-the-species-engage-caribbean-communities/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Aug 2026 09:54:48 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[André Habet]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Autumn Spanne]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/17144351/Henry-Carey-holds-up-shells-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=326429</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Caribbean and North America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Environment, Fish, Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Molluscs, Oceans, Overfishing, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Queen conch were once so abundant that fishers in many parts of the Caribbean could wade into knee-deep waters and gather armfuls of the pink, whorled shells. Today, however, the giant marine snails are in decline across the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, while some populations have already collapsed. Growing demand for queen [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Queen conch were once so abundant that fishers in many parts of the Caribbean could wade into knee-deep waters and gather armfuls of the pink, whorled shells. Today, however, the giant marine snails are in decline across the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, while some populations have already collapsed. Growing demand for queen conch (Aliger gigas) meat and shells has led to overharvesting; habitat degradation, pollution and warming waters add further threats. Despite a 1992 CITES Appendix II listing to regulate their international trade, seasonal restrictions and bans by several Caribbean countries to address overfishing and juvenile harvesting, and a 2024 designation as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, few queen conch survive to adulthood compared to historical baselines. In a bid to slow the species’ decline by helping more conch reach reproductive age, scientists are deploying an innovative set of solar-powered mobile hatcheries to shelter them through their vulnerable early life stages. The Queen Conch Lab (QCL), affiliated with Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in the U.S., partners with local conservation organizations to deploy the hatcheries. The aim is not just to build nurseries that will nurture and protect developing conch, but to create community learning spaces where students and other visitors can gain knowledge about the species’ life cycle and participate in restoration efforts, according to Megan Davis, director of the QCL and a research professor at FAU’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. A researcher holds a juvenile queen conch. Image by Jennifer Doerr, NOAA&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/mobile-queen-conch-hatcheries-strive-to-help-the-species-engage-caribbean-communities/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/mobile-queen-conch-hatcheries-strive-to-help-the-species-engage-caribbean-communities/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-326429</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Deep-sea snails and mussels in Indian and Pacific Oceans contain microplastics, study finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/deep-sea-snails-and-mussels-in-indian-and-pacific-oceans-contain-microplastics-study-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/deep-sea-snails-and-mussels-in-indian-and-pacific-oceans-contain-microplastics-study-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Aug 2026 18:38:22 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[María Paula Rubiano A.]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Autumn Spanne]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/03111510/g.-BANNER-GP0STSJH72-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=325187</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Deep Sea, Marine, Marine Animals, Microplastics, Molluscs, Oceans, Plastic, and Pollution]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Three days away from shore, in the darkened control room of a huge ship, all eyes are fixed on a glowing wall of screens. Live images of mussels and snails appear. The animals are packed around a deep-sea chimney venting something that looks like black smoke, but is actually superheated, mineral-rich water bursting from the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Three days away from shore, in the darkened control room of a huge ship, all eyes are fixed on a glowing wall of screens. Live images of mussels and snails appear. The animals are packed around a deep-sea chimney venting something that looks like black smoke, but is actually superheated, mineral-rich water bursting from the Earth’s crust. The images have threaded their way back to the research vessel Isabu from some 2,000 meters (6,500 feet) below, via a thin, fiber-optic cable. It’s 2016 and the researchers are in the North Fiji Basin in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It’s the first of two expeditions to study the inhabitants of deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Their next journey will take them to the Indian Ocean. At each stop, the team deploys an underwater robot to catch the tender creatures. Once on deck, each animal is immediately wrapped in aluminum foil and flash frozen at –80° Celsius (-112° Fahrenheit) to prevent contact with airborne contaminants. The work is so delicate it takes the team several weeks to collect just 12 animals during the two expeditions between 2016 and 2019. Almost 10 years later, analysis of the results of these expeditions shows that human activities impact even creatures living in some of the most remote places on Earth. According to a new study, published in Water Research, microplastic particles were found in 11 of the 12 sampled animals, which belonged to four different species of mussels and snails. “Finding contamination in nearly every animal was still&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/deep-sea-snails-and-mussels-in-indian-and-pacific-oceans-contain-microplastics-study-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/deep-sea-snails-and-mussels-in-indian-and-pacific-oceans-contain-microplastics-study-finds/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-325187</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Wind farms join bottom trawlers and oil rigs in a protected North Sea sandbank</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/wind-farms-join-bottom-trawlers-and-oil-rigs-in-a-protected-north-sea-sandbank/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/wind-farms-join-bottom-trawlers-and-oil-rigs-in-a-protected-north-sea-sandbank/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Jul 2026 20:28:50 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Christina Egerstrom]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/30200540/Joost-van-Uffelen-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=324903</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Atlantic Ocean and Europe]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Alternative Energy, Environment, Fishing, Industry, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Molluscs, Natural Resources, Oceans, Offshore Wind, Saltwater Fish, and Wind Power]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the North Sea, the vast, shallow sandbank known as Dogger Bank was once among the most productive marine nurseries in Europe. The area stretches across U.K., Dutch, German and Danish waters, and is home to a vast array of marine life, including sharks, rays, dolphins, long-lived shellfish, anemones, corals, sand eels, and seabirds, prompting [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the North Sea, the vast, shallow sandbank known as Dogger Bank was once among the most productive marine nurseries in Europe. The area stretches across U.K., Dutch, German and Danish waters, and is home to a vast array of marine life, including sharks, rays, dolphins, long-lived shellfish, anemones, corals, sand eels, and seabirds, prompting experts to call it the ecological heart of the North Sea. While much of Dogger Bank has been protected for its unique seabed habitat, destructive industrial activities like oil and gas extraction as well as fishing practices like bottom trawling have continued, even in the protected zones. Now, conservationists have notched a win with a recent court ruling that curtails bottom trawling in the Dutch protected section of Dogger Bank. But they say the threats continue, notably in the form of major wind farm developments rising in the U.K. protected section. A major difficulty in protecting a place as large as Dogger Bank, which spans 18,765 square kilometers (7,245 square miles), is that it’s divided into three separate marine protected areas (MPAs) managed by three different countries. The German section of Dogger Bank was the first to be protected, as a Natura 2000 site under the European Union&#8217;s Habitats Directive, in 2007. The Dutch section followed in 2009, and the U.K. section in 2012. Since then, the U.K. has left the EU and now manages its Dogger Bank Special Area of Conservation (SAC) as part of its own network of protected areas. (The Danish section&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/wind-farms-join-bottom-trawlers-and-oil-rigs-in-a-protected-north-sea-sandbank/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/wind-farms-join-bottom-trawlers-and-oil-rigs-in-a-protected-north-sea-sandbank/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-324903</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Chewing sounds can help decode an animal’s diet using AI, new study finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/chewing-sounds-can-help-decode-an-animals-diet-using-ai-new-study-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/chewing-sounds-can-help-decode-an-animals-diet-using-ai-new-study-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Jun 2026 02:29:05 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhishyant Kidangoor]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhishyantkidangoor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/25202550/Banner-Image-C-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321853</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animal Behavior, Animals, Artificial Intelligence, Biodiversity, Biology, Conservation, Conservation Technology, data, Ecosystems, Environment, Food, Marine, Marine Animals, Molluscs, Oceans, Predators, Rays, Research, Science, Software, Technology, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[What does an eagle ray’s menu look like? An artificial intelligence model can now answer that question by listening to sounds of the animal chewing on food. Scientists developed the machine learning algorithm to detect the sound of shells being crushed by predators when they feed on mollusks. According to a study published in the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[What does an eagle ray’s menu look like? An artificial intelligence model can now answer that question by listening to sounds of the animal chewing on food. Scientists developed the machine learning algorithm to detect the sound of shells being crushed by predators when they feed on mollusks. According to a study published in the journal Ecological Informatics, the model can also identify the prey based on the sounds. “A lot of animals out there, particularly marine animals, have the unique ability to crush shells open,” Matt Ajemian, assistant research professor at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University in the U.S. who was part of the research, told Mongabay in a video interview. “But we don’t know how much they eat and what they feed on. So we wanted to see if we could remotely detect an animal feeding on a clam versus a gastropod.” Keeping track of predator-prey interactions is crucial, especially in the face of rapidly changing marine habitats. Monitoring what and how much larger predators are eating is important to understand the resources they depend on and subsequently plan effective conservation action. Conversely, it’s also critical to have data on how much pressure there is on shellfish populations that serve as prey. “For example, in a clam bed or seagrass bed, we want to know how much prey is removed by a predator over the course of a year,” Ajemian said. However, gathering this data is not an easy task. Tracking predators underwater is&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/chewing-sounds-can-help-decode-an-animals-diet-using-ai-new-study-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/chewing-sounds-can-help-decode-an-animals-diet-using-ai-new-study-finds/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321853</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Traditional protection proves more successful for clams in American Samoa</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/traditional-protection-proves-more-successful-for-clams-in-american-samoa/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/traditional-protection-proves-more-successful-for-clams-in-american-samoa/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Mar 2026 05:27:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sonam Lama Hyolmo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/27091942/Giant-Clam-Tridacna-maxima-in-American-Samoa-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316429</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Oceania, Pacific Islands, Pacific Ocean, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Coral Reefs, Culture, Ecosystems, Environmental Law, Indigenous Peoples, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Molluscs, Oceans, Research, Sustainability, Traditional Knowledge, Traditional People, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For coastal Indigenous communities in American Samoa, giant clams are deeply rooted in fa‘a Sāmoa (the Samoan way of life) and local food systems. According to the findings of a study published in PeerJ, it is village-based protections like fa‘asao (fishery closures) that have helped conserve giant clams lying in the islands’ shallow water coral [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For coastal Indigenous communities in American Samoa, giant clams are deeply rooted in fa‘a Sāmoa (the Samoan way of life) and local food systems. According to the findings of a study published in PeerJ, it is village-based protections like fa‘asao (fishery closures) that have helped conserve giant clams lying in the islands’ shallow water coral reefs. The authors found that the highest clam densities and species are located in remote sites and areas under traditional village enforcement, outperforming federally designated no-take zones on the most populated island. The authors examined giant clam population trends, clam densities and distributions, and species composition across six islands — Tutuila, Aunuʻu, Ofu, Olosega, Taʻū and Muliāva — from 1994/5 to surveys conducted between 2022-24. While the highly populated island of Tutuila had the lowest clam densities with 83.5 individuals per hectare (33.8 per acre), remote islands like Taʻū and Muliāva showed higher densities up to 812 to 1,166 per hectare (328 to 471 per acre). On Tutuila, which had multiple types of management zones, subsistence and remote sites had the highest densities of giant clams, followed by remote areas, then village protected areas. Federal no-take sites held the lowest mean density of clams overall on the island. “By restoring local stewardship, cultural accountability, and respect for customary marine tenure values, community-led systems like fa‘asao have strengthened marine ecosystem conservation through village-based fishery closures,” Dimary Ulberg, an Indigenous Samoan and program manager of the Community-based Fisheries Management Program (CBFMP) at the Department of Marine and&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/traditional-protection-proves-more-successful-for-clams-in-american-samoa/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/traditional-protection-proves-more-successful-for-clams-in-american-samoa/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316429</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>On Canada’s West Coast, clam gardening builds resilience among Indigenous youth</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/on-canadas-west-coast-clam-gardening-builds-resilience-among-indigenous-youth/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/on-canadas-west-coast-clam-gardening-builds-resilience-among-indigenous-youth/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Aug 2024 15:06:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Robyn Huang]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/07/16161333/Gisele-Martin-Hayden-Hughie-Watts-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=284366</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples and Conservation, Indigenous-led conservation, and Oceans]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Canada and North America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Aquaculture, Biodiversity, Coastal Ecosystems, Culture, Education, Environment, Fish, Fisheries, Food, food security, Indigenous Peoples, Islands, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Molluscs, Natural Resources, and Oceans]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[VANCOUVER ISLAND, B.C., Canada — Three young men follow a winding trail through a lush spruce, hemlock and western cedar forest. Their destination is a clam garden they look after on Meares Island in Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation territory in British Columbia, Canada. The journey starts with a cultural lesson at the trailhead to the clam [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[VANCOUVER ISLAND, B.C., Canada — Three young men follow a winding trail through a lush spruce, hemlock and western cedar forest. Their destination is a clam garden they look after on Meares Island in Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation territory in British Columbia, Canada. The journey starts with a cultural lesson at the trailhead to the clam garden. “This is Wanačas — it represents a whale breaching out of the water and the rain from the mountain to the clam garden,” Hayden Seitcher, one of the men, says about the trailhead. Arriving at a clearing, they gaze over the garden at low tide, a serene interaction of land and sea. The shoreline, covered in a mosaic of green, red and brown seaweed, holds an expansive, semicircular wall of different-sized rocks, deliberately placed in May 2023 to revive an ancient maricultural technique. The wall retains a flat, stable terrace of mud and rocks: the clam garden. The group shifts a few rocks in the garden, uncovering large butter clams (Saxidomus gigantea), a clear sign of the garden&#8217;s early success. The three young men — Seitcher, 22, along with KC Hale, 15, and Bryson George, 20, are youth leaders with the nonprofit Nuu-chah-nulth Youth Warrior Family (Warrior Program). Building, restoring and monitoring clam gardens is just one of the program’s many initiatives to foster leadership skills in youth across several Nuu-chah-nulth communities. Hayden Seitcher, KC Hale and Bryson George, youth leaders with the nonprofit Nuu-chah-nulth Youth Warrior Family, also called the Warrior Program, check&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/on-canadas-west-coast-clam-gardening-builds-resilience-among-indigenous-youth/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-284366</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In northern Spain, climate change is killing shellfish — and women’s livelihoods</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/06/in-northern-spain-climate-change-is-killing-shellfish-and-womens-livelihoods/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/06/in-northern-spain-climate-change-is-killing-shellfish-and-womens-livelihoods/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Jun 2024 18:36:01 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Naomi MiharaNatalie Donback]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/06/29155610/Mariscadoras-in-Cambados-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=283923</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Oceans]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Atlantic Ocean, Europe, European Union, and Spain]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Climate, Climate Change, Ecosystems, Food, Global Environmental Crisis, Global Warming, Invertebrates, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Molluscs, Ocean Warming, and Oceans]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Reporting for this story was supported by Journalismfund Europe under the Earth Investigations Programme. GALICIA, Spain — The first sleepy rays of morning light are starting to illuminate the beach of Cambados, a small Atlantic-facing town in the Spanish region of Galicia that’s famous for its shellfish and Albariño wine. It’s a rainy morning in [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Reporting for this story was supported by Journalismfund Europe under the Earth Investigations Programme. GALICIA, Spain — The first sleepy rays of morning light are starting to illuminate the beach of Cambados, a small Atlantic-facing town in the Spanish region of Galicia that’s famous for its shellfish and Albariño wine. It’s a rainy morning in March and the mariscadoras — women shellfish pickers — are wading straight into the ocean armed with buckets and rubber boots for another day of work. But the clams and cockles their livelihood depends on are increasingly hard to come by. Extreme weather events made more frequent and intense by climate change, including heat waves and torrential rain, threaten various marine species in the region, and with them, the tradition that has been passed down through generations of women. “Either the shellfish adapt, or they die, and us too,” says Patricia Piñeiro between wind gusts and rain as she searches for clams big enough to harvest. “They’re just too small,” she says, showing the measuring device from the local fishing authorities set to 4 centimeters (1.5 inches), which means she must return most of the clams she finds to the ocean. A mariscadora examines a haul off Cambados in Galicia, northwestern Spain, on 7 Mar., 2024. Many of the clams were below the legal size and had to be returned to the sea. Image by Naomi Mihara for Mongabay. A mariscadora checks to see whether a clam is big enough to keep. Image by Naomi&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/06/in-northern-spain-climate-change-is-killing-shellfish-and-womens-livelihoods/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-283923</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In PNG, researchers record 9 new species of predatory hermaphroditic land snails</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/in-png-researchers-record-9-new-species-of-predatory-hermaphroditic-land-snails/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/in-png-researchers-record-9-new-species-of-predatory-hermaphroditic-land-snails/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Jan 2024 20:14:12 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/24195145/230821-0108-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=277979</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, New Guinea, Oceania, Papua New Guinea, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Environment, Invertebrates, Molluscs, Rainforests, Species Discovery, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the rainforests of Papua New Guinea, where arboreal tree kangaroos, vibrant birds-of-paradise and ornate birdwings hog the limelight with their charismatic presence, teeny-tiny, leaf litter-eating land snails don’t always stand a chance to vie for scientific attention. Although land snail shells hold an essential place in PNG’s culture — as jewelry and adornments in ceremonial [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the rainforests of Papua New Guinea, where arboreal tree kangaroos, vibrant birds-of-paradise and ornate birdwings hog the limelight with their charismatic presence, teeny-tiny, leaf litter-eating land snails don’t always stand a chance to vie for scientific attention. Although land snail shells hold an essential place in PNG’s culture — as jewelry and adornments in ceremonial clothing — scientific understanding of these mollusks is, at best, patchy. Worldwide, more 30,000 land snail species are known to science. While species in North America and Europe are relatively well-studied, those in forested tropical regions, such as the Amazon and Congo basins and islands like New Guinea, have been barely sampled. “Any land snails from Papua New Guinea, or for that matter most species of plants and animals, whatever we know is based on colonial times to a large extent,” said malacologist Frank Köhler at the Australian Museum, who studies land snails in Australia and the Pacific Islands. The lack of current scientific knowledge on Papua New Guinea’s land snails inspired malacologist John Slapcinsky at the Florida Museum of Natural History in the U.S. to begin an eight-years-long survey in the country — the first such endeavour after six decades and, in Slapcinsky’s words, one of the most intensive surveys in the country’s history. In a new study published in the journal Archiv für Molluskenkunde, Slapcinsky and his colleagues report the discovery of nine new species of land snails from the country. One of the nine newly identified snail species, Torresiropa paterivolans, Rossel Island,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/in-png-researchers-record-9-new-species-of-predatory-hermaphroditic-land-snails/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-277979</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Spain sanctions fishing vessels for illegally ‘going dark’ near Argentine waters</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/spain-sanctions-fishing-vessels-for-illegally-going-dark-near-argentine-waters/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/spain-sanctions-fishing-vessels-for-illegally-going-dark-near-argentine-waters/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Jan 2024 11:31:15 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Food systems]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/11143020/Bottom-Trawler-Ivan-Nores-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=277542</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Oceans]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Argentina, Europe, European Union, South America, and Spain]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Crime, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fisheries, Food, Food Industry, Governance, Illegal Fishing, Illegal Trade, International Trade, Law, Law Enforcement, Marine, Marine Conservation, Mongabay Data Studio, Oceans, Overfishing, Politics, Saltwater Fish, and Squid]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In December, the Spanish government issued sanctions against 25 Spanish-flagged vessels that fished near the border of Argentina’s territorial waters between 2018 and 2021. The sanctions were for repeatedly turning off their satellite tracking devices that EU and Spanish laws require to be switched on to indicate a vessel’s location. Some experts have celebrated these [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In December, the Spanish government issued sanctions against 25 Spanish-flagged vessels that fished near the border of Argentina’s territorial waters between 2018 and 2021. The sanctions were for repeatedly turning off their satellite tracking devices that EU and Spanish laws require to be switched on to indicate a vessel’s location. Some experts have celebrated these sanctions as essential in curbing illegal fishing practices on the high seas. Not only do laws prohibit vessels from turning off their automatic identification systems, or AIS, but experts say ships that that go “dark” often do so when partaking in illicit behavior, such as crossing into a nation’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) without authorization. The sanctions resulted in fines of up to 60,000 euros ($65,000), but they haven’t stopped the vessels from fishing. Currently, at least five of the penalized Spanish vessels, all trawlers, are fishing off the Argentine coast, and experts expect more to arrive in the coming weeks. That said, since the issuance of the sanctions, none of the sanctioned vessels fishing in this area have turned off their AIS devices. Milko Schvartzman, a marine conservation expert at the Argentinian NGO Environmental Policies Circle, said that even if the sanctioned vessels continue to obey the law by keeping their trackers on, fishing activity off the coast of Argentina is an “environmental time bomb” due to a lack of regulation as well as the sheer number of vessels congregating in this area. He said Spain usually has a fleet of up to 50&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/spain-sanctions-fishing-vessels-for-illegally-going-dark-near-argentine-waters/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-277542</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘Extinct’ snails return to Tahiti in largest wildlife reintroduction ever</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/extinct-snails-return-to-tahiti-in-largest-wildlife-reintroduction-ever/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/extinct-snails-return-to-tahiti-in-largest-wildlife-reintroduction-ever/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Apr 2023 14:58:20 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/04/28144741/Partula-snail-reintroductions-c-London-Zoo-5-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=268084</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[French Polynesia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Charismatic Animals, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Extinction, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Invasive Species, Molluscs, Rediscovered Species, Reintroductions, and Species]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Polynesian tree snail, a tiny mollusk about the size of an aspirin pill, used to be found in abundance on Tahiti, the largest island in French Polynesia. But about 30 years ago, the little snail was eaten out of existence by two larger snails — the giant African land snail (Lissachatina fulica) and the rosy [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Polynesian tree snail, a tiny mollusk about the size of an aspirin pill, used to be found in abundance on Tahiti, the largest island in French Polynesia. But about 30 years ago, the little snail was eaten out of existence by two larger snails — the giant African land snail (Lissachatina fulica) and the rosy wolf snail (Euglandina rosea) — that humans introduced to the islands. In 1994, the Polynesian tree snail (Partula nodosa) was declared extinct in the wild. Other Partula snail species have also been marked as extinct in the wild or critically endangered. However, some Partula snails lived on in captivity. In the 1990s, conservation experts from various zoos — including London and Whipsnade zoos (which are part of the ​​Zoological Society of London, or ZSL), the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, and Saint Louis Zoo in the United States — had rescued some of the last remaining individuals of several Partula species. And over the past decade, they’ve been slowly reintroducing them to the wild. In April, zookeepers organized yet another reintroduction, this one involving the transport of 5,522 extinct-in-the-wild and critically endangered Partula snails to the French Polynesian islands of Moorea and Tahiti. According to ZSL, this was the largest-ever release of extinct-in-the-wild species. In April, zookeepers transported 5,522 extinct-in-the-wild and critically endangered Partula snails to  French Polynesian islands Image by RZSS. “Despite their small size these snails are of great cultural, ecological and scientific importance — they&#8217;re the Darwin’s finches of the snail world, having&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/extinct-snails-return-to-tahiti-in-largest-wildlife-reintroduction-ever/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/extinct-snails-return-to-tahiti-in-largest-wildlife-reintroduction-ever/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-268084</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Fishy business of squid vessels needs stronger regulation, study says</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/fishy-business-of-squid-vessels-needs-stronger-regulation-study-says/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/fishy-business-of-squid-vessels-needs-stronger-regulation-study-says/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Mar 2023 16:11:12 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/03/15155315/GFW-squid-fishery-Peru_3-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=266502</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Oceans]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, data, Ecosystems, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, GPS, Illegal Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Oceans, Overfishing, Remote Sensing, Saltwater Fish, Squid, and Tracking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Squid fishing could be getting out of control due to the industry’s lack of regulations, scientists say, prompting calls for greater oversight. Thousands of squid fishing vessels operate across the world, using light to lure the eight-armed cephalopods to the surface and catching them with nets or jigging equipment. While some research suggests that squid [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Squid fishing could be getting out of control due to the industry’s lack of regulations, scientists say, prompting calls for greater oversight. Thousands of squid fishing vessels operate across the world, using light to lure the eight-armed cephalopods to the surface and catching them with nets or jigging equipment. While some research suggests that squid are globally abundant, other evidence suggests that overfishing is driving some populations to decline, including the jumbo flying squid (Dosidicus gigas) in the Southeast Pacific and the Argentine shortfin (Illex argentinus) in the Southwest Atlantic. Experts also say that most squid fishing takes place in unregulated areas in international waters, which has allowed the industry to operate without scrutiny. In a new study published in Science Advances, researchers from Global Fishing Watch, the University of California, Santa Cruz, the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security at the University of Wollongong, and the Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency used satellite and vessel tracking data to study the movements of the squid fishing vessels. It found that squid fishing across the global oceans increased by 68% over three years (2017-2020), accounting for about 4.4 million total hours of fishing time. The study also indicated that 86% of this fishing occurred in unregulated areas, and that many of the vessels traveled long distances to operate in different regions. “A major challenge with unregulated fisheries is that we don’t know what we don’t know — and the data to deeply understand questions about stock status and&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/fishy-business-of-squid-vessels-needs-stronger-regulation-study-says/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-266502</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘They’re everywhere out there’: Three new nautilus species described</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/theyre-everywhere-out-there-three-new-nautilus-species-described/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/theyre-everywhere-out-there-three-new-nautilus-species-described/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Feb 2023 14:21:27 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/02/21134816/Nautilus-vitiensis-Nautilus-samoaensis-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=265806</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Oceans]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Pacific Ocean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Fish, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Molluscs, New Discovery, Oceans, Research, Species Discovery, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[During the 16th century, European traders sailed to the Maluku Islands, in what is today eastern Indonesia, seeking spices like nutmeg, cloves and pepper. The traders also found something else of interest: spiral-shaped nautilus shells, once inhabited by deep-sea mollusks fringed with an abundance of tentacles. The shells, patterned with white and brown stripes on [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[During the 16th century, European traders sailed to the Maluku Islands, in what is today eastern Indonesia, seeking spices like nutmeg, cloves and pepper. The traders also found something else of interest: spiral-shaped nautilus shells, once inhabited by deep-sea mollusks fringed with an abundance of tentacles. The shells, patterned with white and brown stripes on the outside and mother-of-pearl on the inside, were shipped back to Europe and sold as curiosities, or turned into opulent goblets embellished with gold. This fascination with nautiluses has never ceased. Over the centuries, nautilus shells have inspired math, poetry, jewelry and paintings. The word “nautilus” has been used to name ships, luxury watch collections, exercise machines, and even a deep-sea mining company. But despite the nautilus’s ubiquity in our world, scientists know surprisingly little about these animals, whose lineage stretches back 500 million years. For instance, no one has ever seen a nautilus egg in the wild. And while they’re believed to live about 15 years, scientists find it impossible to age a nautilus after its shell is fully developed. Conservation biologist Gregory Barord calls the nautilus the “most mysterious, well-known animal.” “If you compare them to the octopus, the amount of information we know about them is virtually nothing,” Barord tells Mongabay. “The most information we had on them was that their populations were declining everywhere because of the shell trade, yet we didn&#8217;t know anything about the actual animals.” Barord, who holds positions at both the conservation group Save the Nautilus and&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/theyre-everywhere-out-there-three-new-nautilus-species-described/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-265806</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘A mollusk is as important as a tiger’: Q&#038;A with Prem Bahadur Budha</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/10/a-mollusk-is-as-important-as-a-tiger-qa-with-prem-bahadur-budha/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/10/a-mollusk-is-as-important-as-a-tiger-qa-with-prem-bahadur-budha/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Oct 2022 07:08:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/10/25062112/Mahendra-gufa-searching-snails-3-March-30-2008-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=261804</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Environment, Molluscs, Research, Species Discovery, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — Dashain, in Nepali Hinduism, commemorates the victory of the goddess Durga over the demon Mahishasura. It’s a multiday holiday in the Himalayan country, the biggest one of the year, and this year fell in early October. For Prem Bahadur Budha, Dashain this year also brought with it a special gift to honor his [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — Dashain, in Nepali Hinduism, commemorates the victory of the goddess Durga over the demon Mahishasura. It’s a multiday holiday in the Himalayan country, the biggest one of the year, and this year fell in early October. For Prem Bahadur Budha, Dashain this year also brought with it a special gift to honor his contribution to the study of mollusks in the country. “This year’s Dashain gift for me: Endothyrella prembudhai, the new species of land snail described by renowned and famous mollusc taxonomists Barna Páll-Gergely and Jozef Grego,” he wrote in a Facebook post. Budha and his team of malacologists have to date described 18 species of mollusks new to science in Nepal. He’s also responsible for publishing the most up-to-date list of land snails found in the country — an achievement noted by Páll-Gergely and Grego in their paper describing the new species, also found in Nepal, in the Journal of Conchology. Budha and his team of malacologists have to date described 18 species of mollusks new to science in Nepal. Image courtesy of Prem Bahadur Budha. Budha, a zoology professor at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, says he believes the Himalayas are a treasure trove for mollusks, and estimates that only 5% of the species in the phylum found in Nepal have been described so far. Mongabay’s Abhaya Raj Joshi recently spoke with Budha over the phone about his illustrious career in malacology and the challenges faced by mollusks in Nepal. The following interview has been translated&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/10/a-mollusk-is-as-important-as-a-tiger-qa-with-prem-bahadur-budha/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-261804</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As seizures of poached giant clams rise, links to ivory trade surface</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/as-seizures-of-poached-giant-clams-rise-links-to-ivory-trade-surface/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/as-seizures-of-poached-giant-clams-rise-links-to-ivory-trade-surface/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Oct 2021 15:02:43 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/10/15122445/DSC_9427-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=248233</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[China, Japan, and Philippines]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Ecosystems, Elephants, Global Environmental Crisis, Ivory, Marine, Marine Animals, Molluscs, Oceans, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In April 2021, authorities in the Philippines made a notable discovery. On a beachfront property on Sitio Green Island in Palawan province, they found shell after shell of giant clams, all protected species, laid out on the sand. The stockpile of shells weighed more than 200 metric tons, and their commercial value was estimated at [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In April 2021, authorities in the Philippines made a notable discovery. On a beachfront property on Sitio Green Island in Palawan province, they found shell after shell of giant clams, all protected species, laid out on the sand. The stockpile of shells weighed more than 200 metric tons, and their commercial value was estimated at around 1.2 billion Philippine pesos ($23.6 million), making this the most substantial confiscation in Palawan. This seizure wasn’t an isolated incident. In the past five years, authorities have reported making 13 similar seizures of clamshells across the Philippines, where federal law prohibits the gathering, possession or trade of seven of the 12 known giant clam species. Violators face fines or imprisonment. The frequency of these seizures led investigators working with Netherlands-based NGO Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC) to identify the giant clamshell trade as a “cause of concern.” A new report released Oct. 6 by the organization suggests the trade most likely has links with organized crime syndicates. It could also be endangering elephants due to the possibility that carvers are using giant clamshells as ivory substitutes, the report says. It also pinpoints China and Japan as potential markets of concern, although it notes that very little is known about the trade in these countries. “We thought this was an important issue to flag,” Olivia Swaak-Goldman, executive director of WJC, told Mongabay in a phone interview. “Giant clams are not quite as charismatic as other iconic species … and they often get overlooked. And yet, the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/as-seizures-of-poached-giant-clams-rise-links-to-ivory-trade-surface/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/as-seizures-of-poached-giant-clams-rise-links-to-ivory-trade-surface/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-248233</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Philippines banks on new fisheries management system, but rollout is rocky</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/philippines-banks-on-new-fisheries-management-system-but-rollout-is-rocky/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/philippines-banks-on-new-fisheries-management-system-but-rollout-is-rocky/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Jul 2021 06:18:41 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Keith Anthony Fabro]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Leilani]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/07/21055256/Palawan2_Ouie-Sanchez_USAID-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=245007</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Oceans]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Philippines, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Ecosystems, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Illegal Fishing, Law, Law Enforcement, Marine, Oceans, and Squid]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[PALAWAN, Philippines — As darkness creeps in, the coastal waters surrounding the off-grid island of Calibangbangan become aglow with blinding lights. For the fishermen who’ve lived in this sleepy community about 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of Manila all their lives, this dazzling vista signals not celebration but despair. Terso Languyod Jr., 38, says this [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[PALAWAN, Philippines — As darkness creeps in, the coastal waters surrounding the off-grid island of Calibangbangan become aglow with blinding lights. For the fishermen who’ve lived in this sleepy community about 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of Manila all their lives, this dazzling vista signals not celebration but despair. Terso Languyod Jr., 38, says this unwelcome nightly display casts a literal light on the pervasive problem of illegal commercial fishing in municipal waters here and elsewhere in the Philippines. Languyod is one of the country’s 928,000 small-scale fishermen who have seen their catches shrinking due to the ravages of illegal commercial fleets, which can remove tons upon tons of fish in a single night from these highly productive areas. Calibangbangan is one of several islands that make up the municipality of Linapacan, one of the Philippines’ most biodiverse marine areas. Languyod says the presence of domestic industrial fishing vessels scouring coastal fishing grounds here have increased over the years and even intensified during the pandemic. Conservation-focused NGO Oceana runs a monitoring unit called Karagatan Patrol that tracks the presence of commercial fleets within what’s known in the Philippines as municipal waters: an area that extends 15 km (9 mi) from the coast, and where only small-scale local fishers can legally operate. Languyod’s hometown has been on the Karagatan Patrol&#8217;s list of areas with the greatest number of commercial fishing vessels inside municipal waters since 2018. In 2020, commercial fishing vessels were detected 959 times in Linapacan, putting it ninth nationwide&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/philippines-banks-on-new-fisheries-management-system-but-rollout-is-rocky/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/philippines-banks-on-new-fisheries-management-system-but-rollout-is-rocky/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-245007</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As minister and activists trade barbs, Madagascar’s forests burn</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/as-minister-and-activists-trade-barbs-madagascars-forests-burn/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/as-minister-and-activists-trade-barbs-madagascars-forests-burn/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Dec 2020 09:00:25 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Malavika Vyawahare]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavikavyawahare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/12/16093644/madagascar_190855-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=237910</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Conservation in Madagascar]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Madagascar]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[COVID-19, data, Deforestation, Fires, Lemurs, Molluscs, Rainforests, Remote Sensing, Sustainable Forest Management, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A long and intense fire season is exacting a grim toll across Madagascar. At its onset in May, a wave of fires ate into the dry forests that line the island’s western coast, one of the world&#8217;s most threatened biomes. In the past two months, the rainforests fringing the eastern coast have gone up in [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A long and intense fire season is exacting a grim toll across Madagascar. At its onset in May, a wave of fires ate into the dry forests that line the island’s western coast, one of the world&#8217;s most threatened biomes. In the past two months, the rainforests fringing the eastern coast have gone up in flames. &#8220;This year, the fire points in Madagascar are very numerous bush fires, forest fires, urban fires,&#8221; said Haingosoa Hortençia, a national coordinator for the Green Party, who until recently worked at the environment ministry, or MEDD. “There are fires all over the twenty-two regions of Madagascar.” An interactive map from Global Forest Watch displaying fire alerts recorded by NASA satellites from September 1 to December 1 this year. In the period from May to November, 50,000 more fire alerts were recorded this year compared to last year, a 17% rise, as per NASA satellite data analyzed by the forest mapping platform Global Forest Watch (GFW). In the past three months alone Madagascar has reported nearly 200,000 fire alerts. Hortençia blamed the environment minister&#8217;s &#8220;negligence, ignorance and bad governance,&#8221; for the situation, saying they should have had a longer-term strategy to fight the fires and been more responsive to reports from the ground. The minister contests these claims. Fire alerts recorded by NASA satellites from May 1 to Aug 1. 2020/ Global Forest Watch. Fire alerts recorded by NASA satellites from September 1 to December 1. 2020/ Global Forest Watch. One could fit 16 Madagascar-sized&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/as-minister-and-activists-trade-barbs-madagascars-forests-burn/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/as-minister-and-activists-trade-barbs-madagascars-forests-burn/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-237910</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New snail subspecies with ‘upside down shell’ found in last green frontier east of Manila</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/new-snail-subspecies-with-upside-down-shell-found-in-last-green-frontier-east-of-manila/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/new-snail-subspecies-with-upside-down-shell-found-in-last-green-frontier-east-of-manila/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Dec 2020 02:57:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Leilani]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/12/01024407/snail2-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=237193</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Philippines, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[COVID-19, Illegal Logging, Mining, Molluscs, New Discovery, and Species Discovery]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[MANILA — In 2017, a group of researchers surveying mollusks in a popular ecotourism site east of the Philippine capital stumbled upon a tiny land snail with a unique “upside down shell.” It was a microsnail, its shell just about the size of an ant, and it was found crawling along the jagged limestone boulders [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[MANILA — In 2017, a group of researchers surveying mollusks in a popular ecotourism site east of the Philippine capital stumbled upon a tiny land snail with a unique “upside down shell.” It was a microsnail, its shell just about the size of an ant, and it was found crawling along the jagged limestone boulders of Masungi Georeserve, looking for lichens and other vegetation to feed on.  While the snail carries its shell in a typical position when it moves, with the pointed whorl at the top, when resting in crevices it moves its shell so that the whorl is underneath. The researchers said they spotted the Hypselostoma latispira masungiensis and its unique “upside down shell position” on the first day of their survey. Photo courtesy of the University of the Philippines Los Baños research team Emmanuel Ryan de Chavez, an associate professor at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) and curator of mollusks at the UPLB Museum of National History, and his students were initially unable to identify it. But they later found an old paper describing a similar snail, called Hypselostoma latispira, found 200 kilometers (120 miles) away in upland Baguio City. “We initially identified the Masungi snail as Hypselostoma latispira,” de Chavez tells Mongabay. The group then went to Baguio City, some 250 km (180 mi) north of Manila, to closely examine the species. “However, upon further examination of the shell morphometrics and shape, and other taxonomically important characters, the Masungi Hypselostoma is different from&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/new-snail-subspecies-with-upside-down-shell-found-in-last-green-frontier-east-of-manila/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/new-snail-subspecies-with-upside-down-shell-found-in-last-green-frontier-east-of-manila/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-237193</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The crypto-creature from the deep: Researchers get rare video of bigfin squid</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/11/the-crypto-creature-from-the-deep-researchers-get-rare-video-of-bigfin-squid/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/11/the-crypto-creature-from-the-deep-researchers-get-rare-video-of-bigfin-squid/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Nov 2020 14:00:23 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Malavika Vyawahare]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavikavyawahare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/11/11115112/Fig-6-B_bigfin1-768x382.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=236736</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Australia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Deep Sea, Deep Sea Mining, Ecosystems, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Research, Species, Squid, and Videos]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A sighting of one of the deep ocean&#8217;s most mysterious beings, the bigfin squid, in Australian waters for the first time is creating waves among the scientific community&#8217;s squid squad. &#8220;It seems other-worldly, and although some people find them a bit spooky, I find their coloration delicate, and their flapping fins and trailing arms quite [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A sighting of one of the deep ocean&#8217;s most mysterious beings, the bigfin squid, in Australian waters for the first time is creating waves among the scientific community&#8217;s squid squad. &#8220;It seems other-worldly, and although some people find them a bit spooky, I find their coloration delicate, and their flapping fins and trailing arms quite calming to watch,&#8221; said Deborah Osterhage, first author of a new paper in PLOS ONE detailing the findings. Surveys over the course of three years captured high-definition video of five individuals from the Magnapinna genus. With their outsized fins, these squids resemble marine flowers moving silkily across the frame. Though lone bigfin squids have been glimpsed over the decades, these rare sightings remain the kind of novelty that makes scientists jump out of their chairs. Bigfin squid. &#8220;The most interesting thing is that they saw so many of them so close together. There are published records and several unpublished observations, but I have never heard of anybody coming across more than one at a time,&#8221; said Mike Vecchione, a NOAA scientist, curator at Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and a leading authority on squids. While Osterhage and her team could distinguish the squids they saw in the video as bigfins, they could not ascertain the species. The Magnapinna genus consists of three species: M. atlantica, M. pacifica and M. talismani. However, to identify them from snatches of video captured thousands of meters underwater is extremely difficult. What makes the task nearly impossible is that no adult bigfin&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/11/the-crypto-creature-from-the-deep-researchers-get-rare-video-of-bigfin-squid/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/11/the-crypto-creature-from-the-deep-researchers-get-rare-video-of-bigfin-squid/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-236736</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New evidence suggests China’s ‘dark’ vessels poached in Galápagos waters</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/new-evidence-suggests-chinas-dark-vessels-poached-in-galapagos-waters/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/new-evidence-suggests-chinas-dark-vessels-poached-in-galapagos-waters/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Oct 2020 15:23:31 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/10/09151948/180921-OM-SA-Chinese-squid-vessel-being-refuelled-by-Peruvian-tanker-Alorca-_66A9512-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=235696</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Galapagos and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation Technology, data, Ecosystems, Environment, Fishing, Global Environmental Crisis, GPS, Green, Illegal Fishing, Law, Law Enforcement, Marine, Marine Animals, Oceans, Overfishing, Remote Sensing, Satellite Imagery, Squid, Tracking, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In late June, a fleet of about 300 Chinese fishing vessels swarmed around the rich, biodiverse waters of the Galápagos Islands, armed with overhead lights and industrial jigging machines to attract and catch squid. For the next few months, the vessels remained around the edge of the Ecuadoran islands’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ), raising concerns [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In late June, a fleet of about 300 Chinese fishing vessels swarmed around the rich, biodiverse waters of the Galápagos Islands, armed with overhead lights and industrial jigging machines to attract and catch squid. For the next few months, the vessels remained around the edge of the Ecuadoran islands’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ), raising concerns among conservationists that the fleet would overexploit the squid and capture endangered species such as rays and sharks. Another worry was also hovering: would the vessels enter the EEZ and illegally fish, putting even more pressure on the delicate marine region and violating Ecuador’s sovereignty? A composite data image showing all AIS vessel traces, and the intensity of RF activity as the fleet swarmed along the southern edge of the EEZ boundary of the Galapagos Islands. Image by HawkEye 360. China’s ambassador to Ecuador said the fleet followed international fishing regulations and did not partake in any illegal activity, and Ecuadoran authorities said the fleet did not enter its waters. However, new information released last week by HawkEye 360, a Virginia-based data analytics company, shows that unidentified vessels were indeed present inside the Ecuadoran EEZ at the same time as many Chinese-owned fishing ships were undetectable via their automatic identification system (AIS), a GPS-based system that publicly transmits a vessel’s identity, speed and location. There’s a strong correlation between these events, but they don’t necessarily confirm that illegal fishing took place, experts say. However, this new layer of information paints a fuller picture of what&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/new-evidence-suggests-chinas-dark-vessels-poached-in-galapagos-waters/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/10/new-evidence-suggests-chinas-dark-vessels-poached-in-galapagos-waters/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-235696</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Study: Chinese ‘dark fleets’ illegally defying sanctions by fishing in North Korean waters</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/study-chinese-dark-fleets-illegally-defying-sanctions-by-fishing-in-north-korean-waters/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/study-chinese-dark-fleets-illegally-defying-sanctions-by-fishing-in-north-korean-waters/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Jul 2020 19:50:12 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ashoka Mukpo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Ashoka]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/07/22201734/flying-squid-Bernardo-Alps-NOAA-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=232866</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Oceans]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[North Korea and Pacific Ocean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation Technology, Global Environmental Crisis, Illegal Fishing, Oceans, Overfishing, Remote Sensing, Satellite Imagery, Squid, Technology, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Chinese “dark fleets” illegally fished a $440 million haul of the squid species Todarodes pacificus in North Korean waters during 2017 and 2018, according to a study published today in the journal Science Advances. The study used a novel set of satellite images to track fishing vessels operating off the northeast coast of the Korean [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Chinese “dark fleets” illegally fished a $440 million haul of the squid species Todarodes pacificus in North Korean waters during 2017 and 2018, according to a study published today in the journal Science Advances. The study used a novel set of satellite images to track fishing vessels operating off the northeast coast of the Korean peninsula, including satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR), visible infrared imaging radiometer suite sensors (VIIRS), high-resolution optical imagery, and identification beacon data from some of the vessels themselves. Its authors say that this is one of the first times those technologies have been combined to map illicit fishing at such a large scale over a years-long period. “We believe that this study marks the beginning of a new era in fisheries management, transparency, and monitoring,” said Jaeyoon Park, senior data scientist at Global Fishing Watch and a co-lead author of the paper. Park and his colleagues used data collected from Planet Labs, an Earth-imaging company that has also been instrumental in tracking deforestation caused by hard-to-track illegal gold mining, to map the movement of fishing boats in contested waters around the Korean peninsula. They found that in 2017, more than 900 Chinese fishing boats traveled to an area in North Korea’s exclusive economic zone, followed by another 700 in 2018. Origin of vessels fishing in North Korean waters. During 2017 and 2018, vessels that fished in North Korean waters originated from Chinese ports and also fished in Chinese waters. Included are all AIS positions broadcast by&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/study-chinese-dark-fleets-illegally-defying-sanctions-by-fishing-in-north-korean-waters/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/study-chinese-dark-fleets-illegally-defying-sanctions-by-fishing-in-north-korean-waters/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-232866</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The ‘blue acceleration’: Study shows humans’ surging incursions into the sea</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/the-blue-acceleration-study-shows-humans-surging-incursions-into-the-sea/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/the-blue-acceleration-study-shows-humans-surging-incursions-into-the-sea/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Feb 2020 13:17:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Grace Dungey]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/02/13130842/GDungey_BlueAcceleration_Rigs-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=227129</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Sea Change]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Deep Sea, Deep Sea Mining, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Global Environmental Crisis, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Molluscs, Oceans, Research, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Humanity has depended on the ocean for millennia. Today, however, the rush to the sea is occurring with unprecedented diversity and intensity, propelled by population growth and demand for diminishing terrestrial resources. A study published in January in the new journal One Earth analyzed 50 years of data on 18 kinds of marine resource claims, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Humanity has depended on the ocean for millennia. Today, however, the rush to the sea is occurring with unprecedented diversity and intensity, propelled by population growth and demand for diminishing terrestrial resources. A study published in January in the new journal One Earth analyzed 50 years of data on 18 kinds of marine resource claims, broadly grouped as food, material and space. The authors, from the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, captured the results in a series of graphs showing the amount of activity since 1970 in areas such as marine aquaculture, shipping, deep hydrocarbons, and offshore windfarms. The graphs all show sharp upticks in the past 20 to 30 years. The authors call this race for the sea the “blue acceleration.” “The current narrative is that we are about to move into the ocean as the new frontier,” lead author Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, a Ph.D. candidate in sustainability science, told Mongabay. “However, when you look at the graphs, it has started already.” A new paper synthesizes data from various sources to document what the authors call the “blue acceleration,” humanity’s intensifying reliance on the ocean for food, materials and space. Image shows global trends in (A) marine aquaculture production; (B) deep offshore hydrocarbon production, including gas, crude oil, and natural gas liquids below 125 m; (C) total area of seabed under mining contract in areas beyond national jurisdiction; (D) cumulative contracted seawater desalination capacity; (E) accumulated number of marine genetic sequences associated with a patent with international protection; (F)&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/the-blue-acceleration-study-shows-humans-surging-incursions-into-the-sea/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/the-blue-acceleration-study-shows-humans-surging-incursions-into-the-sea/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-227129</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Protecting the strange sea pangolin and other animals: Q&#038;A with deep sea biologist Chong Chen</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/protecting-the-strange-sea-pangolin-and-other-animals-qa-with-deep-sea-biologist-chong-chen/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/protecting-the-strange-sea-pangolin-and-other-animals-qa-with-deep-sea-biologist-chong-chen/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Aug 2019 21:29:11 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/08/07103708/vent-creatures-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=221114</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Sea Change]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global and Indian Ocean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Deep Sea, Deep Sea Mining, Endangered Species, Environment, Interviews, Marine, Marine Animals, Molluscs, Research, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
											<grant>
							<![CDATA[2163-3717]]>
						</grant>
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[When Chong Chen was in high school, he came across a paper published in 2003 that described a peculiar species of snail from the Indian Ocean, thousands of feet below the water’s surface. The snail lived at the base of hydrothermal vents — fissures on the ocean floor that spew out a hot mix of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[When Chong Chen was in high school, he came across a paper published in 2003 that described a peculiar species of snail from the Indian Ocean, thousands of feet below the water’s surface. The snail lived at the base of hydrothermal vents — fissures on the ocean floor that spew out a hot mix of minerals like iron, copper and nickel — and had a foot covered in armor-like overlapping scales of hardened iron sulfides, the same minerals that spurted out of the vents. Most other snails by contrast have a smooth muscular foot that they stick out of their shells to help them crawl across surfaces. The deep-sea snail’s shell was also made of iron sulfides, the only living animal known to use this material in its skeleton. Chen had always been interested in mollusks, a group of invertebrates (animals lacking a backbone) that includes snails, slugs, clams and octopuses. But the scaly-foot snail was “one of the coolest ones” he&#8217;d ever read about, Chen, now a deep-sea biologist at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), told Mongabay. “I always wanted to study molluscs and I had this interest in the deep sea, but of course, it was not developed,” he said. But then he came across an opportunity to do a Ph.D. in deep-sea biology at the University of Oxford, and he jumped on it. Chen went on to study the scaly-foot snail in detail, visiting seamounts and hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/protecting-the-strange-sea-pangolin-and-other-animals-qa-with-deep-sea-biologist-chong-chen/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/protecting-the-strange-sea-pangolin-and-other-animals-qa-with-deep-sea-biologist-chong-chen/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-221114</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Thousands of endangered snails raised in captivity returned to natural habitat in Bermuda</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/thousands-of-endangered-snails-raised-in-captivity-returned-to-natural-habitat-in-bermuda/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/thousands-of-endangered-snails-raised-in-captivity-returned-to-natural-habitat-in-bermuda/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Jun 2019 13:14:19 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mike Gaworecki]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/06/26125953/Greater-Bermuda-land-snail_1210px-768x451.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=219846</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[United Kingdom]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Captive Breeding, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Invertebrates, Molluscs, Reintroductions, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Thousands of captive-bred greater Bermuda land snails are heading home. Due mostly to predation by invasive species of carnivorous snails and flatworms, greater Bermuda land snails (Poecilozonites bermudensis) were driven nearly to extinction in their native habitat on the oceanic islands of Bermuda over the past several decades. In fact, the snails were believed to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Thousands of captive-bred greater Bermuda land snails are heading home. Due mostly to predation by invasive species of carnivorous snails and flatworms, greater Bermuda land snails (Poecilozonites bermudensis) were driven nearly to extinction in their native habitat on the oceanic islands of Bermuda over the past several decades. In fact, the snails were believed to have disappeared altogether until 2014, when a small population was discovered. It’s estimated that there are less than 200 of the snails remaining in the wild, but that population has now been joined by 4,000 individuals bred in captivity in the UK and reintroduced on Bermuda’s Nonsuch Island — a nature reserve with strict quarantine protocols designed to ensure that alien species detrimental to the snails will not be introduced to the island. Following the 2014 rediscovery of the greater Bermuda land snail, scientists at the UK’s Chester Zoo and the Zoological Society of London launched a collaborative captive breeding program for the snails at the request of the Bermudian government. Over the past three years, the breeding program has built up a population of the snails with sufficient numbers to begin reintroductions in the wild. Thousands of the rare snails have been returned to the wild. Photo courtesy of Chester Zoo. “It’s incredible to be involved in a project that has prevented the extinction of a species,” Gerardo Garcia, Chester Zoo’s curator for lower vertebrates and invertebrates, said in a statement. Garcia described the greater Bermuda land snail as “one of Bermuda’s oldest endemic&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/thousands-of-endangered-snails-raised-in-captivity-returned-to-natural-habitat-in-bermuda/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/thousands-of-endangered-snails-raised-in-captivity-returned-to-natural-habitat-in-bermuda/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-219846</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>A ‘FitBit for squid’ could help track the ocean’s squishier species</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/01/a-fitbit-for-squid-could-help-track-the-oceans-squishier-species/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/01/a-fitbit-for-squid-could-help-track-the-oceans-squishier-species/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Jan 2019 17:26:26 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Marianne Messina]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sue Palminteri]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/01/21170731/feature_fr-WHOI-video-2_crop-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=214765</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Fisheries, Invertebrates, Jellyfish, Marine, Marine Animals, Monitoring, Oceans, Open-source, Research, Solutions, Squid, Technology, Tracking, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Research on soft-bodied marine invertebrates such as squid and jellyfish has been slow in coming. Squid are keystone taxa and important food sources for myriad larger species, said T. Aran Mooney, associate scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) in Massachusetts. Squid respond to changing climate and ocean forces, Mooney told Mongabay, and in spite [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Research on soft-bodied marine invertebrates such as squid and jellyfish has been slow in coming. Squid are keystone taxa and important food sources for myriad larger species, said T. Aran Mooney, associate scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) in Massachusetts. Squid respond to changing climate and ocean forces, Mooney told Mongabay, and in spite of recent ocean changes, their populations “are doing OK.” So learning how these animals adapt to change may have significance for climate science. A longfin inshore squid (Doryteuthis pealeii) wearing an experimental tracking tag schools with others in north Atlantic waters. Video screenshot image courtesy of Daniel Cojanu/Undercurrent Productions. The commercial value of information about squid behavior is also increasing. Squid are a short-lived animal, making their populations hard to predict from year to year. The global fishing industry harvests squid by the millions of metric tons a year, and maintaining sustainable squid stocks has been at the center of more than one international squabble. Yet scientific data about why and where squid move remain scarce. One reason for this is that traditional monitoring systems and tracking tags aren’t suited for a squid’s soft, invertebrate body. After years of “making do” with the available technology for his squid studies, Mooney created a versatile tag that allows him to research squid behavior. With the help of Kakani Katija, an engineer adapting the tag for jellyfish at California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), Mooney’s team is creating a replicable system flexible enough to work across a&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/01/a-fitbit-for-squid-could-help-track-the-oceans-squishier-species/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2019/01/a-fitbit-for-squid-could-help-track-the-oceans-squishier-species/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-214765</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>More than 40 percent of Madagascar&#8217;s freshwater life sliding toward extinction, IUCN finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/03/more-than-40-percent-of-madagascars-freshwater-life-sliding-toward-extinction-iucn-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/03/more-than-40-percent-of-madagascars-freshwater-life-sliding-toward-extinction-iucn-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Mar 2018 08:01:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2018/03/21053009/madagascar_ankarafantsika_0284-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=204972</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Conservation in Madagascar]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Indian Ocean, and Madagascar]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amphibians, Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Deforestation, Ecosystem Services, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Forestry, Forests, Freshwater, Freshwater Fish, Global Environmental Crisis, Insects, Mangroves, Mass Extinction, Mining, Molluscs, Plants, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Research, Saving Species From Extinction, Slash-and-burn, Solutions, Sustainable Development, Threats To Rainforests, Traditional People, Trees, Tropical Forests, Turtles, Wetlands, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
											<grant>
							<![CDATA[G00042425]]>
						</grant>
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Madagascar is known as an ark for biodiversity that&#8217;s found nowhere else on the planet. Unfortunately, it&#8217;s also known for the bevy of threats that those distinctive species that live in its rainforests, woodlands and wetlands face. Now, the International Union for Conservation of Nature reports that many of the plants and animals living in [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Madagascar is known as an ark for biodiversity that&#8217;s found nowhere else on the planet. Unfortunately, it&#8217;s also known for the bevy of threats that those distinctive species that live in its rainforests, woodlands and wetlands face. Now, the International Union for Conservation of Nature reports that many of the plants and animals living in the island&#8217;s freshwater habitats, as well as those of other southern Indian Ocean islands, are also being pushed closer to extinction. A team of biologists compared known data on 653 freshwater species, ranging from fish and crabs to dragonflies and aquatic plants, and they found that 43 percent were either threatened with extinction or else scientists didn&#8217;t have enough information to assess how well they were doing. That&#8217;s more than double the proportion of threatened freshwater species on the African continent, according to a 2011 IUCN biodiversity survey. A rice paddy in Madagascar. The authors of the report pointed to unsustainable agricultural practices as a primary driver of species declines. Photo by Mike Averill, courtesy of IUCN. More than 150 dragonfly species that the scientists looked at are endemic to Madagascar, meaning they&#8217;re found nowhere else in the world. Other endemics include a genus of freshwater snails that bear live young. Two of the species, Madagasikara madagascariensis and Madagasikara johnsoni, are classified as endangered. The authors identified unsustainable farming &#8212; which they write includes the traditional slash-and-burn technique used by subsistence farmers around the world &#8212; as the most serious threat, particularly when it involves&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/03/more-than-40-percent-of-madagascars-freshwater-life-sliding-toward-extinction-iucn-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/03/more-than-40-percent-of-madagascars-freshwater-life-sliding-toward-extinction-iucn-finds/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-204972</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New thumbnail-sized pygmy squid discovered in Australia</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/03/new-thumbnail-sized-pygmy-squid-discovered-in-australia/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/03/new-thumbnail-sized-pygmy-squid-discovered-in-australia/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Mar 2018 00:53:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2018/03/01070218/IMG_0739-11-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=204212</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Australia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Ecosystems, Environment, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Marine, Marine Animals, Oceans, Research, Species Discovery, Squid, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Scientists have just described a new species of “pygmy squid” the size of a thumbnail. The tiny marine creature is not a true squid, though. Rather, it belongs to a group of squid-like animals believed to be the world’s smallest cephalopods, the family of marine creatures that includes octopuses, squid and cuttlefish. Pygmy squids, currently represented by [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Scientists have just described a new species of “pygmy squid” the size of a thumbnail. The tiny marine creature is not a true squid, though. Rather, it belongs to a group of squid-like animals believed to be the world’s smallest cephalopods, the family of marine creatures that includes octopuses, squid and cuttlefish. Pygmy squids, currently represented by the genus Idiosepius, grow to about 2 centimeters (0.8 inches) in body length (not including the head, arms and tentacles). Cephalopod expert Amanda Reid first encountered the new species of Idiosepius while going through preserved specimens of pygmy squids at the Australian Museum Research Institute (AMRI) in Sydney, researchers report in a new study published in Zootaxa. She found that a number of specimens from eastern Australia did not look like the other known pygmy squids, and some specimens had been misidentified. “While identifying some pygmy’s among the AM[RI] collections, I found a species that didn’t ‘fit’ based on its morphological features with those species already known from Australia,” Reid wrote in a blogpost. “In addition, it was shown to occur with another species of pygmy squid throughout the southern part of its range and had been muddled with yet a third species from the north.” To confirm its status, researchers collected several fresh specimens of the new pygmy squid, and compared its morphology and DNA with specimens of other known species of pygmy squids. Idiosepius hallami, attached to a seagrass blade, Cudgen Creek, northern New South Wales. Photo by Amanda Reid. The team has named the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/03/new-thumbnail-sized-pygmy-squid-discovered-in-australia/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/03/new-thumbnail-sized-pygmy-squid-discovered-in-australia/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-204212</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Queen conch dying out in the Bahamas despite marine parks</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/02/queen-conch-dying-out-in-the-bahamas-despite-marine-parks/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/02/queen-conch-dying-out-in-the-bahamas-despite-marine-parks/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Feb 2018 07:00:48 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jim Tan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Maria Angeles Salazar]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2018/02/15062452/conch1-737x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=203812</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Atlantic Ocean, Bahamas, and Caribbean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Environment, Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Molluscs, Oceans, Overfishing, Protected Areas, and Research]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[It’s hard to adequately describe the importance of conch to the Bahamas. Conchs are ingrained in the culture; there are conch festivals, conch homecomings and conch-cracking competitions. On the Bahamian coat of arms, a queen conch takes pride of place, sitting right at the top. But new research finds that the queen conch (Strombus gigas), [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[It’s hard to adequately describe the importance of conch to the Bahamas. Conchs are ingrained in the culture; there are conch festivals, conch homecomings and conch-cracking competitions. On the Bahamian coat of arms, a queen conch takes pride of place, sitting right at the top. But new research finds that the queen conch (Strombus gigas), economically important as food and for its decorative shell, is facing unprecedented fishing pressure throughout its Caribbean range. The study in the Marine Ecology Progress Series journal found widespread decline and an aging population among the conchs of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park (ECLSP), a marine protected area (MPA) in the Bahamas. The plight of this previously abundant and well-protected conch population is a troubling blow for this iconic marine mollusc. “Besides being a staple to the local diet, harvesting and sale of conch supports entire island economies,” the Bahamas National Trust (BNT), a non-profit organization that manages the country’s national parks, said in a statement. Conch meat is an important part of the Bahamian economy; domestic consumption is difficult to quantify but exports alone bring in an estimated $3.3 million a year. Not only are conchs economically and culturally important, but they also play a vital role in the marine ecosystem. Conch eggs and larvae, produced in the hundreds of thousands, are an important food source for a number of vulnerable and endangered marine creatures. Conchs also feed on the algae found on sea grass, preventing the sea grass from being smothered.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/02/queen-conch-dying-out-in-the-bahamas-despite-marine-parks/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2018/02/queen-conch-dying-out-in-the-bahamas-despite-marine-parks/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-203812</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘SALT’ alliance aims to tackle illegal fishing on a global scale</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2017/10/salt-alliance-aims-to-tackle-illegal-fishing-on-a-global-scale/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2017/10/salt-alliance-aims-to-tackle-illegal-fishing-on-a-global-scale/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Oct 2017 09:54:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2017/10/06085010/indonesia_komodo_172579-768x451.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=199654</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Oceans]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Aquaculture, Certification, Coastal Ecosystems, Conservation, Ecology, Economics, Ecosystems, Elasmobranchs, Environment, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Global Environmental Crisis, Illegal Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Overfishing, Saltwater Fish, Sharks, Squid, Sustainability, Technology, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A new alliance, introduced today at an EU-hosted conference on oceans in Malta, has joined the global effort to shore up legality in the seafood industry. Between 11 million and 26 million metric tons (12.1 million and 28.7 million tons) of the worldwide catch is illegal or unreported, costing as much as $23.5 billion a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A new alliance, introduced today at an EU-hosted conference on oceans in Malta, has joined the global effort to shore up legality in the seafood industry. Between 11 million and 26 million metric tons (12.1 million and 28.7 million tons) of the worldwide catch is illegal or unreported, costing as much as $23.5 billion a year, scientists reported in a 2009 study of fishing in 54 countries. According to the NGO FishWise, some countries have made strides toward improving the legality and sustainability of their fishing sector using tools such as the Marine Stewardship Council’s certification process. A fishing boat in Malaysia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler / Mongabay By launching the Seafood Alliance for Legality and Traceability, or SALT, at the Our Ocean conference in St. Julian’s, Malta, several organizations hope “to scale solutions to address the enormity of the problem.” It’s backed by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). “Seafood is the most widely traded food commodity in the world,” said Tobias Aguirre, CEO of FishWise, in a statement. &#8220;The global nature of the industry poses unique challenges to sustainability. &#8220;If we can more effectively document and trace our seafood and use that information to empower fisheries managers, we will be one big step closer to long-term sustainability of the industry.” Over the next year, FishWise will coordinate consultations between seafood companies, as well as nations that depend on&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/10/salt-alliance-aims-to-tackle-illegal-fishing-on-a-global-scale/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2017/10/salt-alliance-aims-to-tackle-illegal-fishing-on-a-global-scale/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-199654</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Did mining company drive 3 species to extinction?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2016/06/cement-company-may-have-caused-global-extinction-of-3-snail-species-in-malaysia/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2016/06/cement-company-may-have-caused-global-extinction-of-3-snail-species-in-malaysia/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Jun 2016 06:49:35 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2016/06/01200600/Plectostoma_obliquedentatum-520x303.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=187384</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporations, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Global Environmental Crisis, Invertebrates, Mining, Molluscs, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Snails are being blown to extinction. And cement companies are to blame. By quarrying limestone hills for raw materials, cement companies are invariably destroying the only habitat of many snails, wiping out entire species at one go, conservationists allege. Take Plectostoma sciaphilum for example. This beautiful, dainty snail, known only from a single limestone hill [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Snails are being blown to extinction. And cement companies are to blame. By quarrying limestone hills for raw materials, cement companies are invariably destroying the only habitat of many snails, wiping out entire species at one go, conservationists allege. Take Plectostoma sciaphilum for example. This beautiful, dainty snail, known only from a single limestone hill at Bukit Panching, Pahang, in Peninsular Malaysia, went extinct in mid 2000s when a cement company quarried the hill for limestone. Several other species of the Plectostoma snails &#8212; referred to as “microjewels” for their ethereally designed shells — are spiraling towards extinction thanks to quarrying of limestone hills. Plectostoma obliquedentatum, photographed on limestone rocks near Kampung Labang, Interior Province, Sabah. Photo by Schilthuizen, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. In fact, when scientists discovered a new snail species in 2014 on Gunung Kanthan, a limestone hill in northern Malaysia, they named it Charopa lafargei after the international cement company Lafarge that was mining the snail’s only known habitat. The scientists hoped that Lafarge would take notice and prevent the snail’s extinction. Now, conservationists allege that another Malaysian cement company, YTL Cement, may have caused the extinction of at least three species of rare snails due to limestone quarrying. YTL Cement is part of YTL Corporation that owns foreign companies like Wessex Water in the United Kingdom. The snail species &#8212; the elephant trunk snail (Hypselostoma elephas), Tenggek braided snail (Plectostoma tenggekensis) and towered braided snail (Plectostoma turriforme) &#8212; are found only in Gunung Tenggek and Gunung&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2016/06/cement-company-may-have-caused-global-extinction-of-3-snail-species-in-malaysia/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-187384</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Giant squid caught on video in Japanese harbor</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/12/giant-squid-caught-on-video-in-japanese-harbor/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2015/12/giant-squid-caught-on-video-in-japanese-harbor/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Dec 2015 18:35:49 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2015/12/02230459/giantsquid-520x195.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia and Japan]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Environment, Oceans, Squid, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A diver has captured extraordinary footage of a giant squid swimming near the water surface in a Japanese harbor, reports CNN. According to a manager at the Mizuhashi Fisherina marina in Toyama Bay, a 3.7-meter-long (12 foot) giant squid was sighted swimming under some boats on the morning of December 24. “It was the first [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A diver has captured extraordinary footage of a giant squid swimming near the water surface in a Japanese harbor, reports CNN. According to a manager at the Mizuhashi Fisherina marina in Toyama Bay, a 3.7-meter-long (12 foot) giant squid was sighted swimming under some boats on the morning of December 24. “It was the first time that we saw a live giant squid here, where water depth is only about 2.5 to 3 meters,” Tatsuya Wakasugi, a manager at the marina, was quoted as saying by The Wall Street Journal. Wakasugi said that around a dozen giant squid have gotten caught in nets since the beginning of the year. Giant squid normally live at depths exceeding 650 meters (2,000 feet), making sighting of live individuals rare. One diver responded to the unusual event by jumping into the water with the squid. Akinobu Kimura, owner of Diving Shop Kaiyu, filmed the creature. &#8220;My curiosity was way bigger than fear, so I jumped into the water and go close to it,&#8221; Kimura told CNN. &#8220;This squid was not damaged and looked lively, spurting ink and trying to entangle his tentacles around me. I guided the squid toward&#8230; the ocean, several hundred meters from the area it was found in, and it disappeared into the deep sea.&#8221; At 3.7 meters, the Toyama squid may have been a juvenile. Giant squid are believed to reach a length of up to 13 meters (43 feet).This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2015/12/giant-squid-caught-on-video-in-japanese-harbor/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-171557</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New species named after the struggle for same-sex marriage</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/10/new-species-named-after-the-struggle-for-same-sex-marriage/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/10/new-species-named-after-the-struggle-for-same-sex-marriage/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Oct 2014 14:17:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2014/10/new-species-named-after-the-struggle-for-same-sex-marriage/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia and Taiwan]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, DNA, Environment, Genetics, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Invertebrates, Islands, Molluscs, Species Discovery, Strange, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Scientists have named new species after celebrities, fictional characters, and even the corporations that threaten a species&#8217; very existence, but a new snail may be the first to be named after a global human rights movement: the on-going struggle for same-sex marriage. Scientists have named the new Taiwanese land snail, Aegista diversifamilia, meaning diverse human [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Scientists have named new species after celebrities, fictional characters, and even the corporations that threaten a species&#8217; very existence, but a new snail may be the first to be named after a global human rights movement: the on-going struggle for same-sex marriage. Scientists have named the new Taiwanese land snail, Aegista diversifamilia, meaning diverse human families. &#8220;When we were preparing the manuscript it was a period when Taiwan and many other countries and states were struggling for the recognition of same-sex marriage rights. It reminded us that Pulmonata land snails are hermaphrodite animals, which means they have both male and female reproductive organs in single individual,&#8221; explained co-author Yen-Chang Lee. &#8220;They represent the diversity of sex orientation in the animal kingdom. We decided that maybe this is a good occasion to name the snail to remember the struggle for the recognition of same-sex marriage rights.&#8221; Same sex marriage is currently not legal in Taiwan, and a bill in the government proposing to legalize same-sex marriage has been stalled by the Parliament&#8217;s judiciary committee since October 2013. A recent rally in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage in the country attracted thousands. The new snail named after the struggle for same-sex marriage: Aegista diversifamilia. Photo by: Chih-Wei Huang. The new land snail that celebrates &#8220;diverse human families,&#8221; was split from another land snail described in 1884: Aegista subchinensis. For over a century, scientists thought this species was found across Taiwan, however in 2003 Lee noticed that the eastern population of Aegista subchinensis&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2014/10/new-species-named-after-the-struggle-for-same-sex-marriage/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-24583</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Thought wiped out by climate change, &#8216;extinct&#8217; snail rediscovered in Seychelles</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/09/thought-wiped-out-by-climate-change-extinct-snail-rediscovered-in-seychelles/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2014/09/thought-wiped-out-by-climate-change-extinct-snail-rediscovered-in-seychelles/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Sep 2014 18:06:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">http://news.mongabaydev.co.uk/2014/09/thought-wiped-out-by-climate-change-extinct-snail-rediscovered-in-seychelles/</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa and Indian Ocean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Climate Change, Environment, Extinction, Global Warming, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Islands, Molluscs, and Rediscovered Species]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Discovery offers &#8216;incredible second chance&#8217; at species protection Once plentiful on a tiny coral atoll in the Indian Ocean, the Aldabra banded snail (Rachistia aldabrae) was declared extinct in 1997 as one of the world’s first recorded direct casualties of climate change. But last month, a monitoring team found a population on one of the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Discovery offers &#8216;incredible second chance&#8217; at species protection Once plentiful on a tiny coral atoll in the Indian Ocean, the Aldabra banded snail (Rachistia aldabrae) was declared extinct in 1997 as one of the world’s first recorded direct casualties of climate change. But last month, a monitoring team found a population on one of the atoll’s islands, surprising the team and giving hope that other species whose habitats are being degraded by climate change may still be able to cling to existence. The snail was named after the Aldabra atoll, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is part of the island nation of Seychelles, the capital of which lies 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) off the coast of Southeast Africa. It was declared extinct in a paper published in Biology Letters in 1997 after extensive searches turned up no evidence of the species’ existence. But on Aug. 23, a staff member with Seychelles Islands Foundation (SIF) – the organization tasked with management and protection of Aldabra – chanced upon a peculiar snail on a native tree on the island Malabar. The Aldabra banded snail (Rachistia aldabrae) is distinctive, with a dark purple shell encircled by pink rings. Photo by Catherina Onezia, SIF. “I was bush-bashing through the scrub when I spotted a mysterious snail that I’d never seen before on the island, I was very excited!” Junior Skipper Shane Brice told the Seychelles News Agency. Brice showed the snail to Senior Ranger Catherina Onezia, and its identity was confirmed by mollusk&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2014/09/thought-wiped-out-by-climate-change-extinct-snail-rediscovered-in-seychelles/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-24718</doi>				</item>
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