JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is drafting an updated five-year national strategy to protect an endemic reef fish species that’s popular in the global aquarium trade. Indonesia’s fisheries ministry said…
Hours after being born, oysters are already working to form their protective, chalk-layered shells. Drawing calcium and carbonate from seawater, they combine the two to form hardened shells. But as…
MAKASSAR, Indonesia — Andi Fadly Arifuddin is known to millions of Indonesians simply as Fadly, the vocalist for the alt-rock band Padi that shot to fame in the early 2000s.…
A new analysis of satellite data finds the Western Indian Ocean region lost around 4% its mangrove forests over the past quarter-century. In a report that discusses the state of…
WEST SUMBAWA, Indonesia — “Gentlemen present in the room — have you ever eaten turtle eggs?” This was how Musyafirin, the head of West Sumbawa district in Indonesia’s West Nusa…
Balintang, PHILIPPINES — “Seaweeds are important to me because they give me joy when we plant them,” says Melinda Gimotea, as she crouches down among the pile of seaweed seedlings…
PALAWAN, Philippines — In the middle of the brackish water of Malampaya Sound in the Philippines’ Palawan province, Panchito Calamare stands on an outrigger fishing boat one drizzling May morning,…
BODO, Nigeria — Christian Kpandei is a man of many memories. Still, the vital incidents of his life, like the death of his childhood hero, environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, grow…
Aziil Anwar, a prolific planter of mangroves on coral damaged by blast fishing in Indonesia’s West Sulawesi province, rallying many children to his cause, died in hospital on May 6.…
MEDAN, Indonesia — On a recent morning in Kampung Nelayan, a village on the northeastern coast of the island of Sumatra, fisherman Heri Gunawan returned home frustrated and dissatisfied. Heri…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has abandoned a plan to contract out long-term fishing rights to companies, following intense criticism from small-scale fishers and experts that the move would effectively…
JAKARTA — Seagrass meadows are the fishing grounds of choice for many households in four Indo-Pacific countries, according to a new study that calls for better-informed management of these often-overlooked…
In the Indonesian village of Kun-kun, where illegal loggers once cut mangroves for timber, a new livelihood has come to the fore: crab fishing. “Without the mangroves, the crabs cannot…
In late March and early April this year, researchers from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands teamed up with fishers, conservationists and scientists in Guinea-Bissau to catch, study, sample…
NATUNA/JAKARTA, Indonesia — A year after it was introduced as a replacement for a type of fishing net long seen as unsustainable, the square-mesh seine net has prompted concerns from…
The increasing difficulty of accessing clean water is forcing young women in coastal areas of Bangladesh to try to halt their menstrual cycles by misusing contraceptive pills, putting their long-term…
Earth’s vast underwater kelp forests are a vital source of food, pharmaceuticals, and more, while storing huge amounts of carbon. These undersea forests are also at risk, but researchers are working to restore them.
LISBON — The United Nations Oceans Conference (UNOC) concluded on July 1 in Lisbon after a full five days of discussions and events focused on achieving a shared goal: U.N.…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government will issue a decree that manages the country’s marine fisheries based on capture quotas, but experts have raised concerns that this new approach may threaten…
JAKARTA — Small-scale fishers in Indonesia will be exempt from an end to “harmful” subsidies agreed by governments at the World Trade Organization. Indonesian negotiators citing existing fishing quotas that…
JAKARTA — Decades of unsustainable marine governance in Indonesia have benefited extractive land-based economic activities, costing the environment and marginalized communities whose livelihoods depend on the ecosystem, a new paper…
CHELEM, Mexico — In Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, a few words describe the most common occupations: fisher, merchant, mother. Over the past decade, the port town of Chelem has seen the…
After years of scallop dredging and fish farming, Loch Craignish, a coastal inlet near Argyll, Scotland, was in disrepair. The dredging had destroyed parts of the seafloor, effluent had polluted…
March 2 marked a historic day for the global effort to eradicate plastic pollution. The United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) finally passed a draft resolution to create an international, legally…
SATKHIRA, Bangladesh — Over the past three decades, Moyna Rani Mondol, who lives right on the coast in Bangladesh's southwestern district of Satkhira, has lost her home around 10 times…
In the 18th century, when European ships sailed into the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the Northwest coast of the Atlantic Ocean, they raved about the “wilderness” of the…
Conservationists have long recognized the significance of engaging locals in safeguarding the ecosystems they live off, but assessing those relationships can be hard because of time and resource constraints. Now,…
Surf enthusiasts and volunteers are mapping out hotspots of a spectacular form of surfing on Brazil’s northern coast, in a bid to both preserve the practice and help boost tourism…
Tanzania’s Rufiji Delta is arguably the mangrove capital of East Africa, home to around 55,000 hectares (135,900 acres) of mangrove forest. In the face of the climate crisis, mangroves like…
MARERENI, Kenya — One day in April, at a few minutes past six in the morning, the sun’s golden rays lit up the sea on Kenya’s coast. A few early-rising…
