Riding his bike to work in the Netherlands’ Zeeland province, Tjeerd Bouma passed fields of pear and apple trees. His mind wandered. As a coastal ecologist at the Royal Netherlands…
As climate change raises global sea temperatures, coral bleaching events are becoming more frequent and intense around the world. Yet researchers say some coral reefs may have found a way…
KURUWITU, Kenya — Six days a week, Katana Ngala reports to his workplace, a rudimentary open-air workshop by the beach. Neat and well-shaded under huge palm trees, his workshop is…
KWALE and KILIFI COUNTIES, Kenya — One June afternoon at the Mwanamia fish landing site on Kenya’s north coast, Garama Karisa was busy mending his gear for an afternoon fishing…
ORACABESSA BAY, Jamaica — An encounter with a long-spined sea urchin is fairly rare in the Caribbean these days, but not for Jaye James who is currently feeding chunks of…
The Parcel de Manuel Luís coral reef, off the coast of northeastern Brazil, is vital for the survival of 53 species at risk of extinction. Despite vetoes from Brazil’s environmental regulator, the local government seeks to give the go-ahead to oil drilling projects in the Pará-Maranhão basin.
Proposals to build an international airport on the Malaysian island of Tioman have reignited opposition from conservationists and local communities who say they’re “shocked” the project that environmental studies had…
Scientists have discovered that soft, branching corals deep in the Mediterranean Sea have remained unharmed by heat stress. In contrast, the corals in shallow waters have noticeably suffered as temperatures…
A new program in Hawai‘i will draw on the collaborative efforts of science and community to restore local corals and coastlines to make reef communities more resilient in the future.…
How do you make people care about protecting marine habitats and wildlife? You tell stories, says Enric Sala, an explorer-in-residence and founder of the Pristine Seas project at the National…
State-owned Petrobras has requested a license to investigate an oil site in a region in the north of Brazil where the Amazon River meets the Atlantic Ocean.
In the warm waters of the Caribbean, long-spined sea urchins — inky black creatures resembling pincushions stuck with knitting needles — gobble up algae with their claw-like mouths. But when…
The Comau, Reñihue and Reloncaví fjords, located in southern Chile’s Los Lagos region, are one-of-a-kind natural laboratories that host diverse species of crustaceans, sea anemones, sea cucumbers, polychaetes and corals.…
Marine heat waves have led to widespread population declines of Australian shallow reef species, particularly those associated with temperate reefs, new research suggests. In a new study published in Nature,…
As the founding Chair of the Executive Board of the Global Fund for Coral Reefs (GFCR), I have witnessed firsthand a groundbreaking effort to preserve one of Earth’s most essential…
SAMAL ISLAND, Philippines — Its official name, the Island Garden City of Samal, tells you all you need to know about this bucolic township off the coast of the southern…
As mass coral bleaching events grow in frequency and intensity, scientists are finding out more about how corals, which make up the physical foundation of reefs, respond during times of…
Machine learning can help conservationists monitor climate impacts across large swaths of marine ecosystems over extended periods of time, a task never possible before. The Delta Maps machine learning tool…
Scientists remember the years between 2014 and 2017 as a particularly bad time for coral reefs. Elevated temperatures fueled by an El Niño climate pattern harmed about three-quarters of the…
BANGKOK – A few dawns into 2022, authorities raided a shophouse in the heart of Thailand's capital city. Officers from the Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Division of the Royal Thai…
Imagine showers of little green sand grains drifting through the ocean: collecting on coral reefs, rolling off the backs of whales, sprinkling schools of tuna — and helping to save…
Damselfish can be fastidious farmers. They prune and cultivate small patches of algae, often no more than half a square meter (5 square feet) in area, ensuring they have a…
More than half of known species of coral reef sharks and rays are threatened with extinction, according to new research that underscores the urgent need for improved regional fisheries and…
Not quite aquatic but not fully terrestrial, mangrove forests are uniquely adapted to inhabit the interface between land and sea in the warmer parts of the world. Compared to the…
Ocean-dwelling sharks and rays, including the majestic reef manta ray (Mobula alfredi), have declined globally by an estimated 71% since 1970 due to fishing. But a new study of reef…
KAHU-KAHU, Indonesia — Fishers in this village on the northwestern tip of Selayar Island, in eastern Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province, are a fortnight into a community experiment. For three months,…
When Niueans are babies, their parents traditionally take them down to the seashore and throw them in the water so they learn to swim, Mona Ainu’u told Mongabay. That’s more…
In 2016, Barack Obama, the U.S. president at the time, made a proclamation: he would expand the protection of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, a stretch of ocean fringing the…
Sea turtles lumber from ocean to shore to lay their eggs in the sand. In some places, this effort is protected by humans who patrol beaches on foot, warding off…
In April 2009, ocean explorer Enric Sala and a team of marine biologists dove into the waters around the southern Line Islands, an uninhabited archipelago in the central Pacific that…
