For decades, the nomadic Bajo people have crisscrossed the seas of Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia. But due to pollution, climate change, overfishing and other harmful practices, their way of…
JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Ashani Arulananthan says she can recall childhood visits to the beach in her home village in Sri Lanka’s northern district of Jaffna. She would collect washed-up…
JAKARTA — Coastal communities in the tropics that rely heavily on both agriculture and fisheries are most vulnerable to the losses caused by high global carbon emissions, a new study…
RAROTONGA, Cook Islands – Every Saturday, a group of Cook Islands Māori youth slide into scuba gear, grab sticks from the ironwood trees (Casuarina equisetifolia) growing along Rarotonga’s beachfront, and…
In the eastern waters off Hong Kong, a group of scientists searching for coral-eating nudibranchs stumbled upon a colorful surprise: three new species of sun corals. These orange, purple and…
GORO, New Caledonia – Known widely as the “Madagascar of the Pacific,” New Caledonia is coated in remnant Gondwana rainforest and surrounded by reefs rich in marine life that constitute one…
GORO, New Caledonia — On the south side of Grand Terre, the largest and principal island of New Caledonia in the south Pacific, mountains rise like a spine out of a…
JAKARTA — Researchers have confirmed that a lagoon in Indonesia’s Raja Ampat archipelago, a popular dive site, is a nursery for newborn and juvenile manta rays, cementing the area’s status…
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,…
Between 1869 and 1870, the H.M.S. Porcupine sailed into the North Atlantic Ocean and scraped a dredge along the seafloor. When the sailors pulled the dredge back to the surface,…
Tangled up too often in fishing nets, manta rays have been plunging toward extinction as fishing pressure and other stressors take a toll on their populations. But the species has…
Bali lies at the heart of the Pacific Coral Triangle, an area of the ocean that supports the greatest diversity of coral species in the world. The reefs around the…
“When I was a kid, it was easy to find and catch fish and to see hatchlings of turtles walking around the beach on my way to school,” says Matla’ah,…
Glover’s Reef, part of the Belize Barrier Reef, is one of only four atolls in the Western Hemisphere. The rare, ring-shaped island of coral surrounds a lagoon 45 kilometers (28…
SUMENEP, Indonesia — A coal barge that ran aground in the sea off the Indonesian island of Java remains stuck there, having already spilled much of its cargo and disrupting…
Sharing sunscreen with family and friends is part and parcel of any trip to the seaside. Now, researchers have discovered that the seagrass Posidonia oceanica also partakes, accumulating ultraviolet filters…
In 2017, a dugong washed ashore on a beach north of Townsville, Queensland, near the Great Barrier Reef. The dead animal had scratch marks on its belly and back, and…
The Great Barrier Reef is experiencing a sixth mass bleaching event, the marine park’s authority confirmed today after completing aerial surveys of the region. This is the fourth time the…
At seven in the morning, the sun rises over Sandy Bay on the Caribbean island of Roatán, Honduras. The soft light seeps through the mangroves and draws golden lines on…
In 2010, an influx of cold air blew over the lower Florida Keys, chilling the subtropical waters to temperatures as low as 11° Celsius, or 52° Fahrenheit. The coral reefs…
On May 25, 1946, the United States detonated the first underwater nuclear bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands to see what kind of damage it would cause. This…
Electrical engineer Cristiano de Mello Gallep was working in a biophotonics laboratory in the city of Limeira, in Brazil’s São Paulo state, trying to measure self-luminescence in organisms — the…
On March 9, a search expedition made a notable discovery: the 144-foot (44-meter) wooden ship known as the Endurance, that once carried explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew to Antarctica,…
Coral reefs are a unique and biodiverse natural ecosystem and economic keystones for many communities and nations. They only cover about 0.2% of the ocean floor but support 25% of…
HALMAHERA, Indonesia — Yoksan Jurumudi came home with a long face after spending the whole day looking for fish in the waters off the Obi Islands in Indonesia’s North Maluku…
AQABA, Jordan – Dozens of tiny, dazzlingly colorful fish swim around a maze of layer upon layer of corals. When divers approach, they hide near a dome-shaped colony. In the…
Less than 16% of the world’s coastal regions remain intact, while other parts are severely degraded by human activities, according to a new study. With coastal regions supporting a rich…
For years, Joaquim Garrabou donned scuba gear and dove into the waters of the Scandola Marine Reserve in Corsica to find a paradise. Twenty meters (66 feet) beneath the surface,…
Marine experts in Thailand have warned that a recent oil spill off the country’s east coast could impact sensitive underwater ecosystems that underpin local livelihoods in a nearby marine park.…
In 2015 and 2016, record ocean temperatures triggered coral bleaching events around the world — from Hawai‘i to the Caribbean to Australia — turning once-healthy polyps into ghostly skeletons. But…
