Like a mermaid on an underwater picnic, she floats gently in the current as slivers of sunlight reveal a garden of corals in the Golfo Dulce, in southern Costa Rica.…
Researchers have just made a remarkable discovery in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia. While mapping the seafloor off the coast of far north Queensland state, scientists onboard…
Unless you’re thinking of the colorful characters in the movie Finding Nemo, the first word you think of for coral reef fish is probably not “social.” But after spending a…
On the island of Siquijor in the central Philippines, groups of women risk their lives for a cause: to manage and protect their marine sanctuaries. Communities in the central Philippines…
The Aldabra coral atoll is a place of mythical beauty, uninhabited and so lost to the world that chartered flights and boats are the only way to get there. But…
A healthy coral reef system is like a well-managed city. Each resident fish has a job in maintaining the reef: some nibble away at seaweed threatening to smother the coral,…
A Japanese ship that wrecked off the coast of Mauritius in July and sparked one of the worst environmental disasters in the country’s history may have run aground because of…
MANILA — Philippine authorities’ latest efforts to clean up Manila Bay, one of the country’s most polluted bodies of water, has come under fire after they dumped truckloads of white…
Early on in his new book, The Nature of Nature: Why We Need the Wild, marine ecologist and National Geographic explorer-in-residence Enric Sala offers a warning about our ability to…
Belize, a tiny Central American nation nestled beside the Caribbean Sea, is making giant strides in its ocean conservation efforts. In the short space of a month, the government made…
On the morning of Aug.15, a wrecked ship, longer than the Titanic, broke in two in Mauritian waters. The Japanese-owned bulk carrier, M.V. Wakashio, had rammed into the island nation's…
Mauritius, envied the world over for its azure waters, alluring beaches and marine riches, is facing one of its worst environmental disasters after a ship ran aground on a coral…
BANGKA BELITUNG, Indonesia — Fishers in Sumatra have joined forces in opposition to a government plan to allow coastal mining that they say will destroy their fisheries. The government of…
MANILA — On June 8, an evidence of coral bleaching in a colony of corals was captured by diver and bleach patroller Dina Mae Rañises in Taklong Island National Marine…
Sharks are the stewards of coral reef systems. As apex predators, they pick off sick and weak fish, leaving the stronger ones to reproduce, which helps maintain the health and…
BORACAY ISLAND, Philippines — The resort island of Boracay is showing signs of recovery, thanks to an ongoing rehabilitation and the COVID-19 pandemic, which closed off the island from tourists. Authorities…
CAPE FERGUSON, Australia — In a lab on Australia’s east coast, scientists are concocting what they hope will be the solution to the steadily worsening problem of coral bleaching. Few…
Coral reefs are often called the “rainforests of the sea” because they harbor some of the highest levels of biodiversity of any ecosystem in the world. But as sea temperatures…
When sea temperatures rise, coral reefs get “stressed out.” They expel a microscopic algae called zooxanthellae from their tissues, and this process causes colorful coral polyps to “bleach” a stark…
A coalition of more than 5,000 villagers and a provincial government in Papua New Guinea has built a legal challenge against the world’s most productive battery nickel plant. The company,…
JAKARTA — As Indonesia ramps up its mining sector to feed the world’s hunger for zero-emission vehicles, it is faced with a problem: what to do with all the waste.…
Large biomes, like the Amazon rainforest, have closely linked habitats and species, which could lead to a domino effect and a rapid ecosystem collapse; even small effects can cause a crash over time.
Most of the tropical reef sites around the world are no longer able to simultaneously sustain coral reef ecosystems and the livelihoods of the people who depend on them, as…
In March, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef suffered its most widespread bleaching event to date. Sixty percent of the reef underwent moderate to severe bleaching, and some corals may never recover.…
When Terry Hughes peered through the window of a small plane gliding over the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, what he saw troubled him greatly. Instead of healthy reef systems,…
In 2012 I spent 3 weeks in Palau as part of the ‘Micronesia Challenge,’ a conservation approach sponsored by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in conjunction with Palau International Coral Reef…
Scientific monitoring and protection measures aimed at helping a critically endangered species of fish in the Caribbean appear to be working, according to a recent study. The research, published Jan.…
Over the course of seven months in 2012 and 2013, more than 70 scientists collaborated to study and map the coral reefs around the islands of French Polynesia in the…
SAMARINDA, Indonesia — Two abandoned open-pit coal mines, each of which has claimed the life of a child in Indonesia’s Eastern Kalimantan province, have been earmarked for restoration efforts led…
As humans continue to emit record levels of carbon dioxide, we are putting marine habitats at risk. One consequence of these emissions, ocean acidification, is a serious threat to many…