PANTURA, Indonesia — More than 10,000 brightly painted trawlers regularly come and go from the rowdy fishing ports along this 1,000-kilometer-long northern coastline of Java, the world’s most populous island.…
An Australian court has set aside the federal government’s approval for major gas company Santos Limited’s drilling plans in the Timor Sea, north of the island nation, ruling in favor…
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…
Small- and large-scale fishers report an increase in the volume and variety of fish species in the Patos Lagoon and the coast of Rio Grande do Sul state. Such abundance came after a bill banning motorized trawling on the state’s coast was passed and signed into law in 2018. Drafted by fishers and scientists and passed unanimously in the state parliament, the law goes against the interests of President Bolsonaro’s allies.
BRUSSELS — On Sept. 15, the European Commission made a historic announcement: it will prohibit bottom fishing across 16,000 square kilometers, or 6,200 square miles — an area about half…
If you have followed major climate change news in the last few years, you might believe coral reefs are going extinct. Global warming is resulting in more frequent bleaching events,…
On Sept. 14, the Hidden Gem — an industrial drill ship operated by a subsidiary of The Metals Company (TMC), a Canadian deep-sea mining corporation — left its port in…
Chiang Mai, THAILAND — Piya Thedyam was born into a fisherman's family and first went to sea with his father at age 12. “I didn't like it and almost ran…
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…
In the Davis Strait between Greenland and Canada’s Baffin Island, where only the faintest rays of sunlight penetrate, swim strange-looking flat fish with both eyes on the right side of…
In 2021, faced with an economy battered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the island nation of Maldives considered lifting a ban on shark fishing that had been in place since 2010.…
U.N. member states came tantalizingly close to sealing a deal for a high-stakes, legally binding treaty to conserve biodiversity on the high seas, areas beyond national jurisdiction that comprise two-thirds…
JAKARTA — The Citarum River that skirts the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, is infamous as the most polluted river on Earth. The rivers inside Jakarta aren’t in much better state, either,…
JAKARTA — Indonesia plans to expand protection of its seas to cover an area nearly the size of Germany by 2030 — and then tripling it by 2045. The country…
A new study has found that nearly 90% of assessed marine life will be at high or critical risk by the year 2100 if climate change accelerates along a high-emissions…
Healthy coral reefs, with their brightly colored corals and bustling schools of fish, are easy to spot underwater. New research into the marine soundscapes of reefs in the Sangkarang Archipelago…
Antarctic krill — tiny, filter-feeding crustaceans that live in the Southern Ocean — have long existed in mind-boggling numbers. A 2009 study estimated that the species has a biomass of…
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…
Ultra-strong fibers, multi-legged robots, pain relievers — all are human innovations inspired by spiders. Now, conservationists in Indonesia are rehabilitating coral reefs using what’s known as the coral spider technique.…
It starts with tiny deep-sea fragments — shark’s teeth or slivers of shell. Then, in a process thought to span millions of years, they get coated in layers of liquidized…
On July 12, oceanographer and geographer Dawn Wright was sealed inside a submersible, traveling to Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Wright and…
Delegates of the International Seabed Authority are currently meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, to negotiate a set of rules that would pave the way for a controversial activity: mining the seabed…
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…
In a sterile room, Bertalan Lendvay wields an electric drill that flicks off tiny flakes of precious coral skeletons. Lendvay, a research associate at the University of Zurich’s Institute of…
In late June, New Zealand parliamentarian and Māori activist Debbie Ngarewa-Packer boarded an international flight to begin a 40-hour journey to Lisbon to attend the U.N. Ocean Conference. At various…
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…
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…
Nearly one in four people across the planet don’t have access to a nutritious diet. But the latest “State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture” (SOFIA) report by the U.N.’s Food…
