A recent U.N. report lists tactics and recommendations for reducing human-caused ocean noise, a form of pollution that impacts marine life from tiny plankton to colossal whales. Published in June…
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…
The Norwegian government is pushing forward with plans to open its nearby ocean to deep-sea mining, despite opposition from scientists and environmentalists. On June 20, the government announced its intention…
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.…
The south polar region long seemed resistant to climate change, but as warming intensifies, impacts are being identified across the region. While signs of an irreversible tipping point are lacking, Antarctic changes will likely affect the rest of the world.
National science academies from across Europe have become the latest group to announce their support for a moratorium on deep-sea mining, a proposed but disputed activity that would extract minerals…
In a May-June meeting 135 nations agreed to press forward and write a draft of a strong international treaty regulating plastics, though some nations including the U.S., China and Saudi Arabia resisted a binding agreement.
KERKENNAH ISLANDS, Tunisia — It’s a rainy afternoon in the port of Kraten, and all the fishing boats are docked, waiting for a winter storm to pass. Some fishers have…
A population of bowhead whales living in the western Arctic has long followed the same migration patterns. But new research suggests that climate change and the subsequent melting of sea…
With 2023 expected to see record amounts of brown macroalgae washing up on Caribbean beaches, green entrepreneurs in Mexico are turning waste into biogas, biofertilizer and even faux leather; all despite big bureaucratic hurdles.
Last year, a car fueled by human waste toured the European countryside, covering more than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles). It was the culmination of To-Syn-Fuel, a pathfinding project using technology…
On April 29, a team of scientists sailed on a research vessel to the chilly waters of the Barents Sea in the Arctic. They aim to find new marine species…
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…
Norway is moving forward with plans to mine its continental shelf to procure minerals critical for renewable energy technologies. However, some scientists, members of civil society and even industry leaders…
Farah Obaidullah’s life has pivoted around the ocean. Growing up in Gabon and the Netherlands, she spent as much time as possible in or near the water, snorkeling, rescuing marine…
As meetings to oversee deep-sea mining on the high seas draw to a close, it remains unclear whether regulators will allow it to commence in the near future. At the…
New research finds that a record Arctic sea ice melt season in 2007 initiated a “regime shift” to thinner, more transient ice that may be “irreversible”; another study shows that atmospheric rivers from the south are warming the Arctic in winter.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A misty rain blows against my face as I follow Farah Obaidullah along Scheveningen Beach in the northwest part of The Hague. Despite the wind and…
When flesh-footed shearwater chicks hatch from their eggs, their parents start working to fill the chicks’ stomachs with as much food as possible. They do this for about 80 to…
Environmental advocates have long called for a ban on bottom trawling on seamounts in the South Pacific’s international waters, and they hoped one would finally be instituted at a regional…
International delegates attending the eighth annual Our Ocean Conference in Panama March 2-3 have pledged billions to protect the world’s oceans. Participants made 341 commitments worth nearly $20 billion, including…
Ocean fisheries experts Daniel Pauly and Rashid Sumaila have been awarded the 2023 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, referred to as a “Nobel Prize for the environment,” in recognition of…
In 2009, a group of Indonesian researchers published a report on the vulnerability to climate change of the eastern Indonesian island of Lombok, home to about 4 million people. Their…
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…
What comes to mind when you hear the word “fishing”? A supertrawler unloading a massive net bursting with fish onto its deck, attended by a dozen crewmembers? Or a pair…
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…
A resplendent rainbow fish, a frog that looks like chocolate, a Thai tarantula, an anemone that rides on a back of a hermit crab, and the world's largest waterlily are…
1. Negotiations for historic global plastics treaty break ground Global leaders cheered to the strike of a recycled-plastic gavel in March, signifying a landmark decision by the United Nations Environment…
A stone causeway connects an islet, the famed Aragonese Castle perched atop it, to the island of Ischia off the coast of Naples in southern Italy. Below water, along the…
When it comes to news about fishing, bottom trawling sparks some of the most dramatic stories. In September, for instance, Greenpeace activists took it upon themselves to drop 18 boulders…