In 2015, smelly mats of a brown macroalgae called sargassum piled as high as 1.2 meter (4 feet) on the beaches of Barbados, recalls Joshua Forte. It was the fourth…
The ninth Our Ocean conference takes place this week in Athens, Greece. It is the largest and highest profile conference of its kind, and attracts presidents and celebrities, who all…
No one on the Colombian island of Providencia was prepared for what happened on the night of Nov. 16, 2020. Not even Josefina Huffington, who had survived four hurricanes. That…
SEMBILAN ISLAND, Indonesia — Until recently, skippers on this island relied on their day’s catch of grouper, mackerel and snapper tipping the scales at around 50 kilograms (110 pounds). Today,…
RAJA AMPAT, Indonesia — Nearly a million people visit the Shark Reef Aquarium on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada every year. There’s a chance they see zebra sharks (Stegostoma…
States jostling for territorial dominance in the South China Sea have inflicted untold damage on the marine environment, according to a new investigation by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI)…
JAKARTA — Indonesia is rich in marine and fisheries resources, but how abundant are they exactly? That’s the question a group of experts, led by Annisya Rosdiana from the Fisheries…
Since he was old enough to work, Sam Elong has been a fisherman in Kribi, a coastal town of more than 90,000 inhabitants that stretches along the shore of the…
Deep-sea mining could begin in international waters as early as next year, yet policymakers are still disputing how to govern such activities. Between March 18 and 29, representatives from the…
AMCHIT, Lebanon — Amchit’s harbor bustles with activity on a sunny January morning, one of the first in more than three weeks. A group of 16 youths from the coastal…
RAJA AMPAT, Indonesia — Tucked in the curve of a bay in Indonesia’s Raja Ampat archipelago, a floating structure appears like the tip of an iceberg. Below the surface, it’s…
Thousands of miles off the southeast coast of South America lies a set of remote islands, one broad and comma-shaped, the others a series of small dots that trail off…
ANTANANARIVO — Madagascar recently released its first fisheries transparency report, part of an effort to open up, democratize, and improve the sustainability of its fisheries sector. The report is a…
JAKARTA — Indonesia is developing a satellite constellation to beef up monitoring of its marine and fisheries resources with the maiden launch of a nanosatellite scheduled this July. That inaugural…
In September 2021, Colombian police received an alert from a shipping company urging them to inspect some cardboard boxes that were about to be exported to Hong Kong from El…
Ambitions to finalize a two-part treaty to equitably stop governments from funding overfishing were dashed again at the World Trade Organization’s 13th ministerial conference in Abu Dhabi, which ended in…
Marine protected areas intended to safeguard biodiversity in the ocean come in many different sizes and shapes. Some cover large swaths of the ocean, while others are smaller in scale.…
On an island chain in the middle of the Indian Ocean lies an invaluable treasure: “white gold.” While it may not be a gem to proposition a prospective fiancée with,…
Norwegian salmon farms are taking huge amounts of wild fish from West Africa, mining the food security of the region, according to a report from the U.K.-based NGO Feedback. The…
Kamy Yeung said she wanted to do more scuba diving. So in 2014, she signed up to be a volunteer diver for a newly launched reef fish survey project in…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government’s efforts to tackle illegal fishing in its vast waters have had the unintended consequence of driving an increase in maritime piracy, according to a new…
In later 2023, the international community concluded negotiations for a new ocean governance treaty, formally called the “Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)…
To bring seabirds back to Kaho‘olawe, you need to first find the cats. And to find the cats on Kaho‘olawe, you need to know where to find the bombs. Eleven…
Over millennia, animals including walruses, seals, lemmings, muskox and migratory birds evolved to survive the polar north’s extreme cold. But on land and at sea, wildlife are struggling to adapt to a rapidly warming climate and altered ecosystems.
JAKARTA — Indonesians are set to vote in presidential and legislative elections on Feb. 14 in a landmark moment for the world’s largest archipelagic country. But maritime observers say none…
MEXICO CITY — The trafficking of valuable fish bladders found in Mexico appears to be on the rise online and on social media, and it’s having a ripple effect on…
When the body that manages fisheries across the vast international waters of the South Pacific Ocean met earlier this month, it made key decisions on bottom trawling, labor rights, observation…
A powerful strain of the avian flu has swept through seal colonies in southern Argentina, wiping out many juveniles and raising concern about a spread to other species. The flu,…
The organization responsible for managing the catch of more than half the world’s tuna holds a key section of its annual compliance meeting in secret. For three days, a committee of…
Shark conservation groups in Thailand are calling for greater marine protections and improved traceability in shark trade supply chains following a study that identified threatened shark species in products commonly…