California moves closer to banning shark fin trade
Leopard Shark (Triakis semifasciata). Photo by Rhett Butler. California moved a step closer to banning the sale and trade of shark fin with the passage Tuesday of Senate Bill 376.…
Honduras protects sharks in all its waters
The Honduran island of Roatan. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Endangered sharks are finding more sanctuaries. Honduras has announced that commercial shark fishing will be banned from its 92,665 square…
Left alive and wild, a single shark worth $1.9 million
Tourism in Palau makes sharks worth more alive than dead finds a new study. Here a diver in Palau swims with five reef sharks. Photo by: Todd Essick. For the…
California proposes ban on selling shark fin
Last year Hawaii banned the sale of shark fins; California may be next. Bill 376, introduced by two Democrats, would outlaw the sale of shark fins, including the popular Asian…
U.S. passes legislation to protect sharks
The U.S. Senate has passed the Shark Conservation Act, legislation that bans shark finning in U.S. waters. The move was welcomed by marine conservationists. "The Senate has acted decisively today…
New legislation places US at forefront of shark conservation
Last week the US Senate passed the Shark Conservation Act, which bolsters the prohibition of shark-finning in US waters and puts the US at the forefront of shark conservation. Finning…
Massive shark sanctuary declared in the Coral Triangle
A shark sanctuary has been declared around the Raja Ampat islands in Indonesia. Larger than Denmark, the new sanctuary covers 17,760 square miles (46,000 square kilometers) of one of the…
What do wolves and sharks have in common?
Sharks dwell in the ocean, wolves on land; sharks are a type of fish, wolves are a mammal; sharks go back some 400 million years, wolves only some 2 million…
Island nation announces Ukraine-sized sanctuary for whales and dolphins
Dolphins, whales, and dugongs will be safe from hunting in the waters surrounding the Pacific nation of Palau. At the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya, Japan, Palau's Minister…
Shark attack victims: save sharks!
Shark attack survivors urged the United Nations to take measures to protect sharks, which are increasingly threatened by unsustainable fishing practices. Brought together by the Pew Environment Group, nine shark…
Coral reef survival depends on the super small, an interview with Forest Rohwer
If you take a teaspoon and dip it into the ocean what will you have? Some drops of lifeless water? Only a few decades ago this is what scientists would…
The biology and conservation of declining coral reefs, an interview with Kristian Teleki
Kristian Teleki, Vice President for Science Initiatives for SeaWeb and former Director of the International Coral Reef Action Network (ICRAN), spoke with Laurel Neme on her "The WildLife" radio show…
Citibank’s shark fin soup promotion draws ire, ends early
Citibank Hong Kong has canceled its promotion of shark fin soup after activists cried foul, according to the New York Times. The branch had offered Citibank card holders 15 percent…
Hawaii bans shark fin soup
Governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, has signed into law a ban on shark-fin soup beginning July 1st, 2011, according to Reuters. The soup is currently served in a number of…
World failing on every environmental issue: an op-ed for Earth Day
The biodiversity crisis, the climate crisis, the deforestation crisis: we are living in an age when environmental issues have moved from regional problems to global ones. A generation or two…
History repeats itself: the path to extinction is still paved with greed and waste
As a child I read about the near-extinction of the American bison. Once the dominant species on America's Great Plains, I remember books illustrating how train-travelers would set their guns…
CITES chooses ‘commerce’ over sharks, leaving endangered species vulnerable
Only the porbeagle shark received protection today from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Seven other shark species failed to win international protection despite plummeting populations due…
Sharks lose out at UN meeting
An effort to bolster conservation measures for plummeting shark populations was defeated yesterday at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), according to the AP. The nonbinding measure…
Sharks swim safe around the Maldives
Sharks that dwell in the Maldives can breathe a sigh of relief: the island nation has declared 90,000 square kilometers of the Indian Ocean a safe-haven for sharks, banning shark…
With increased protection, Gulf of California marine life could recover
The Gulf of California's once rich marine ecosystem is in trouble. Surveys from 1999 and 2009 revealed that during the ten-year-period 60 percent of the areas showed signs of degradation,…
UN to protect seven migratory sharks, but Australia opts out
One hundred and thirteen countries have signed on to an agreement to protect seven migratory sharks currently threatened with extinction byway of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species…
Actions taken to save sharks ‘disappointing’
Environmentalists say that the International Commissions for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) did not do enough in their yearly meeting to protect the ocean's sharks. Member countries of ICCAT…
California’s great white sharks are a distinct population
Great white sharks tracked swimming underneath Golden Gate bridge. Researchers have long thought that white sharks migrated across oceans, but a new study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society…
New species of ghostshark discovered off California’s coast
The discovery of Eastern Pacific black ghostshark Hydrolagus melanophasma is notable for a number of reasons. It is the first new species of cartilaginous fish—i.e fish whose skeletons are made…
20-foot-long washes up on New York beach
A 20-foot-long, 5,000 pound basking shark washed up on a Long Island beach yesterday, reports CNN. The shark died shortly after authorities arrived on the scene. The cause of death…
Over 30 percent of open ocean sharks and rays face extinction
The first global study of open ocean (pelagic) sharks and rays found that 32 percent of the species are threatened with extinction largely due to overfishing and bycatch, making pelagic…
Secret movements of the basking shark uncovered
Researchers with the Massachusetts Mariner Fisheries have uncovered the secret life of the world’s second largest fish, known for its cavernous mouth. The basking shark, which measures over 10 meters…
Whale sharks threatened by interbreeding
The world's largest living fish, the whale shark, is threatened by interbreeding, according to a new study in PLoS ONE. Comparing the DNA of 68 individual whale sharks from eleven…
Hundreds of rare and bizarre marine species discovered
Photos: Hundreds of strange and unknown marine species discovered Hundreds of rare and bizarre marine species discovered Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com November 9, 2008 More discoveries from the Census of Marine…
Sharks in trouble after nations fail to create sustainable management programs
Sharks in trouble after nations fail to create sustainable management programs Sharks in trouble after nations fail to create sustainable management programs Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com November 6, 2008
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Forest behind bars: Logging network operating out of Cambodian prison in the Cardamoms
- Indigenous communities in Argentina’s Chaco fear another heavy fire season in 2023
- As tourism booms in India’s Western Ghats, habitat loss pushes endangered frogs to the edge
- In a Bolivian protected area torn up for gold, focus is on limiting damage
Oceans
- As one Indian Ocean tuna stock faces collapse, nations scramble to save others
- Conservationists aim to save critically endangered European eels on Italy’s Po River
- Expedition to Pacific ecosystems hopes to learn from their resilience
- Illegal trawling ravages Tunisian seagrass meadows crucial for fish
Amazon Conservation
- Majority of Brazil’s Congress votes to restrict Indigenous land advances
- Protected areas store a year’s worth of CO₂ emissions, study reveals
- Indigenous land rights key to curbing deforestation and restoring lands: Study
- World Bank: Brazil faces $317 billion in annual losses to Amazon deforestation
Land rights and extractives
- Dams and plantations upend livelihoods in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo River Valley
- Fish deaths near Rio Tinto mine in Madagascar dredge up community grievances
- Award-winning, Indigenous peace park dragged into fierce conflict in Myanmar
- Logging permit threatens Quilombola bioeconomic ‘paradise’ in the Amazon
Endangered Environmentalists
- Indigenous chief shot in head in Brazil’s ‘palm oil war’ region; crisis group launched
- ‘You don’t kill people to protect forests’: New Thai parks chief raises alarm
- Vietnam’s environmental NGOs face uncertain status, shrinking civic space
- ‘We lost the biggest ally’: Nelly Marubo on her friend Bruno Pereira’s legacy
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
- After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
- Aziil Anwar, Indonesian coral-based mangrove grower, dies at 64
- A utopia of clean air and wet peat amid Sumatra’s forest fire ‘hell’
Conservation Effectiveness
- Study shows Kenyan elephant shrew may be adapting to human disturbance, drought
- Saving forests to protect coastal ecosystems: Japan sets historic example
- From scarcity to abundance: The secret of the ‘peace farmers’ of Colombia
- For key Bangladesh wetland, bid for Ramsar status is no guarantee of protection
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
- To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
- Robust river governance key to restoring Mekong River vitality in face of dams
