KANNIYAKUMARI, India — Anthoni Dhasan, 47, sits on the deck of his fishing boat at the harbor of Thengapattanam in Tamil Nadu, India’s southernmost state, peering out at the stormy…
The Emperor Seamount Chain is a massive and richly biodiverse set of underwater mountains stretching about 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) south from the Aleutian Islands in the northwest Pacific. From…
ATHENS — From April 15-17, state delegates, organization representatives, academics and philanthropists met at the 9th Our Ocean Conference (OOC) in Athens to discuss the protection of the world’s oceans…
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…
ATHENS — The world is currently undergoing its fourth global bleaching event, with coral bleaching occurring in the territorial waters of more than 50 countries, according to scientists at the…
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,…
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…
TOKYO — Japan is actively exploring pathways to mine the deep sea of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), in an effort to lessen reliance on imported mineral resources needed for…
KONO, Papua New Guinea — Chris Malgan sits in his outrigger canoe, singing and shaking a ring of coconut shells in the water next to the boat. The inky skies…
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…
READER ADVISORY: This story contains images of dead cetaceans that some viewers may find disturbing. More than 100,000 dolphins, porpoises and small whales are killed annually, according to a new…
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…
KONO, Papua New Guinea — News of apparent renewed interest in deep-sea mining came as a shock to Jonathan Mesulam in late 2022. Looking out over the Bismarck Sea that…
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.…
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…
Migratory species that travel long distances in the ocean, including sharks, turtles and dolphins, face an unprecedented number of threats resulting from human actions. At the latest assembly of 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…
How do you count manatees? Ideally, standing by a river while playing with the aquatic mammals. However, in a world where manatee populations face increasing threats, a faster and more…
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.
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…
The European Parliament has voted in favor of a resolution that raises concerns about Norway’s deep-sea mining intentions in Arctic waters. While the resolution itself doesn’t carry any legal power…
LAMONGAN, Indonesia — Wawan has traded in stingrays for years out of the port in Lamongan, a district in Indonesia’s East Java province. At dawn, fishers are often seen returning…
ANTANANARIVO — With coral cover declining in Madagascar, Koraï, a Franco-Malagasy startup, has shifted its focus to coral reef restoration from its predecessor’s specialization in coral export. Jeimila Donty, its…
KARACHI — His sandaled feet drenched in black mud, Rashid Rasheed points to one of the mangrove nurseries he’s been looking after for the past few years. With wooden walls…
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…
Human actions are rapidly changing the world’s oceans, whether through overfishing, pollution or coastal development. But among the most intense pressures placed on the seas right now is humanity’s ongoing…
Despite enacting different laws and regulations, both old and new, Bangladesh has faced a decline in marine fish stocks and diversity over the years, thanks to the rampant use of…