Oceans News

A man walks past kelp in the Pacific Ocean at La Jolla Shores, San Diego.

Post-Blob, California’s kelp crisis isn’t going away

David Helvarg 9 Sep 2025

Study reveals the Pacific Garbage Patch is much heftier than thought — and it’s growing

Mongabay.com 26 Mar 2018
Gentoo penguins on Greenwich Island, part of the South Shetland Island group, Antarctica. Photo by Paul Hilton/Greenpeace.

“Save the Krill” urges Greenpeace report

Kim Smuga-Otto 23 Mar 2018
Palestinian bedouin in Gaza Valley dig for worms in the polluted shallow waters on Gaza’s coast to use for fishing. Photo by Kaamil Ahmed/Mongabay.

Gaza City residents’ water problems continue to compound

Kaamil Ahmed 12 Mar 2018
Koh Rong Sanloem, one of seven islands that make up Cambodia’s new Koh Rong Marine National Park. Photo by Wikirictor via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Cambodia creates its first marine national park where pirate fishers prowl

Matt Blomberg 12 Mar 2018

Plastic not so fantastic for Bali’s iconic manta rays

Mongabay.com 9 Mar 2018

New maps reveal industrial fishing in over half of world’s oceans

Shreya Dasgupta 24 Feb 2018

Duterte orders navy to fire on foreign poachers in Philippine waters

Mongabay.com 14 Feb 2018
A fish die off from chemical spill in Vietnam in 2016. Photo via Maisondelinspir.

Vietnamese activist gets 14-year sentence for documenting chemical spill

Mongabay 8 Feb 2018
A boy uses several mosquito nets to catch fish in the coastal waters near Chittagong, Bangladesh. Photo by R.C. Browmick.

Fishing with insecticide-laced mosquito nets is a global phenomenon

Benjamin Graham 6 Feb 2018
A local volunteer plants a mangrove sapling at the Trapeang Sangke inlet. The best time for transplanting is July, the peak of the wet season when the estuary is least salty. With a full team of volunteers, 4,000 saplings get transplanted in the most productive months. Photo by Matt Blomberg for Mongabay.

Mega developments set to transform a tranquil Cambodian bay

Matt Blomberg 31 Jan 2018

Belize imposes offshore oil moratorium to protect reefs

Mongabay.com 15 Jan 2018
Pacific bluefin tuna. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.

A Pacific bluefin tuna sold for $323,000. Can the species be saved?

Bonnie Waycott 12 Jan 2018

Global warming, pollution supersize the oceans’ oxygen-depleted dead zones

Basten Gokkon 9 Jan 2018

Trump Admin officially proposes opening vast areas of U.S. coastal waters to oil and gas drilling

Mike Gaworecki 5 Jan 2018
A manta ray in the South China Sea. Photo by Greg Asner/Divephoto.org.

2017’s top 10 ocean news stories

Douglas McCauley and Paul DeSalles 27 Dec 2017
A boat load of cut mangroves. High-quality charcoal made from mangroves is exported to Thailand. Photo by Christoph Zockler.

Chainsaws imperil an old-growth mangrove stronghold in southern Myanmar

Benjamin Graham 27 Dec 2017
A Gonatus squid eating another squid. Photo © MBARI

Videos unlock secrets of jellyfish as deep-sea killers

Mongabay.com 24 Dec 2017
An underwater view of the reef at Layang Layang Atoll in the Spratly Islands, South China Sea. Photo courtesy of Greg Asner / Divephoto.org.

Experts to China: cooperate or South China Sea fisheries may collapse

David Brown 21 Dec 2017
Members of the Kep provincial government and Fisheries Administration set fire to a mound of banned fishing gear in July 2015. The gear had been confiscated over a period of months from Cambodian and Vietnamese vessels operating illegally in Kep Bay, and was burned in front of a village notorious for abusing the law and the sea. Photo courtesy of MCC.

Building a refuge where trawlers now ravage Cambodia’s marine life

Matt Blomberg 14 Dec 2017

African Parks backs marine reserve brimming with wildlife in Mozambique

Mongabay.com 14 Dec 2017

Huge new ocean reserves announced in Mexico, Arctic

Mike Gaworecki 5 Dec 2017
White’s seahorse (Hippocampus whitei). This species is listed as Data Deficient by the IUCN, and was previously listed as Vulnerable, but there have been too few studies to say whether it remains at risk in the wild. Photo by Sylke Rohrlach via Flickr [CC BY-SA 2.0].

Catch-all fisheries are squeezing Asia’s seahorses

Sean Mowbray 1 Dec 2017

VaquitaCPR ends capture program in Gulf of California after vaquita dies in captivity

Mike Gaworecki 13 Nov 2017

As Northwest salmon economy teeters on brink, Trump gives it a push

Saul Elbein 23 Oct 2017

The Philippines commits to science-anchored fishery policies

Mongabay.com 20 Oct 2017

Seafood calendar promotes sustainable, seasonal eating in India

Kim Smuga-Otto 13 Oct 2017

‘SALT’ alliance aims to tackle illegal fishing on a global scale

Mongabay.com 6 Oct 2017

Critically endangered staghorn corals are benefiting from coral gardening in the Caribbean

Mike Gaworecki 9 Aug 2017

UN moves one step closer to convening high seas treaty negotiations

Mike Gaworecki 25 Jul 2017
A tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier) in the Bahamas. Photo by Bethany Augliere.

Will banning trade in fins help endangered sharks? Some experts say no

Ula Chrobak and Sukee Bennett 21 Jul 2017

Seafood giant Thai Union commits to clean up supply chains following pressure campaign

Mike Gaworecki 12 Jul 2017
A male southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina) among king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) on Marion Island. Photo by Nico de Bruyn.

Hard but worth it: researchers fight invasives on Subantarctic islands (commentary)

P.J.N. (Nico) de Bruyn 29 Jun 2017

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