Oceans News

Sharks in the coral reefs of Jardines de la Reina, Cuba.

Undercover in a shark fin trafficking ring: Interview with wildlife crime fighter Andrea Crosta

Philip Jacobson 16 May 2024

Ghost nets haunt marine life in Malaysian marine park, study finds

Ashley Yeong 13 Jun 2024
Whale cutting in Hvalfjörður in the west of Iceland.

Icelandic government grants new license to whaling company to hunt 128 fin whales

Elizabeth Claire Alberts 11 Jun 2024
An artisanal fishing boat on a Mozambique beach.

Report: Illegal fishing and labor abuse rampant in China’s Indian Ocean fleet

Elizabeth Claire Alberts 6 Jun 2024
He‘eia fishpond.

Restoring Indigenous aquaculture heals both ecosystems and communities in Hawai‘i

Keona Blanks 5 Jun 2024
The new Grau Tropical Sea National Reserve covers just over 115,675 hectares (285,840 acres) of sea off the departments of Piura and Tumbes.

Peru approves the creation of long-awaited marine protected area

Michelle Carrere 31 May 2024
Fish catch, Thailand

Thai plan to relax fishing law stokes fear of return to illegal catches, worker abuse

Carolyn Cowan 31 May 2024
A trawler docked in a harbour in Scotland.

Bottom trawling in U.K.’s marine reserves, legally, is apparently a thing

Logan Rance 31 May 2024
Trawlers docked outside the port city of Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Screenshot from ‘Illegal fishing and land grabs push Cambodian coastal communities to the brink’ by Andy Ball / Mongabay.

Illegal fishing and land grabs push Cambodian coastal communities to the brink

Andy Ball, Gerald Flynn, Vutha Srey 30 May 2024
Alson Kelen on a U.S. airstrip runway. Image by Mark Klett/Cape Farewell.

Marshallese worries span decades — first nuclear tests, now sea-level rise

Amélie David 29 May 2024
Baby bonga shad (Ethmalosa fimbriata).

As catches fall, Sierra Leone’s artisanal fishers turn to destructive practices

Josef Skrdlik 27 May 2024
A shark in French Polynesia.

18 years on, how are sharks faring in French Polynesia’s shark sanctuary?

Amélie David 24 May 2024
A yellowfin tuna.

No mercy for overfished yellowfin tuna at Indian Ocean fisheries meeting

Francesco De Augustinis 23 May 2024
Two polar bear siblings play-fighting in the wild on Barter Island, Alaska.

Report ranks 60+ ideas, including geoengineering, to save the Arctic

Jeremy Hance 21 May 2024
Fishermen in Dakar, Senegal.

To renew or not to renew? African nations reconsider EU fishing deals

Edward Carver 17 May 2024
Sharks in the coral reefs of Jardines de la Reina, Cuba.

Undercover in a shark fin trafficking ring: Interview with wildlife crime fighter Andrea Crosta

Philip Jacobson 16 May 2024
A type of ophidiiform

Twilight zone fishing: Can we fish the ocean’s mesopelagic layer?

Elizabeth Claire Alberts 15 May 2024
Egrets at a landfill in Riau.

As plastic talks wrap up in Canada, fishers in Indonesia count the costs

Falahi Mubarok, Yogi Eka Sahputra 8 May 2024

‘Our life support system is at risk’: Interview with ‘Her Deepness’ Sylvia Earle

Elizabeth Claire Alberts 3 May 2024

No answers for Ghanaian fishery observer’s family months after suspected death

Awudu Salami Sulemana Yoda 2 May 2024

Who was Samuel Abayateye, the fishery observer missing in Ghana

Awudu Salami Sulemana Yoda, Gideon Anku, Leslie Cauquais, Majid Alidu 1 May 2024

Scientists collaborate to conserve the endangered Guiana Dolphins

Kashfi Halford, Sarah Brown 30 Apr 2024
A wall decoration depicting a 'Bagnarota', a historic worker in the fishing sector of Bagnara Calabra.

Fewer fish and more rules lead to illegal catches, Italian fishers say

Alice Pistolesi, Monica Pelliccia 26 Apr 2024
A member of the Ghanaian maritime police observes a vessel suspected of fishing illegally prior to boarding it as part of a U.S.-Ghana combined maritime law enforcement operation in 2014. Image courtesy of Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet via Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0 Deed).

Fishing by dodgy fleets hurts economies, jobs in developing countries: Report

Mikael Angelo S. Francisco 26 Apr 2024
A visual reconstruction of the February 19, 2023 incident in which a Hong Kong-flagged cargo vessel reportedly hit the Indian fishing boat, Ruby, 450 nautical miles away from Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of India.

Warming seas push India’s fishers into distant, and more dangerous, waters

Imran Muzaffar and Aliya Bashir 23 Apr 2024
A recovering scleractinian coral reef on Hancock Seamount in the Northwestern Hawaiian Ridge, just inside U.S. waters. Research shows that seafloor ecosystems can undergo some recovery from the effects of bottom fishing if they are protected for 30 to 40 years afterwards. Image courtesy of A. Baco-Taylor and E. B. Roark, National Science Foundation, with Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory pilots T. Kerby and M. Cremer.

No protection from bottom trawling for seamount chain in northern Pacific

Edward Carver 22 Apr 2024
A whale shark in Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia.

Annual ocean conference raises $11.3b in pledges for marine conservation

Elizabeth Claire Alberts 19 Apr 2024
Sargassum in Villa Clara province, Cuba.

Caribbean startups are turning excess seaweed into an agroecology solution

Marlowe Starling 16 Apr 2024
Fluorescing and bleached reef in New Caledonia in 2016.

Global coral bleaching now underway looks set to be largest on record

Elizabeth Claire Alberts 16 Apr 2024
For generations here, fishers like Mukhlis have used wood to build fish-aggregating devices, known locally as rumpon, which are moored offshore to attract schools of fish.

In Java Sea, vigilantism and poverty rise as purse seine fishing continues

Riyad Dafhi Rizki 11 Apr 2024
A hawksbill turtle

As a megaport rises in Cameroon, a delicate coastal ecosystem ebbs

Elodie Toto 5 Apr 2024
A brooding squid (Gonatus onyx) and her egg sack.

Deep-sea mining’s future still murky as negotiations end on mixed note

Elizabeth Claire Alberts 2 Apr 2024
Trainee Ossam Bassam fishing at sea for the first time.

Lebanese youths take up rods and reels to learn sustainable fishing

Amélie David 27 Mar 2024

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News and Inspiration from Nature's Frontline.

Why are the British flooding parts of their coast? Once farmland protected by flood defenses, Steart Marshes in southwest England now thrives as a restored salt marsh. As the defences weakened, the land became increasingly vulnerable to flooding. Instead of rebuilding defenses, conservationists, the government and local communities made a bold choice to let the sea reclaim the landscape. Just over 10 years ago the sea wall was breached, allowing the sea to take over the land, transforming the area into a vital wetland habitat. Salt marshes, which have declined by 85% in the U.K. since the 19th century, play a crucial role in coastal ecosystems. They provide shelter for wetland wildlife, act as natural flood defenses by absorbing storm surges, stabilize coastlines against erosion, and store carbon to help combat climate change. Managed by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, Steart Marshes now provides a model for future restoration projects, proving that working with nature can protect communities while rebuilding lost habitats.
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The Sumatran belida fish is a protected species that is increasingly difficult to find in the wetlands of the Musi River, South Sumatra.
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Rainstorm over Pillcopata in the Peruvian Amazon. Photo by Rhett Butler/Mongabay.
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