Oceans News
Guatemala landfill feeds 'trash islands' hundreds of miles away in Honduras
by Maxwell Radwin 23 December 2022
GUATEMALA CITY — After heavy rains, hotel workers and other residents in Honduras walk up and down beaches picking up everything from plastic bottles to toys to medical waste. They've…
California's network of marine protected areas must be strengthened and expanded (commentary)
by Ben Grundy 22 December 2022
California's iconic coastline has long captivated the world's imagination. Beyond its shores, hidden beneath the waves, stretches a vast, mysterious wilderness containing some of the most diverse ecosystems on the…
Strong marine protected areas credited with manta ray surge in Indonesia
by Cassie Freund 22 December 2022
Ocean-dwelling sharks and rays, including the majestic reef manta ray (Mobula alfredi), have declined globally by an estimated 71% since 1970 due to fishing. But a new study of reef…
Landmark bill will ban the shark fin trade in the US
by Elizabeth Claire Alberts 21 December 2022
The United States Senate recently passed legislation that will ban the shark fin trade, a largely unregulated industry impacting millions of sharks, within the U.S. On Dec. 15, policymakers approved…
From bombs to seasonal closure, Indonesian fishers move toward sustainability
by Wahyu Chandra 21 December 2022
KAHU-KAHU, Indonesia — Fishers in this village on the northwestern tip of Selayar Island, in eastern Indonesia's South Sulawesi province, are a fortnight into a community experiment. For three months,…
Plastic pellet pollution can end through coordinated efforts, report shows
by Jewel S. Cabrera 21 December 2022
The building blocks of almost all plastic items on the planet are little lentil-sized petrochemical-derived pellets, called nurdles, that are melted together and shaped to create larger plastic products. These…
Extinct sea cow's underwater engineering legacy lives on today, study finds
On a Russian-led expedition in the northern Pacific Ocean in the 1740s, German botanist Georg Wilhelm Steller laid eyes on a species that captured his imagination. It looked like a…
Global study reveals widespread salt marsh decline
by Sean Mowbray 19 December 2022
An area of salt marsh twice the size of Singapore has disappeared since the turn of the century, NASA scientists determined by analyzing satellite images from around the globe. Severe…
Black Sea dolphin deaths prompt ecocide allegations against Russia
by Elizabeth Fitt 16 December 2022
READER ADVISORY: This story contains images of dead cetaceans that some viewers may find disturbing. On May 9, Bogdan Bulete, regional head ranger at the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve in…
In Sierra Leone's fishing villages, a reality check for climate aid
by Ashoka Mukpo 15 December 2022
BONTHE, Sierra Leone — As the sun rises over Bonthe, a small city on the coastline of Sierra Leone's remote Sherbro Island, echoes of a not-so-distant colonial past bathe in…
Dalian Ocean Fishing, subject of Mongabay probe, now sanctioned by U.S.
The United States has sanctioned Chinese individuals and companies allegedly involved in human rights abuses and fishing violations while operating in other countries' or international waters. On Dec. 9, the…
Indonesia's mangrove revival hindered by conflicting policies
by Gafur Abdullah 12 December 2022
At the recent G20 summit in Bali, Indonesian President Joko Widodo brought world leaders to the Ngurah Rai Grand Forest Park, a former fish-farming site being converted into a conservation…
Peat on land and kelp at sea as Argentina protects tip of Tierra del Fuego
by Elizabeth Claire Alberts 8 December 2022
On Dec. 6, legislators in Argentina's southernmost province of Tierra del Fuego approved a law to permanently protect the land and sea of the Mitre Peninsula at the tip of…
Shark-fishing gear banned across much of Pacific in conservation 'win'
by Philip Jacobson 8 December 2022
DA NANG, Vietnam — Industrial-scale fishers will no longer be able to use two types of shark-fishing gear in the western and central Pacific Ocean after the international body in…
Melting ice created the perfect storm for a rapidly acidifying Arctic Ocean
by Luis Melecio-Zambrano 7 December 2022
Melting sea ice may evoke images of polar bears stranded on shrinking floes or dramatically collapsing ice shelves. But according to a study published recently in the journal Science, ice…
Indonesian authorities nip island auction in marine reserve in the bud
by Basten Gokkon, Mahmud Ichi 7 December 2022
JAKARTA — Indonesian authorities have cracked down on a private developer's bid to carve out foreign tourism enclaves within a marine reserve in the country's eastern Widi Islands. The country's…
Mangrove photo contest winners reveal majesty & diversity of coastal forests
by Erik Hoffner 5 December 2022
The eighth annual Mangrove Photography Awards attracted 2,000 submissions from 68 countries, and a jury recently selected winning images which revealed aspects of mangroves from all corners of the planet.…
'It was a shark operation': Q&A with Indonesian crew abused on Chinese shark-finning boat
by Philip Jacobson and Basten Gokkon 2 December 2022
In November, Mongabay revealed a massive illegal shark fishing and finning operation across the fleet of Dalian Ocean Fishing (DOF), a distant-water fishing firm that has claimed to be China's…
Podcast: How reporters uncovered a massive illegal shark finning operation
by Mike Gaworecki 1 December 2022
A major investigative report recently published by Mongabay uncovered a massive, clandestine and illegal shark finning operation across the fleet of one of China's biggest tuna fishing companies. Listen here:…
Fishers in Flores Sea opt to limit harvest of overexploited sea cucumbers
by Wahyu Chandra 28 November 2022
MAKASSAR, Indonesia — At the end of September, fishermen on Sapuka Island in eastern Indonesia's Flores Sea made a surprising announcement. They would regulate their sea cucumber harvests, they declared,…
As shark numbers plummet, nations seek ban on devastatingly effective gear
by Philip Jacobson 26 November 2022
Famed undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau had a favorite shark: the oceanic whitetip, or Carcharhinus longimanus. He said they were the most dangerous of all sharks, more so than the great…
Illegal bottom trawling widespread inside Mediterranean marine protected areas
by Edward Carver 22 November 2022
The Mediterranean Sea isn't the source of plenty it once was. It now contains some of the most ecologically degraded marine areas in the world, and has been the site…
Will shipping noise nudge Africa's only penguin toward extinction?
by Leonie Joubert 21 November 2022
CAPE TOWN — Seabird ranger Eduard Drost was busy with a routine inspection in an African penguin colony off the South African coast in 2021 when he noticed a troubling…
A new tool to peer into fishing networks: Q&A with Austin Brush of C4ADS
by Melati Kaye 21 November 2022
One in five fish sold globally is caught illegally, according to C4ADS, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that tracks illicit trade networks. That's between 11 million and 26 million metric…
Breeding success raises hopes for future of endangered African penguin
by Ryan Truscott 15 November 2022
Two African penguin chicks have emerged from their nest beneath a boulder at a site in South Africa where conservationists have used lifelike decoy penguins and broadcast penguin calls to…
No requiem for sharks just yet as nations push to protect species from trade
by Elizabeth Claire Alberts 11 November 2022
Nations are proposing to protect dozens of shark and ray species in danger of extinction by regulating their international trade. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild…
How Mitsubishi vacuumed up tuna from a rogue Chinese fishing fleet
by Annelise Giseburt 10 November 2022
Tuna is ubiquitous in Japan, from high-end sashimi to go-around sushi chains and every neighborhood grocery store. But despite tuna's central place in Japanese food culture, few know what really…
by Caitlin Cooper 8 November 2022
In December 2004, the worst tsunami in recorded history devastated the region encircling the Indian Ocean, killing more than 200,000 people in 14 countries. One year later, researchers showed that…
France's Macron joins growing chorus calling for deep-sea mining ban
On Nov. 7, French President Emmanuel Macron announced at the COP27 climate summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, that France is calling for a complete ban on deep-sea mining. This marks…
Negotiations to conserve Antarctic Ocean end in stalemate on many issues
by Francesco De Augustinis 7 November 2022
On Nov. 4, the 41st annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) closed without making significant progress toward the establishment of new marine…