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topic: Coastal Ecosystems
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Indonesia resumes lobster larvae exports despite sustainability, trade concerns
- The Indonesian government will resume a controversial policy of exporting lobster larvae, initially just to Vietnam, in exchange for investment in its own lobster-farming industry.
- The ban has met with controversy since it was introduced in 2016; a subsequent attempt to lift it failed after the fisheries minister at the time was arrested for taking bribes to issue export permits.
- The current minister says the lifting this time around is based on pragmatic considerations, with law enforcement efforts failing to stop the smuggling of lobster larvae.
- Critics say the move will benefit Vietnam more than it will Indonesia, given that the former’s far more advanced lobster-farming industry generates far more value from the sale of mature lobsters than Indonesia ever could from the sale of larvae.
Mangrove forestry only sustainable when conservation zones respected: Study
- The need to preserve mangroves and the ecosystem services they sustain, while also providing for the social and economic needs of the people who depend on them, is one of coastal conservation’s greatest conundrums.
- New research based on long-term data from a mangrove production forest in Malaysia suggests that, in some cases, it is possible to reconcile mangrove protection with resource needs — but only when the correct management is implemented and enforced.
- The study highlights the need for well-protected conservation areas within forest production landscapes to boost natural forest regeneration, sustain wildlife and balance overall levels of carbon storage.
- The authors also warn that management models that seek to maximize profits at the expense of such sensitive conservation areas could undermine the resilience of the overall landscape and diminish sustainability over time.
Indigenous community fights to save its lands on Indonesia’s historic tin island
- The Lanun Indigenous community of Indonesia’s Belitung Island have responded to increasing environmental damage by building their capacity in skills such as advocacy and mediation.
- At issue is the growth in illegal mining and forest clearing by the plantation industry on land that the Lanun consider to have long been theirs.
- In 2021, UNESCO announced this area of Indonesia would become an international geopark, which required joint applications by government and local communities to conserve a landscape of global significance.
U.S. East Coast adopts ‘living shorelines’ approach to keep rising seas at bay
- Along the U.S. East Coast, communities are grappling with the dual destructive forces of rising sea levels and stronger storms pushed by climate change, resulting in effects ranging from ‘ghost forests’ of saltwater-killed coastal trees in the Carolinas, to inundations of New York City’s subway system.
- While the usual response has been to build higher seawalls and other concrete or rock structures, a natural approach that aims to protect coastal areas with natural assets that also create habitat and are generally cheaper and less carbon intensive — ‘living shorelines’ — is increasingly taking hold.
- State agencies and landowners alike are shoring up the shore with innovative combinations of locally sourced logs, rocks and native plants and shrubs to protect homes, dunes and beaches.
- In Maine, where a trio of powerful winter storms recently pummeled the coast, living shorelines designers are in growing demand.
Warming seas push India’s fishers into distant, and more dangerous, waters
- Many of India’s more than 4 million fishers are sailing beyond the country’s exclusive economic zone into the high seas in search of a better catch.
- Rising sea surface temperatures, overfishing near the shore, and the destruction of reefs have decimated nearshore fisheries, forcing India’s fishers farther out to sea where they face greater risk.
- A common danger they run is straying into the waters of another country, which can lead to their boats being seized and the crew being jailed or even killed.
- The Indian government has issued policies to protect and recover nearshore fish stocks, even as it encourages fishing in the high seas.
Bangladesh uses satellite transmitters on saltwater crocodiles in Asia’s first
- On March 13, the Bangladesh forest department tagged satellite transmitters on two saltwater crocodiles for the first time in Asia and released them in the Sundarbans waters.
- So far, four saltwater crocodiles — three from captivity and one from the wild — have been tagged and the preparation is in place to tag more.
- The forest department has already started collecting data using the satellite transmitters to understand the crocodile’s habits in this ecosystem and identify nesting its hotspots, ecology, mortality rate and habitat range.
- Experts say the satellite data will play an important role in crocodile conservation in Bangladesh, where the species is critically endangered, and will help the authorities make proper conservation management plans to protect it.
Caribbean startups are turning excess seaweed into an agroecology solution
- Sargassum, a type of brown macroalgae, has been inundating beaches across the Caribbean since 2011. It comes from the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean.
- The seaweed has harmed Caribbean economies and human health, making it a national emergency in some island-nations.
- Over the past decade, entrepreneurs and scientists have found ways to turn sargassum into nutrient-rich biofertilizers, biostimulants and other organic products to boost agricultural yields while cutting back on chemicals.
- But there are hurdles to scaling the industry, including sargassum’s inconsistent arrival, heavy metal content and fast decomposition rates.
Maluku bone collector unearths troubling consequence of coastal abrasion
- Due to runaway global demand for sand used in construction, coastal communities say mining of their beaches for sand is accelerating the damage done by waves and wind.
- On Indonesia’s Seram Island, the arrival of a sand mining company has stimulated demand for the commodity, but may have introduced environmental risks.
- The United Nations says around 50 million metric tons of sand is produced every year, while a separate study shows costal erosion is set to “radically redefine” the world’s coastlines this century.
As a megaport rises in Cameroon, a delicate coastal ecosystem ebbs
- The deepwater port at Kribi, Cameroon, is a massive project, begun in 2011 and slated for completion in 2040.
- It aims to decongest the existing port at Douala and become a trade hub for all Central African countries.
- The port is located just a few kilometers from Cameroon’s only marine protected area, home to green, olive ridley and hawksbill turtles.
- While aiming to improve the country’s economy, the port has generated unintended environmental consequences, intensifying coastal erosion, increasing human pressure and pollution, and endangering marine life and local fishers’ livelihoods.
In Raja Ampat, pearl farming balances business and ecological sustainability
- In the Raja Ampat islands of eastern Indonesia, pearl farming thrives within a healthy marine ecosystem, with companies like PT Arta Samudra focusing on sustainable practices.
- Pearl farms are very secretive about their methods, which include the delicate process of implanting beads into oysters to cultivate pearls, a technique developed to accelerate pearl production.
- Challenges such as climate change impacts and maintaining a pristine environment highlight the importance of balancing industry growth with ecosystem preservation.
- With concerted efforts to protect marine habitats, Raja Ampat’s pearl industry aims for global recognition while emphasizing sustainability.
Communities worry anew as PNG revives seabed mining plans
- Coastal communities in Papua New Guinea’s New Ireland province rely on the sea for their livelihoods and culture.
- But Solwara 1, a resurgent deep-sea mining project aimed at sourcing metals from the ocean floor, could threaten their way of life, community leaders and activists say.
- They also say they haven’t been properly consulted about the potential pros and cons of Solwara 1, and government and company leaders have provided little information to the public about their plans.
- A coalition of leaders, activists and faith-based organizations called the Alliance of Solwara Warriors is opposing the project in Papua New Guinea and abroad, and calling for a permanent ban on seabed mining in the country’s waters.
PNG communities resist seabed mining: Interview with activist Jonathan Mesulam
- The government of Papua New Guinea appears poised to approve Solwara 1, a long-in-development deep-sea mining project in the country’s waters.
- However, PNG has signed onto several seabed mining moratoria, and scientists have urged caution until more research can determine what the effects of this practice will be.
- Proponents say the seafloor holds a wealth of minerals needed for batteries, especially for electric vehicles, and thus are vital for the transition away from fossil fuels.
- But coastal communities in PNG’s New Ireland province have mounted a fierce resistance to Solwara 1, arguing that it could damage or destroy the ecosystems that provide them with food and are the foundation of their cultures.
Hong Kong as a reef fish haven? These scientists want to get the word out
- For the past 10 years, marine biologist and conservationist Stan Shea has been leading a citizen-science program called the 114°E Hong Kong Reef Fish Survey to compile data on local reef fish species and raise awareness about the marine environment.
- The program relies on a core network of around 50 volunteer divers, who assist Shea with his mission to raise awareness about Hong Kong’s aquatic life.
- There are likely about 500 reef fish species in Hong Kong, but only about 460 have been identified so far; Shea and his team aim to find and document as many of the other overlooked as possible.
- Shea is also working on a photographic book about Hong Kong’s reef fish, which will be published in 2026.
With drop in illegal fishing comes rise in piracy, study in Indonesia finds
- Indonesia’s crackdown on illegal fishing is driving an increase in maritime piracy, a new study shows.
- In recent years, the government has taken harsh measures against illegal fishers, including banning foreign fishing vessels from its waters, and blowing up those it seizes.
- However, researchers say the crackdown’s success, without addressing the drivers of illegal fishing, including poverty, “can inadvertently shift effort from fishing to piracy.”
- Illegal fishing costs an estimated $3 billion in lost revenue for Indonesia, the world’s second-biggest producer of wild-caught seafood.
Risks to Myanmar’s last saltwater crocs point to coastal conservation needs
- A new study confirms that Myanmar’s last population of saltwater crocodiles is perilously isolated and that without efforts to connect suitable coastal wetlands, the future of the species is in the country is uncertain.
- Deforestation and conversion of coastal habitats for commercial production, persecution due to conflicts with people, and hunting and wild capture to supply demand for crocodile meat and skin products have all taken their toll on crocodile numbers.
- The researchers recommend conservationists and policymakers in Myanmar focus on reconnecting remaining coastal habitats, including existing coastal protected areas, and identify key crocodile habitat areas and potential movement corridors to aid such conservation action.
- Enhancing coastal habitat connectivity would not only enable crocodile population recovery, it would also reduce pressure on communities coping with negative interactions with crocodiles.
No sea change on marine policy from candidates as Indonesia heads to polls
- None of the three candidates running in Indonesia’s Feb. 14 presidential election have presented meaningful policy changes for the country’s coastal communities and marine resources, observers say.
- Indonesians are voting in the biggest single-day election in the world, but the failure by candidates to prioritize maritime issues is a major omission for the world’s biggest archipelagic country.
- Observers say the interests of fishing communities continue to be subordinated to those of industry and developers when it comes to competition for space and resources, and that none of this looks set to change under any of the three candidates.
- They also note that issues such as poverty in coastal areas, threats to marine ecosystems, and the marginalization of coastal communities persist despite the significant role these communities play in Indonesia’s fisheries sector.
Where sea otters play, salt marshes stay, new study shows
- A new study has found that sea otters are helping to slow down salt marsh erosion in Elkhorn Slough in California by eating burrowing crabs.
- Drawing on a range of data sources, which included surveys and field experiments, the authors found that in places where sea otters were abundant, the erosion of the salt marsh slowed by as much as 80-90% over the course of the study.
- Salt marshes worldwide are disappearing due to climate change-driven factors such as rising sea levels and other human pressures.
Pakistan bucks global trend with 30-year mangrove expansion
- Around the world, mangrove forests have undergone a decades-long decline that is just now slowing to a halt.
- In Pakistan, by contrast, mangroves expanded nearly threefold between 1986 and 2020, according to a 2022 analysis of satellite data.
- Experts attribute this success to massive mangrove planting and conservation, as well as concerted community engagement.
- Many in Pakistan are looking to mangroves to bolster precious fish stocks and defend against the mounting effects of climate change — even as threats to mangroves, such as wood harvesting and camel grazing, continue with no end in sight.
Cambodia sea turtle nests spark hope amid coastal development & species decline
- Conservationists in Cambodia have found nine sea turtle nests on a remote island off the country’s southwest coast, sparking hopes for the critically endangered hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) and endangered green turtle (Chelonia mydas).
- It’s the first time sea turtle nests have been spotted in the country in a decade of species decline.
- Two nests have been excavated to assess hatching success; conservationists estimate the nests could hold as many as 1,000 eggs.
- Globally, sea turtle populations are declining, largely due to hunting for food and the animals’ shells, used in jewelry; other threats to sea turtles include tourism development, pollution and climate change.
In Argentina, scientists scramble to study seal colonies hit hard by avian flu
- A powerful strain of the avian flu has swept through seal colonies in southern Argentina, wiping out many juvenile populations and raising concern about a spread to other species.
- The flu, also known as H5N1, appeared in Argentina in August 2023 and resulted in newborn mortality rates of over 90% in some seal colonies.
- Researchers are monitoring colony population trends and trying to better understand how the disease jumps from one species to another, which could affect other mammals like orcas.
Mangrove crab sustainability is vital for fishers in Indonesia’s Aru Islands
- Mud crab fishing in Lorang village, Aru Islands, has been a vital livelihood since 2014, but a recent survey suggests signs of depletion, raising concerns among local fishers.
- The boom in crab fisheries began after a government moratorium on various commodities.
- Despite high economic value, a rapid assessment by Indonesian researchers reveals a decline in mud crab abundance, possibly due to overfishing exceeding natural regeneration.
- To address this, there’s a call for conservation efforts, including a wildlife protection reserve and agreements with neighboring villages to establish a “crab bank” for sustainable crab populations.
Overfishing leads to decline in Bangladesh marine fish stocks & diversity
- Bangladesh is facing a decline in marine fish stocks and diversity due to lack of knowledge among fishers, proper implementation of the Marine Fisheries Act and rampant use of industrial trawlers and unauthorized fishing gear in permitted fishing zones.
- The country has a 710-kilometer (440-mile) coastline with 121,110 square kilometers (46,760 square miles) of exclusive economic zones (EEZs) within the Bay of Bengal and is a hub of 740 aquatic species.
- The marine fisheries sector contributes about 15% of Bangladesh’s total fish production, which helps meet the population’s demands for animal protein.
Indonesia invites Turkish investors to develop tuna farms in Papua
- Indonesia has invited Turkish investors to participate in offshore tuna farming in the Papua region’s Biak Numfor district, aiming to make it a hub for tuna exports.
- The Indonesian fisheries ministry said Turkish fisheries operators can bring innovation to enhance productivity and ensure sustainability of the tuna fishery.
- Indonesia, a significant contributor to global tuna production, faces sustainability challenges due to excessive harvesting of wild tuna.
- The outreach to Türkiye is the latest in efforts to get foreign investors to help develop Indonesia’s various fisheries, including a similar offer earlier in January for Vietnam to invest in lobster farms.
Report: Human tragedy stalks the prized Honduran lobster industry
- The Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) is a coveted delicacy, with Honduras exporting $46.7 million worth of the shellfish in 2019, mainly to the U.S.
- But its flourishing trade comes at the expense of the Indigenous Miskito community living along Honduras’s Atlantic coast, according to an investigation published in December by nonprofit news outlet Civil Eats.
- Hundreds of Miskito lobster divers have died, and thousands more are injured or have become paralyzed in pursuit of the lobsters, the report noted.
- So far, efforts at reforming the Honduran lobster fishery have failed to adequately address the divers’ situation, according to the investigation.
Newly identified shorebird species takes its name from Hanuman, a mythical Hindu ape god
- The Kentish plover (Charadrius alexandrines) is a widespread shorebird and a constant winter visitor to Sri Lanka and neighboring India, yet a population chooses to remain year-round in Sri Lanka and southern India.
- This population has physical characteristics different from the migratory Kentish plovers, hence it has been identified as a subspecies, known as C. a. seebohmi. As far back in 1887, British ornithologist Henry Seebohm suggested they could possibly be a distinct species.
- A recent study of genetic analysis has established this breeding population of plovers found in Sri Lanka to be different from the migratory Kentish plovers; the new species’ evolution started about 1.19 million years ago after the population separated from its ancestors.
- The new species is named Hanuman plover (Charadrius seebohmi) named after the Hindu mythical ape god Hanuman revered in the Sanskrit epic Ramayana who supposedly built a bridge linking Sri Lanka and India, incidentally where the first specimen of this bird was collected.
Kenyan villagers show how to harvest more octopus by fishing less
- Residents of Munje, a fishing village south of the Kenyan port of Mombasa, have established an octopus closure to ensure sustainable fishing.
- Octopus catches in the reefs just offshore had been declining as larger numbers of fishers, often using damaging techniques, hunted this profitable species.
- Previous attempts to regulate the octopus fishery had failed, but the village’s beach management unit enlisted support from an NGO to replicate successful strategies from elsewhere.
- Clearer communication and patient consensus-building have secured buy-in from the community, and the village is anticipating a second successful harvest period in February.
Java’s crumbling coastline and rising tide swamp jasmine flower trade
- Growers of jasmine flowers in lowland areas of Indonesia’s Central Java province are vulnerable to coastal erosion and rising sea levels.
- Research published in 2022 showed Central Java’s Semarang was among the fastest-sinking major cities in the world.
- Jasmine grower Sobirin has altered his home on three occasions since 2010, raising the floor to adapt to increasing tidal surges.
2023’s top ocean news stories (commentary)
- Marine scientists from six international research and conservation institutions share their list of the top ocean news stories from 2023.
- Hopeful developments this past year include a monumental global treaty to protect biodiversity on the high seas and the regulation of international trade in 97 species of sharks and rays under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
- At the same time, 2023 was the hottest year on record, with widespread bleaching of corals in the Caribbean and Great Barrier Reef, and many more hot years forecast as humanity’s emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming continue.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Indonesia offers lobster larvae exports to Vietnam in exchange for investment
- Indonesia is seeking investment from Vietnam to develop Indonesia’s fisheries sector, especially the lobster farming industry, the country’s fisheries minister said during a visit to Hanoi.
- In exchange, Indonesia could supply up to 300 million lobster larvae to Vietnam and would stop seizing Vietnamese fishing boats encroaching into Indonesian waters, instead just turning them back.
- Jakarta banned exports of lobster larvae in 2016 to prevent the overharvesting of wild population from the country’s rich waters, but smuggling remains rampant.
- Despite concerns about potential harm to the domestic aquaculture industry, the government plans to finalize a decree to resume exports, citing the economic benefits and potential to reduce smuggling.
Camera-traps help identify conservation needs of Thailand’s coastal otters
- Otters are sometimes described as the “tigers of the mangrove” in Southeast Asia, where they’re well-known to display extraordinary resilience and adaptability to human activity and urbanization.
- A new camera-trap study now highlights the importance of expanses of natural habitat, such as coastal forests and wetlands, for two species of otter living along southern Thailand’s increasingly modified coasts.
- The research team found that while otters are able to live within human-modified landscapes, tracts of natural habitat offer them vital refugia from a slew of threats, such as road collisions, prey depletion due to pollution of watercourses, and conflict with fish and shrimp farmers.
- The authors used their findings to create maps that indicate where conservationists and wildlife departments should prioritize management and monitoring for these vital top wetland predators.
Finance and support are key to fishers adopting eco-friendly gear, study shows
- Access to financing, the support of a peer group, and a general awareness of environmental problems are all factors that make it more likely a fisher will switch to using eco-friendly gear, a new study shows.
- The findings come from a three-month survey of nearly 650 blue swimming crab fishers on the north coast of the Indonesian island of Java.
- It found that those who made the switch also enjoyed significantly higher production and profitability, while also reducing their catch of egg-bearing female crabs, thus helping the sustainability of stocks.
- The study authors say these factors should provide valuable insights for fisheries policymakers in Indonesia and other less-industrialized countries.
Causeway threatens mangroves that Philippine fishers planted as typhoon shield
- The city of Tacloban in the central Philippines was ground zero for Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful tropical cyclones ever recorded and the deadliest in the Philippines’ modern record.
- A decade after the storm, the city is moving forward with controversial plans to build a road embankment and land reclamation project that proponents say will help protect the city from storm surges.
- Opponents of the plan say it threatens local fisheries, will disrupt natural storm protection measures like mangroves, and is poorly designed as a barrier against storms.
- The plan will also result in the relocation of a coastal village of 500 households, who have been active stewards of the bay’s mangrove forests.
Indonesia delays enforcement of widely panned fisheries policy
- The Indonesian government has pushed back the implementation of a new fisheries policy based on catch quotas amid near-universal criticism from stakeholders.
- The fisheries ministry said the year-long delay would allow more time to prepare the fundamental infrastructure, but some observers speculated it was likely also linked to political factors.
- The quota-based fisheries management policy, introduced in March this year, will have affected industrial, local and noncommercial fishers, while small fishers are exempted from the quota.
- The fisheries ministry, however, said it would use the extended time to increase efforts for public outreach, education and gaining support for the implementation of the new policy.
With Indonesia’s new fishing policy starting soon, fishers still mostly unaware
- Indonesia is scheduled to enforce a new fisheries policy at the start of the new year, but new reports have highlighted persistent inadequacies in the strategy.
- The office of the Indonesian Ombudsman says the quota-based fisheries management policy in general lacks accountability and transparency, including broader consultation with fishing communities.
- A separate report from Destructive Fishing Watch (DFW) Indonesia, an NGO, similarly found that many fishers had very limited awareness of the regulation changes and that existing fisheries infrastructure was inadequate to support the new strategy.
- Both organizations have called on the fisheries ministry to boost its efforts in public outreach about the new policy and ensure infrastructural readiness at all levels of government in the short time remaining before the policy goes into force.
Jamaica battles relentless plastic pollution in quest to restore mangroves
- In recent decades, mangroves in Jamaica have declined rapidly, from about 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) in the 1970s to about 9,945 hectares (24,574 acres) now.
- Currently there are several efforts to restore mangroves in the island country, as experts recognize the many ecosystem services they provide, including the protection and stabilization of coastlines as human-induced climate change worsens.
- However, restoration efforts face numerous challenges: Near Kingston, the main one is voluminous tides of plastic waste, which can stunt mangrove growth or kill them.
Salty wells and lost land: Climate and erosion take their toll in Sulawesi
- Coastal erosion on the west coast of Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island is so advanced that seawater has penetrated the groundwater supply that tens of thousands use for drinking water.
- The communities have yet to be served by utility water provision, so families are resorting to costly supplies of water from private distributors.
- Research shows that rising seas and more frequent and powerful storms will accelerate coastal abrasion, raising burdens shouldered by the world’s coastal communities.
Last of the reef netters: An Indigenous, sustainable salmon fishery
- Reef net fishing is an ancient, sustainable salmon-harvesting technique created and perfected by the Lummi and other Coast Salish Indigenous people over a millennium.
- Rather than chasing the fish, this technique uses ropes to create an artificial reef that channels fish toward a net stretched between two anchored boats. Fishers observe the water and pull in the net at the right moment, intercepting salmon as they migrate from the Pacific Ocean to the Fraser River near present-day Washington state and British Columbia.
- Colonialism, government policies, habitat destruction, and declining salmon populations have separated tribes from this tradition. Today, only 12 reef net permits exist, with just one belonging to the Lummi Nation.
- Many tribal members hope to revive reef net fishing to restore their cultural identity and a sustainable salmon harvest but face difficulties balancing economic realities with preserving what the Lummi consider a sacred heritage.
Indonesia launches new front in climate campaign focusing on seagrass
- Indonesia has published a road map for seagrass protection and rehabilitation, as part of its efforts to mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis.
- Seagrass meadows are estimated to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a much greater rate, hectare for hectare, than even tropical rainforests.
- Indonesia has long been recognized as a crucial country for protecting the underwater flowering plants, as it’s estimated to host at least a tenth of the world’s seagrass meadows.
Fish out of water: North American drought bakes salmon
- An unprecedented drought across much of British Columbia, Canada, and Washington and Oregon, U.S., during the summer and fall months of June through October could have dire impacts on Pacific salmon populations, biologists warn.
- Low water levels in streams and rivers combined with higher water temperatures can kill juvenile salmon and make it difficult for adults to swim upriver to their spawning grounds.
- Experts say relieving other pressures on Pacific salmon and restoring habitat are the best ways to build their resiliency to drought and other impacts of climate change.
Indonesia welcomes new Singapore regulation to help curb lobster smuggling
- A new reexport regulation in Singapore could help stem the smuggling of lobster larvae from neighboring Indonesia.
- The city-state is a key destination for the contraband and a transit point for lobster larvae reexported to third countries like Vietnam and China.
- Under the new regulation, reexporters in Singapore will have to get health certificates for live animals from the country of origin, which in theory should be impossible for smugglers.
- Indonesian authorities have cautiously welcomed the plan, but say both countries must work more closely on the long-running problem.
To keep track of salmon migrations in real time, First Nations turn to AI
- Partnering with First Nations, a new interdisciplinary study proposes harnessing artificial intelligence and computer-based detection to count and produce real-time data about salmon numbers.
- Monitoring their population when they return to the rivers and creeks is crucial to keep tabs on the health of the population and sustainably manage the stock, but the current manual process is laborious, time-consuming and often error-prone.
- Fisheries experts say the use of real-time population data can help them make timely informed decisions about salmon management, prevent overfishing of stocks, and give a chance for the dwindling salmon to bounce back to healthy levels.
- First Nations say the automated monitoring tool also helps them assert their land rights and steward fisheries resources in their territories.
Not MPAs but OECMs: Can a new designation help conserve the ocean?
- To meet the landmark commitment struck last year to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030, the world’s nations will have to designate many new and large marine protected areas. But there’s also a different, less familiar option for meeting that target: “other effective area-based conservation measures,” or OECMs, areas that are not necessarily designed to protect biodiversity — they just happen to do so.
- Countries are now working to identify areas that meet the criteria and register them as OECMs, including in Africa where a recent webinar highlighted the promises and pitfalls of this relatively new conservation designation.
- Conservationists say OECMs could bring many positives, including the development, recognition or financing of de facto conservation areas led by local communities or Indigenous peoples.
- However, they also warn of the dangers of “bluewashing” or creating so-called paper OECMs that fail to deliver real conservation benefits in the rush to meet the 2030 deadline.
Key Indonesian fish populations depleted & new assessments needed, study shows
- The wild populations that sustain a significant Indonesian fishery are more depleted than the government had estimated, as highlighted by a recent scientific study.
- The authors have called for a reevaluation of the method used to assess fish stocks to address the overexploitation of these populations.
- The Indonesian deep-slope demersal fisheries have helped position Indonesia to be the world’s second-largest exporter of snapper species.
The Indo-West Pacific harbors two distinct mangrove hotspots, study says
- New research on slugs has found two types of mangrove forests in the Indo-West Pacific region, highlighting their much-needed protection against deforestation and rising sea levels.
- The Indo-West Pacific is known to have the highest diversity of mangrove plants in the world, but it wasn’t previously clear which parts of the region had peak diversity.
- The latest research found the mangrove forests of the archipelagic region that spans from Papua New Guinea to Malaysia differ in numerous characteristics, including sediment size, freshwater input and plant species.
Oil firm Perenco eyes new blocks in DRC amid criticism of its track record
- Oil multinational Perenco has bid on two new oil blocks being auctioned off by the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Perenco operates the country’s only oil production facilities, at Muanda, near the mouth of the Congo River.
- Local and international critics accuse the oil company of polluting the environment, affecting fishing and farming, as well as residents’ health; the company denies this.
Sumatran Indigenous seafarers run aground by overfishing and mangrove loss
- Many among Indonesia’s Duano Indigenous community have hung up their fishing nets in response to recent environmental and economic shifts.
- A study published in October found that intact mangroves were associated with up to a 28% increase in fish and shellfish consumption among coastal communities.
- Duano elders say young people from the community are increasingly retiring from the community’s traditional livelihood to take up poorly paid casual work.
Indonesia renews effort to resume controversial lobster larvae exports
- The Indonesian government is drafting a new policy that could allow the resumption of lobster larvae exports, which were banned in 2016 to prevent overharvesting of wild stocks.
- The fisheries ministry says a resumption is necessary to boost local fishers’ earnings and develop the domestic aquaculture industry.
- However, critics say the new policy mirrors a previous attempt to resume exports in 2020, which spawned a corruption scandal that led to the fisheries minister at the time being jailed.
- The ministry says this time around the policy will be monitored and enforced more strictly, although questions still remain over how sustainably lobster larvae can be harvested from the wild.
Seaweed: The untapped economic potential for Bangladesh
- Bangladesh currently produces some 400 tons of seaweed, valued at 55 million taka (about $500,000), while a study suggested the country could produce 50 million tons of seaweed annually by 2050.
- Despite the potential to grow and earn more foreign currency through export, the sector is dealing with a number of difficulties, including inadequate investment as well as proper guidelines and regulations.
- According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), seaweed farming is one of the fastest-growing aquaculture sectors globally, with an annual production of about 33 billion tons, valued at $11.8 billion.
Microplastics pose risk to ocean plankton, climate, other key Earth systems
- Trillions of microplastic particles in the ocean threaten marine life, from huge filter-feeders to tiny plankton. Although not lethal in the short term, the long-term impacts of microplastics on plankton and marine microbes could disrupt key Earth systems such as ocean carbon storage and nitrogen cycling.
- Oceans represent Earth’s largest natural carbon store and are crucial to mitigate atmospheric CO2 increase. Carbon taken up by plankton and stored in the deep ocean — known as the biological carbon pump — is a major process in ocean carbon storage. Microplastics may “clog” this pump and slow ocean carbon uptake.
- Microplastics in marine sediments alter microbial communities and disrupt nitrogen cycling, potentially magnifying human-caused problems like toxic algal blooms. Changes in plankton communities at the ocean surface could exacerbate deoxygenation driven by climate change, starving marine organisms of oxygen.
- Small plastic particles are impossible to remove from the oceans with current technology, so stopping pollution is a priority. Plastic production continues to soar year-on-year, but a U.N. treaty to address plastic pollution could offer a glimmer of hope that the international community is ready to take action.
Indonesian village forms coast guard to protect octopus in Mentawai Islands
- An island community in Indonesia’s Mentawai archipelago has responded to dwindling octopus stocks with a seasonal fishing closure to enable recovery.
- Global demand for octopus is expected to outpace supply over the medium term, implying higher dockside prices for many artisanal fishers, if stocks can be managed sustainably.
- Maintenance of local fishing grounds also offers crucial nutritional benefits for remote coastal communities in the Mentawais, where rates of child stunting exceed Indonesia’s national average.
Tien Hai Nature Reserve latest battleground in Vietnam’s push for development
- In April, the government of Vietnam’s Thai Binh province quietly issued a decision to remove protection from 90% of Tien Hai Nature Reserve, which forms an integral part of the UNESCO-recognized Red River Delta Biosphere Reserve.
- After environment activists publicized the decision last month, public backlash prompted officials to pause plans to develop a resort in the degazetted area — at least for now.
- The project is just one of several recent cases in which the country’s protected wetlands and forests have been threatened by development projects.
Fisherwomen fight plan for coastal salt farms on Indonesia’s Madura Island
- A group of women in Sumenep district of East Java province is leading a protest against the local government’s proposal to develop a salt farm on 20 hectares (49 acres) of land on the coast of Gersik Putih village.
- In 2009, the local government issued land titles on 73 hectares (180 acres) of land along the coast of Tapakerbau hamlet in Gersik Putih, and all of it was to become salt farms.
- The fishers say the plan could jeopardize their fishing jobs and the sustainability of the marine ecosystem on which they have for generations depended for their livelihoods, and they say they believe the salt ponds have exacerbated the flooding there in recent years.
- The protest in Sumenep is one of many against plans for the development of coastal aquaculture in Indonesia, a country that has the world’s second-longest coastline.
A Philippines NGO project aimed to protect villages from typhoons: What went wrong?
- Concepcion is a low-income fishing town in the central Philippines’ Iloilo province where Super Typhoon Haiyan, locally known as Yolanda, made its fifth landfall nearly a decade ago, destroying houses and fishing boats.
- In 2015, the U.S.-based nonprofit Conservation International (CI) introduced so-called green-gray infrastructure to enhance the climate resilience of five Concepcion villages, employing a combination of nature-based and engineering solutions.
- A little more than a year after the project ended, a Mongabay visit to Concepcion found most project components degraded or destroyed, leaving residents with little more protection than they had when Yolanda devastated their communities in 2013.
- A CI official acknowledged the project’s challenges, expressing an organizational commitment to learn from the experience and attempt to secure new funding to sustain the initiative.
Small-scale fishers in Indonesian isles flag use of banned net by outsiders
- Fishers on a group of small islands in the Java Sea are calling for a crackdown on larger boats using a banned type of seine net in their waters.
- The Masalembu Islands, which lie in one of the most heavily trafficked fishing zones in Indonesia, have frequently seen boats from elsewhere encroach into the near-shore zone that’s reserved for small-scale traditional fishers.
- The local fishers say these bigger boats typically use a cantrang net, banned by the fisheries ministry but still in widespread use amid a lack of law enforcement.
- The fishers have petitioned the government to clearly designate the traditional fishing zone that should be strictly off-limits to these cantrang boats.
In Mexico’s Holbox, a natural paradise suffers from its own popularity
- The island of Holbox is part of the protected nature reserve of Yum Balam, whose lagoons, mangroves and dunes are home to threatened species such as manatees, whale sharks, turtles and horseshoe crabs.
- National and international investors have converted the white sand beaches into a tourism hotspot, with the island experiencing an unchecked construction boom in recent years, driven and protected by politicians and a legal vacuum.
- Infrastructure hasn’t kept up with the tourism development; garbage, noise and sewage have turned into environmental problems, angering locals and tourists alike, and threatening local fauna and flora.
- Scientists and activists are trying to stop the destruction but are largely ignored by both the local press and the government.
Indonesia, Singapore to work more closely against lobster larvae smugglers
- Indonesia has called for Singapore’s commitment to shut its borders to illegal exports of lobster larvae.
- Indonesia has since 2021 banned exports of wild-caught lobster larvae, but Singapore still permits their import, serving as both a key market and a regional trading hub.
- Lobsters are among Indonesia’s top fisheries commodities, but the illegal export of larvae and baby lobsters costs the country billions of rupiah in lost revenue and threatens the declining wild population of the shellfish.
- The fisheries ministry puts the latest estimate of potential wild lobster stock in Indonesian waters at 27 billion, but many of the officially sanctioned fishing zones are overfished, with the rest being harvested at maximum capacity.
Indonesian fishers not biting at new policy perceived as undermining them
- The Indonesian fisheries ministry issued a decree earlier this year introducing a quota-based fisheries management policy aimed at maximizing state revenue from the sector.
- A new study, however, has found that the new policy is unpopular with fishers, who say it reduces the role of local authorities and fishing communities.
- Local stakeholders’ responses also suggest the policy only benefits large-scale investors and commercial fishers, who are perceived to have a high negative impact on the environment.
- Indonesia’s fisheries sector plays a major role in the global seafood supply, with the country home to some of the world’s richest marine biodiversity.
As Bangladesh’s crab fishery booms, its wild stocks suffer the fallout
- Crab harvests in Bangladesh are booming to meet thriving export demand, but the rates at which wild stocks are being depleted may be unsustainable, experts warm.
- Researchers say the loss of large numbers of mud crabs from ecosystems like the Sundarbans mangroves could trigger an ecological imbalance.
- Bangladesh exported about $35 million worth of crabs in the 2019-2020 fiscal year, with the trend expected to increase to markets like the U.S., the EU and Singapore.
- Experts have called for more efforts to hatch crabs on aquafarms as a way to ease the pressure on wild stocks, but this option isn’t available yet at commercial scale.
Video: Rio de Janeiro’s defender of mangroves
- Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro has suffered for decades from inefficient sewage treatment, oil spills and mangrove deforestation.
- For more than 30 years, biologist Mario Moscatelli has been fighting to reverse this process and revitalize the landscape.
- For denouncing corruption, environmental crimes and government inaction, he faced intimidation and even death threats.
Translocation is a viable option for Brazil’s threatened porcupines: Study
- Brazil’s thin-spined porcupine (Chaetomys subspinosus) is a picky eater that lives only in dense coastal habitats with well-developed canopies that allow the animals to move between trees; however, these habitats are increasingly under threat due to coastal development.
- Researchers used radio telemetry to monitor three porcupines that had been translocated to a new, permanent preservation area, as well as one local resident; they determined that translocation is a viable conservation tool for protecting these animals.
- The research also highlights the importance of conserving the porcupines’ restinga forest habitat and its unique features.
Study reveals turtles’ millennia-old food affair with North African seagrass
- Researchers have traced the 3,000-year-old “food footprints” of endangered green sea turtles around the Mediterranean.
- By comparing turtle bone samples from Bronze and Iron Age archaeological sites to skin samples from turtles they’re tracking by satellite today, they’ve uncovered turtles’ enduring preference for the same sea meadows.
- The findings highlight the importance of protecting these underwater meadows, which face degradation due to conversion, pollution and climate change.
Plastic ‘Frankenrocks’ pose new pollution threat to coastal environment
- Scientists are finding more evidence of a new, insidious form of plastic pollution: melted plastic that has melded with rocks, coral and other naturally occurring material in coastal areas.
- Samples of these “Frankenrocks” collected from a single beach on a single island in Indonesia were likely formed by the burning of plastic trash.
- They pose a danger to marine life because they can break down into microplastics that then enter the food chain, and can also leach toxic chemicals into the environment.
- Scientists have called for more study into this new and growing phenomenon, saying these Frankenrocks require specialized cleanup management to ward off a “serious problem.”
The endless struggle to clean up Rio de Janeiro’s highly polluted Guanabara Bay
- Once a nursery for marine life, Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro is now dying from the dumping of thousands of liters of sewage into its waters; artisanal fishers now survive by picking up the garbage that floats in the bay.
- Faced with failed promises of de-pollution by the government, civil society organized itself, creating areas of environmental protection and pressuring the companies responsible for basic sanitation in the state, which is still deficient today.
- On the shores of the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon, a biologist started replanting the mangroves; life returned and the site has become a model of what can be done to save the Guanabara Bay.
Sulawesi sea nomads who inspired Avatar movie chart new course saving forests
- Umar Pasandre, a member of the seafaring Bajo people, has spent more than two decades protecting mangroves in Indonesia’s Gorontalo province.
- The Bajo people were first recorded by 16th-century explorers and inspired James Cameron’s sequel to “Avatar.”
- Umar leads local mangrove-replanting initiatives and has confronted those seeking to convert the forests for aquaculture production.
Offshore oil plans in Brazil threaten South America’s largest coral reef
- The Parcel de Manuel Luís coral reef, off the coast of northeastern Brazil, is a vital habitat for several species, including 53 at risk of extinction.
- Despite vetoes from Brazil’s environmental regulator, the local government is seeking to give the go-ahead to oil drilling projects in this part of the Pará-Maranhão Basin.
- Oil drilling in the region also poses a threat to the longest continuous stretch of mangrove in the world, which runs from the Maranhão coastline to the northern state of Amapá, in the Amazon.
Clean me a river: Southeast Asia chokes on Mekong plastic pollution
- New research shows that the drift of microplastics from the Mekong River to the coastlines of countries around the South China Sea depends on variable factors, including seasonal changes in winds and ocean currents.
- The Philippines is most exposed to plastic waste that mainly drifts from the Mekong River to the sea during the monsoon season, with 47% of the stranded particles ending up on its coast, followed by Indonesia at 24%, Vietnam at 17%, and Malaysia at 8%.
- Environmental advocates say the findings of this study underscore the importance of international cooperation in combating plastic pollution, which harms marine biodiversity and coastal economies.
Opposition grows to Indonesia’s resumption of sea sand exports
- Marine conservation and fisheries activists in Indonesia are pushing for exports of sea sand to be scrapped, saying the activity harms the environment and community livelihoods.
- Indonesia imposed a ban on exports of dredged sea sand in 2003, but reversed the policy through a regulation issued in May this year.
- Activists say the policy directly threatens the future of Indonesian fishing and coastal communities in the world’s largest archipelagic nation, where millions of people are dependent on fishing for their livelihoods.
- Others say the resumption of exports will benefit foreign interests, including Singapore, which has expanded its land area by 20% thanks largely to Indonesian sand, and China, which is building artificial islands to shore up its claims to parts of the South China Sea.
Can Spain keep the rising sea from washing away a critical delta?
- One of Europe’s most important deltas, a vital wildlife sanctuary and economic engine, is facing a myriad of threats stemming from climate change and water management.
- Rising sea levels and stronger storms are washing away the very sediment that constitutes the Ebro Delta and sending saltwater far inland.
- The government plan to bolster the delta relies heavily on trucking sediment to its exposed outer banks, but it’s a stop-gap measure until researchers can develop a more sustainable long-term solution.
- The question is: Can they find one in time?
Tangled in marine debris, skate egg cases dry up and die on Peruvian beaches
- A new study has found that shorttail fanskate populations may be being affected by plastic pollution.
- The skates mistake abandoned fishing nets and other debris for seaweed and attach their eggs to them, unaware that the debris could wash up on the shore where the eggs will dry out.
- Shorttail fanskates (Sympterygia brevicaudata) are considered near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
At sea as on land? Activists oppose industrial farming in U.S. waters
- Aquaculture produces more than half of the world’s seafood, mostly in inland and coastal waters. Industrial marine and coastal finfish aquaculture, such as salmon farming, accounts for just a fraction of that production, and comes with a host of negative environmental impacts.
- A set of agribusiness giants and other corporate interests are pushing to expand industrial finfish aquaculture into U.S. federal waters — the open seas — where proponents argue that it will help feed a growing global demand for seafood and have less environmental impact. They want Congress to pass legislation establishing a federal aquaculture system.
- Though Congress has not yet acted, in 2020, Donald Trump issued an executive order that gave the industry a boost, and government agencies have begun the permitting process for several projects in which finfish would be raised in open-ocean pens miles out to sea.
- Environmental advocates, including the campaign group Don’t Cage Our Oceans, are fighting against the proposed congressional bills, calling for a reversal of the executive order and a stop to the proposed projects in U.S. federal waters.
Indonesia to expand ‘smart fisheries’ program aimed at empowering communities
- Indonesia will expand its smart fisheries village program, aiming to empower fishing communities to boost their productivity, achieve sustainability standards, and improve their overall economic welfare.
- Twenty-two fishing communities are enrolled in the initial batch of the program, which will focus primarily on fisheries, but also look to improve community welfare through tourism, public health interventions, financial literacy, and other initiatives.
- The participating communities are involved in catching or farming a wide range of seafood and other products, from octopus and tilapia to shrimp and organic salt.
- The fisheries sector employs about 12 million Indonesians, with most of the fleet today, about 650,000 vessels, operated by small-scale and traditional fishers.
Penguins ‘enrich our lives’: Q&A with Pablo Borboroglu, protector of penguins
- Pablo Garcia Borboroglu, a marine biologist from Patagonia, Argentina, was recently awarded the 2023 Indianapolis Prize for his work in protecting penguins around the world.
- Penguins face many threats, including pollution, human disturbance, and the impacts of fisheries and climate change.
- Borboroglu has helped protect penguins through various actions, including establishing marine and terrestrial protected areas, conservation research programs, and educational programs.
Red floods near giant Indonesia nickel mine blight farms and fishing grounds
- Farming communities in the shadow of Sulawesi’s giant Pomalaa nickel mining area say their fields have been flooded with red water, possibly laterite waste from the mining operations.
- Local farmers blame flooding from the mine for longer harvest cycles and reduced productivity.
- Indonesia’s biggest environmental NGO says the government should review mining permits to safeguard rice fields.
Indonesia looks into tuna farming to boost aquaculture, reduce overfishing
- Indonesia is developing tuna farming in the country’s bays in an effort to boost its aquaculture sector and ease the pressure on its world-leading marine tuna fishery.
- The fisheries ministry said it was consulting with international fisheries experts about implementing tuna farming.
- Indonesia’s archipelagic waters are key fishing grounds for several many tuna species, as well as spawning grounds for the fish.
- Indonesia’s tuna fisheries is an important source of livelihood for coastal communities and a key source of food for consumers around the world.
New digital tool maps blue carbon ecosystems in high resolution
- The Blue Carbon Explorer, a digital tool developed by the nonprofit Nature Conservancy and the Earth-imaging company Planet, combines satellite imagery, drone footage and fieldwork to map mangroves and seagrass in the Caribbean, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.
- The tool aims to help scientists, conservationists and governments gauge mangrove health and identify areas in need of restoration.
- The Blue Carbon Explorer comes at a time of growing interest in blue carbon ecosystems as potential nature-based solutions for climate change.
Experts, activists unite to blast Indonesia’s U-turn on sea sand exports
- Indonesia will resume exporting sand dredged from the sea, commonly used in reclamation projects, ending a 20-year ban.
- Environmental activists and marine experts have criticized the policy, saying the resumption caters only to business interests and fails to consider the damage to marine ecosystems and fishing communities.
- The government says it will only allow dredging on seabed areas where sediment from land runoff has accumulated, adding that this will also help ease ship traffic.
- But critics say these arguments are meaningless and a form of greenwashing, and have called for widespread public opposition to the policy.
Sumatra’s young primate whisperer brings bullhorn to macaque conservation
- Abdulrahman Manik, also known as Detim, has spent years saving monkeys from marginal lives on the sides of roads, where they forage for food and risk being struck by passing vehicles.
- Manik’s father had originally planned to poison the monkeys on his farm, until he had a dream that told him to take a different approach.
- Throughout Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia, many see the long-tailed macaque as a pest, but in 2022 the species’ conservation status worsened from vulnerable to endangered.
Indonesia eyes enrolling more ports in fight against illegal fishing
- Only four of Indonesia’s nearly 2,500 ports implement the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA), an international treaty that targets illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing by denying access to vessels engaged in that practice.
- With neighboring Thailand having 26 ports that implement PSMA, the Indonesian government says it’s considering expanding coverage to more of its ports.
- The PSMA is part of a set of tools to improve fisheries transparency and traceability, which in turn would increase global trust in fish products coming from Indonesia, one of the world’s top producers of seafood.
- Indonesia’s estimated fish stock is 12 million metric tons, down almost 4% from 2017, while 53% of its fisheries management zones are considered “fully exploited,” up from 44% in 2017.
Conservationists aim to save critically endangered European eels on Italy’s Po River
- European eels (Anguilla anguilla) are critically endangered, their population having plummeted by 97% since 1980.
- Illegal fishing, dams and other barriers to their migration, droughts, pollution and habitat changes are putting the eels’ survival at risk.
- These eels reproduce once in their lifetime, only in the Sargasso Sea, where they die. Their unique lifecycle and migratory pattern further complicates conservation efforts.
- In Italy’s Po River Basin, researchers are working to conserve eels through interventions including the construction of fish passages to defragment rivers, reproduction in captivity and teaching fishers to recognize and release the likeliest breeders.
Record year for olive ridley turtles in Bangladesh as conservation work pays off
- Bangladesh has recorded the highest number of olive ridley turtle eggs this nesting season, a conservationist group says.
- The species’ main nesting grounds in Bangladesh are the various small islands off the southeastern district of Cox’s Bazar in the Bay of Bengal.
- Extensive conservation action across the area and the awareness programs carried out among local communities are the key reasons behind the success.
- However, the growth of the tourism industry and infrastructure development continue to pose major threats to the turtles and their nesting grounds.
Studies show oyster reef restoration can work out well — given enough time
- Researchers have found that the restoration of eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) reefs in the U.S. have been largely successful, improving oyster production, enhancing habitat, and increasing nitrogen cycling.
- They also found that oyster restoration was more successful in deeper, saltier parts of coastal waters and that it generally took at least eight years for restored reefs to yield long-term benefits.
- But since the 1800s, more than 85% of global reefs have disappeared due to overfishing, disease and other anthropogenic pressures.
- Researchers say their findings can help restoration managers identify which ecosystem services can benefit from their work, how long those benefits might take to accrue, where to construct oyster reefs.
Sargassum surges in Mexico: From nuisance to new green industry?
- Since 2011, sargassum has worsened as a nuisance — possibly due to an influx of synthetic fertilizers into the Atlantic Ocean — with the brown algae washing up on Caribbean beaches where it rots, stinks like rotten eggs and devastates tourism, including in Mexico where 30 million go for beach holidays annually.
- Sea currents have made the beaches of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo a leading arrival point for the annual surge. So early on, scientists, members of civil society, politicians and businesspeople worked together to find solutions and turn the huge waste problem into an opportunity for new green businesses.
- Once cleaned of heavy metals, microplastics, sand and other detritus, sargassum is finding many uses, particularly as biogas, but also biofertilizer, cellulose packaging and even artificial vegan leather. But a national law regulating sargassum remains elusive, with the issue tangled up in Mexican bureaucracy.
- Debate is ongoing as to who should pay for disposal, for expensive recollection and transport of the algae. As entrepreneurs experiment, Mexico has become a regional leader in creating a sargassum industry, with other Caribbean nations seeking to learn from Mexico’s business mistakes and copying its successes.
Crud-to-crude: The global potential of biofuels made from human waste
- Creating liquid biofuels from human waste shows promise as a way to meet one of alternative energy’s greatest challenges: reducing the transportation sector’s heavy carbon footprint. The good news is there is a steady supply stream where waste is treated.
- Humanity produces millions of tons of sewage sludge annually via wastewater treatment. Existing disposal methods include landfilling, application on agricultural land, and incineration; each with social and environmental consequences.
- Harnessing the carbon-rich potential of sludge as a transportation fuel for planes, ships and trucks is part of a drive toward zero waste and creating a circular economy, say experts. A host of projects are underway to prove the effectiveness of various methods of turning all this crud into biocrude.
- Some techniques show promise in lab and pilot tests, but large-scale industrial plants have yet to be built. Using pollutant-laden sewage sludge as a biofuel comes with its own environmental concerns, but lacking a silver-bullet solution to the human waste problem, it could be part of a suite of best alternatives.
Spamming streams with hatchery salmon can disrupt ecosystems, study finds
- In a new study, researchers found that releasing hatchery-bred native masu salmon into freshwater streams in Hokkaido, Japan, destabilized the local ecosystems.
- Overall, the study found that the total number of fish, and number of different species, both declined in the long term due to greater competition for resources like food and preferred feeding spots.
- Masu salmon populations also did not increase in the long term, the research found.
- With hatchery releases increasing in many areas — and for many species — the findings add to the ongoing debate over their wider effects on wild fish populations.
A Philippine town and its leaders show how mangrove restoration can succeed
- In the early 1990s, the coastal town of Prieto Diaz, in the Philippines’ Bicol region, was selected as a pilot area for a community-based resource management program created by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
- Today, an award-winning community organization helps maintain a mangrove ecosystem that has grown to be the region’s largest and supports the livelihoods of both its members and the broader community.
- Residents credit the restored mangrove ecosystem with protecting the village from storm surges, and point to committed local leaders as vital to the ongoing success of mangrove restoration and protection.
Mouth of the Amazon oil exploration clashes with Lula’s climate promises
- State-owned Petrobras has requested a license to investigate an oil site in a region in the north of Brazil where the Amazon River meets the Atlantic Ocean.
- The region is home to swathes of mangroves and coral reefs that environmentalists say are highly biodiverse and fundamental to local communities.
- Experts demand that Brazil’s environmental agency reject the license, saying the government hasn’t conducted the required detailed studies to assess the potential impact.
- Critics warn that pursuing fossil fuels contradicts President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s vows to adopt a renewable energy strategy and clashes with global climate change guidelines.
Saving forests to protect coastal ecosystems: Japan sets historic example
- For hundreds of years, the island nation of Japan has seen various examples of efforts to conserve its coastal ecosystems, vital to its fisheries.
- An 1897 law created protection forests to conserve a variety of ecosystem services. “Fish forests,” one type of protection forest, conserve watershed woodlands and offer benefits to coastal fisheries, including shade, soil erosion reduction, and the provision of nutrients.
- Beginning in the late 1980s, fishers across Japan started planting trees in coastal watersheds that feed into their fishing grounds, helping launch the nation’s environmental movement. Although the fishers felt from experience that healthy forests contribute to healthy seas, science for many years offered little evidence.
- New research using environmental DNA metabarcoding analysis confirms that greater forest cover in Japan’s watersheds contributes to a greater number of vulnerable coastal fish species. Lessons learned via Japan’s protection and fish forests could benefit nations the world over as the environmental crisis deepens.
CO2 in, methane out? Study highlights complexity of coastal carbon sinks
- Coastal ecosystems take in huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but researchers are still deciphering how much methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas, they put back into the system.
- Researchers studying seaweed and mixed vegetation habitats in the Baltic Sea found they emit methane equivalent to 28% and 35% respectively of the CO2 that they absorb.
- The findings highlight that more work is needed to understand methane emissions in different coastal areas to get a better accounting of the carbon balance sheet.
Can we control marine invaders by eating them?
- The Mediterranean Sea is home to more than 750 exotic species. Some have adverse ecological effects, like lionfish and blue crabs, but are also edible and even tasty.
- Observers often argue that eating invasive marine species is the best way to deal with them, but some scientists warn that this doesn’t always offer a straightforward solution.
- Setting up targeted fisheries to control marine invaders involves balancing many considerations: fishers’ interests, markets, government policy and conservation.
- Even so, harvesting and serving marine invasive species has immense power to raise awareness about them.
Island-hopping cougars redraw boundaries of big cats’ potential range
- Scientists have documented cougars swimming long distances across the Salish Sea, which challenges former conceptions of cougar ranges and habitat connectivity.
- The research suggests that cougars could access thousands of islands in the Pacific Northwest by swimming up to about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) across the sea.
- Other experts have documented cougars swimming across rivers, strengthening the idea that cougars spend more time in the water than previously thought.
When a red snapper is more than just a fish: Q&A fisheries scientist Elle Wibisono
- Fisheries scientist and artist Elle Wibisono recently published a children’s book, “A Snapper Tale,” that features red-colored snappers native to Indonesia’s waters.
- Equipped with her extensive knowledge and experience in marine conservation and sustainable fisheries, Wibisono uses her book to highlight the importance of fish identification, a key component of sustainable fisheries.
- Indonesia is home to one of the world’s richest marine ecosystems, with its fisheries sector supplying seafood demand from home and around the world.
- Mongabay’s Basten Gokkon spoke with Elle Wibisono recently about her book and the highlighted fisheries issues, and her hopes for the impacts it will have on readers young and old and on Indonesia’s marine conservation policies.
Rule change sees foreign investors back in Indonesia’s fisheries scene
- The Indonesian government on March 6 issued a decree on a fisheries policy change that ushers in quota-based capture in six fishing zones for industrial, local, and non-commercial fishers.
- The policy also allows foreign investment back into the country’s marine capture sector, after it was banned in 2016 in an effort to tackle illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing by foreign vessels in Indonesian waters.
- These key changes have raised concerns among some marine conservationists and defenders of artisanal fishers’ rights, who say the new regime is oriented mostly toward the large-scale exploitation of Indonesia’s marine resources when more than half of fishing zones in the country are already “fully exploited.”
- Indonesia is one of the world’s biggest marine capture producers, with some of the richest marine biodiversity on the planet.
Indonesia’s mangrove restoration will run out of land well short of target, study warns
- The Indonesian government’s mangrove restoration plan faces a major hurdle, according to a new study: less than a third of the target area is actually viable for restoration.
- The finding isn’t all bad news; the researchers have been invited to collaborate with the national mangrove restoration agency on “fine-tuning where these areas are, and what kind of priority they need.”
- The study found the most promising sites for restoration are on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, which largely match the government’s own priority areas.
- Successful mangrove restoration across Indonesia could secure healthy fisheries for coastal communities and improve fisheries-based economies, thereby reducing poverty and hunger, and improving health and well-being for 74 million people.
China-funded bridge threatens Paradise Reef in southern Philippines
- Samal Island, a popular tourist destination near Davao City in the southern Philippines, is fringed by a 300-meter (980-foot) coral system known as Paradise Reef, which hosts more than 100 coral species.
- A plan to build a bridge linking Davao to Samal threatens to destroy the reef, scientists and conservationists warn.
- Campaigners in the area are calling on the Philippine government to reroute the bridge to minimize damage to the ecosystem.
Indonesian fisheries fee change promises more revenue, but likely also more violations
- The Indonesian fisheries ministry is implementing a new scheme under which operators of large fishing boats would pay a range of fees after landing their catch instead of before.
- The ministry says the change is meant to boost state revenue from these non-tax fees, but observers warn it opens the potential for an increase in unreported catches.
- That’s because a key feature of the new policy is that it relies heavily on self-declarations by fishing boat operators when reporting the volume of their catch at port.
- Indonesia has one of the biggest fishing industries in the world, employing about 12 million mostly artisanal fishers, and its waters support some of the planet’s highest levels of marine biodiversity.
As livelihoods clash with development, Vietnam’s Cần Giờ mangroves are at risk
- Cần Giờ, a coastal district of Ho Chi Minh City, is home to a 75,740-hectare (187,158-acre) mangrove forest, planted and maintained as part of post-war reforestation efforts.
- The district’s residents largely depend on aquaculture, shellfish gathering and small-scale ecotourism for their livelihoods.
- The government and developers hope to market the area as an ecotourism city based on its natural beauty and post-war success story, but major projects could disrupt Cần Giờ’s precarious balance between ecosystems and livelihoods.
- All names of sources in Cần Giờ have been changed so people could speak freely without fearing repercussions from authorities.
‘Locals want their resources to last’: Q&A with marine ecologist Vilma Machava-António
- Ocean Revolution Mozambique (ORM), a recipient of the UNDP’s Equator Prize for 2022, promotes marine conservation in the East African nation by supporting Mozambican researchers in their quest for knowledge.
- “You cannot talk about ecosystem conservation without talking about people,” says Vilma Machava-António, a researcher who benefited from an ORM scholarship.
- The marine ecologist spoke to Mongabay about what attracted her to mangroves, the role these unique coastal systems play in climate adaptation, and what explains the success of some community-led efforts to preserve them.
- Mangroves stash carbon efficiently and are critical to adapting to climate impacts, especially in Mozambique, which is hit by cyclones with distressing frequency.
Failed mangrove tourism project in Sumatra highlights need for community collaboration
- Once a bustling attraction, the Sicanang Mangrove Forest ecotourism project in North Sumatra is padlocked and falling into disrepair.
- Launched in 2019, the project was supported by Sumatra-based NGO Yagasu but fell apart in the wake of claims that the project was improperly established on private land.
- Facing multiple accusations, Yagasu withdrew from the project, which failed without the organization’s support. The outcome, Yagasu staff say, highlights the importance of close collaboration among NGOs, local governments and community groups.
‘The Mangrove Guy’: Q&A with Kelly Roberts Banda, Kenya’s lawyer-conservationist
- Kelly Roberts Banda is a Kenyan property and family lawyer best known for his work as a conservationist, planting mangroves and advocating for climate justice.
- According to government data, Kenya lost 20% of its mangroves between 1985 and 2009 due to overharvesting, clearing for salt mining and shrimp harvesting, pollution and sedimentation.
- In addition to planting trees, Banda and his colleagues help local communities earn money through beehives in the mangroves.
- Banda’s passion for the environment stems from a childhood incident in which his home was flooded and he witnessed the damage from heavy rainfall throughout his neighborhood.
On Sumatra coast, mangrove clearing sparks scrutiny of loophole
- Last year, a 100-hectare patch of mangrove trees in eastern Sumatra was cleared to make way for an oil palm plantation.
- Residents say small landowners’ claims were packaged together to form a plantation, averting the need for environmental checks or permits required of a corporate concession.
- Mangrove restoration is a pillar of Indonesia’s climate change agenda, though the clearing of some intact forests has persisted.
Indigenous Kawésqar take on salmon farms in Chile’s southernmost fjords
- Sixty-seven salmon farms exist within Kawésqar National Reserve in southern Chile, an area that formed part of the Kawésqar Indigenous people’s ancestral lands, and another 66 concessions are under consideration there.
- The salmon industry claims the farms only occupy 0.06% of the reserve, which covers a marine area of 2.6 million hectares (6.4 million acres), and have a legitimate presence in the area.
- But Kawésqar communities accuse the farms of taking up the fjords where their sacred areas and fishing grounds are, of violating their rights on their own territory, and of compromising the ecosystem of the entire reserve through severe pollution.
- Kawésqar communities, with the support of various NGOs, are pursuing numerous legal avenues aimed at excluding salmon farms from the reserve.
As sea lice feast away on dwindling salmon, First Nations decide the fate of salmon farms
- Increased sea lice infestations, scientists say are caused by salmon farms, threaten the already-vulnerable wild Pacific salmon populations in western Canada, worrying conservationists and First Nations.
- Three First Nations in the region are now deciding on the future of open net pen Atlantic salmon farms dotting the channels and waterways in and around their territories. They hope their decisions will pave the way to protect wild salmon, a culturally important species.
- So far, ten farms have been closed and the future of seven farms are to be decided this year, in 2023.
- The impact of the closure of the farms on local sea lice and wild salmon populations is still unclear, say scientists, and more time to monitor the data is needed.
Invasive rats topple ecological domino that affects reef fish behavior
- A recent study reveals that the presence of invasive rats on islands can lead to behavioral changes in fish living on coral reefs offshore. A team of scientists found that damselfish have larger territories that they defend less aggressively on reefs near rat-infested islands.
- Rats and other rodents often tag along on ships. For hundreds of years, they’ve colonized islands around the world, where they feast on seabird chicks and eggs, decimating local populations.
- Seabirds deposit nutrient-rich guano on islands, some of which flows out to reefs and fertilizes the growth of algae.
- Smaller seabird numbers on rat-infested islands mean that fewer nutrients end up on reefs, and the algae there has lower nutritional value than off rat-free, seabird-rich islands. The study’s authors concluded that damselfish were less aggressive near islands with rats because it wasn’t worth the energy to defend a less valuable resource.
For threatened seabirds of NE Atlantic, climate change piles on the pressure
- A new report shows that puffins and other seabird species in the Northeast Atlantic are at risk from climate change.
- It warns most seabird species would lose a substantial amount of their current breeding sites and available prey due to climate change, but each species has unique challenges.
- The authors describe potential interventions that conservation experts can enact to protect the species, including the relocation of seabird breeding sites, supplementary feeding, and providing resources that help seabirds deal with extreme weather events such as flooding and heat waves.
More marine protected areas planned for Indonesia’s Maluku after 2022 spree
- The Maluku Islands in Indonesia will protect more swaths of their seas this year, following from the designation of five marine protected areas in 2022 alone.
- The new protected areas will cover the waters around the western island of Buru, where fishing activity will be limited to traditional fishers using sustainable gear.
- Indonesia currently has 284,000 square kilometers (110,000 square miles) of marine area under protection, roughly two-thirds of its target of protecting 10% of its waters.
- The Maluku Islands sit within the Pacific Coral Triangle, an area renowned for its richness of corals and reef fish.
Fishers on Indonesia’s Batam Island suffer as mangrove cover declines
- Fishing is becoming a meager profession in Indonesia’s industrial and resort hub of Batam.
- Satellite imagery shows that only 1.5% of the island’s landmass still retains mangrove habitat.
- Construction of dams, industrial estates and reservoirs are the primary causes of mangrove destruction, according to researchers and local environmental nonprofit Akar Bhumi.
Island conservation should focus on land-sea links for most impact, paper says
- A new perspective piece in PNAS explores the idea that people, wildlife and the environment of islands thrive when conservation efforts focus on restoring both the land and sea together.
- One way to restore land-sea connections on islands is to eradicate invasive species, such as rats, which can harm native island species like seabirds and crabs.
- Research has shown that terrestrial and marine ecosystems reap benefits when invasive species are eliminated from islands.
Indonesian ‘island auction’ to go ahead despite concerns over permits
- Shares of a private company with the rights to develop tourism facilities within a marine reserve in Indonesia have reappeared for auction later this month despite the government’s plan to annul an agreement with the firm.
- The government plans to revoke developer PT LII’s 2015 memorandum of understanding with local authorities, including the rights to develop the Widi Islands for 35 years with a possible extension of another 20 years.
- The company’s plan has met mounting concerns in Indonesia, with experts saying it would be essentially selling the islands off to foreigners and cutting off local fishing communities from a key source of livelihood.
- The Widi Islands are also part of a marine reserve in the Pacific Coral Triangle, a region that’s home to the highest diversity of corals and reef fishes in the world.
Top mangrove news of 2022
- Mangroves are unique forests adapted to live along the coasts in mostly tropical and subtropical areas of the world.
- Mangroves are in danger as they are cleared to make room for farms, mines, and other human developments.
- Mangroves provide a bevy of important ecosystem services such as flood and erosion control and greenhouse gas storage, and they provide habitat for many species.
- Below are some of the most notable mangrove news items of 2022.
Restoring Hong Kong’s oyster reefs, one abandoned oyster farm at a time
- Conservationists and researchers are teaming up to restore oyster reefs across Hong Kong.
- At one site, they are repurposing concrete posts from an abandoned oyster farm that made use of traditional oyster cultivation methods dating back hundreds of years.
- Hong Kong’s oysters, and its oyster farmers, are threatened by development, warming and acidifying marine waters brought on by climate change, and toxic algae blooms due to pollution.
- By restoring the reefs, conservationists and scientists hope they can improve water quality, stabilize shorelines, and provide habitat for the city’s surprisingly rich marine wildlife.
Indonesia’s ‘essential’ mangroves, seagrass and corals remain unprotected
- Much of Indonesia’s mangrove forests, seagrass beds and coral reefs fall outside protected areas, according to a recently published report.
- Indonesia currently has 284,000 square kilometers (110,000 square miles) of marine area under protection, and plans to expand the size of its MPAs to 325,000 km2 (125,000 mi2) by the end of this decade, or 10% of its total territorial waters.
- Less than half of seagrass and coral reefs, and less than a fifth of mangroves, lie within currently protected areas, which experts say could thwart efforts at effective marine conservation.
- The country is home to some of the most diverse marine life on the planet, especially in its eastern region that falls within the Pacific Coral Triangle, an area renowned for its richness of corals and reef fish.
2022’s top ocean news stories (commentary)
- Marine scientists from the University of California, Santa Barbara, share their list of the top 10 ocean news stories from 2022.
- Hopeful developments this past year include the launch of negotiations on the world’s first legally binding international treaty to curb plastic pollution, a multilateral agreement to ban harmful fisheries subsidies and a massive expansion of global shark protections.
- At the same time, the climate crises in the ocean continued to worsen, with a number of record-breaking marine heat waves and an accelerated thinning of ice sheets that could severely exacerbate sea level rise, underscoring the need for urgent ocean-climate actions.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
From bombs to seasonal closure, Indonesian fishers move toward sustainability
- Kahu-Kahu village on Sulawesi’s Selayar Island is implementing its first season- and location-based fishery closure.
- The three-month closure of a 6-hectare (15-acre) stretch of coastal water is intended to replenish local octopus populations by reducing fishing pressure.
- Local fishers will install and plant artificial reefs in the area during the closure.
Plastic pellet pollution can end through coordinated efforts, report shows
- Tiny plastic pellets called nurdles are a major source of global pollution, littering waterways, harming ecosystems and threatening marine life.
- But plastic pellet pollution is preventable, according to a new report by the international conservation group Fauna & Flora International (FFI), and it’s one piece of the global plastic problem that can and should be tackled.
- Solving the problem will require coordinated efforts by companies, governments and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), according to FFI.
Extinct sea cow’s underwater engineering legacy lives on today, study finds
- In a new study, scientists said that the extinct Steller’s sea cow impacted kelp forests in the North Pacific by browsing at the surface, which would have encouraged the growth and strengthening of the algal understory.
- Not only would sea cows have positively impacted kelp forests in the past, but they may have also enhanced their resilience into modern times, according to the authors.
- Globally, kelp forests face many threats, including ocean warming, which can lead to an overabundance of predatory urchins.
- The authors suggest that it might be possible for humans to reproduce the species’ impact on the canopy of kelp forests to enhance kelp forest resilience.
Global study reveals widespread salt marsh decline
- The world lost 1,453 square kilometers (561 square miles) of salt marsh between 2000 and 2019, an area twice the size of Singapore, according to a new study based on satellite imagery.
- In addition to providing wildlife habitat and numerous ecosystem services, salt marshes store a great deal of carbon.
- Salt marsh loss resulted in 16.3 teragrams, or 16.3 million metric tons, of carbon emissions per year, according to the study. That’s the rough equivalent of the output of around 3.5 million cars.
- Climate change is one of the greatest threats to marshes. Other contributors to their global decline include conversion to aquaculture, coastal erosion, eutrophication, drainage, mangrove encroachment and invasive species.
Island shopping: Cambodian officials buy up the Cardamoms’ coast
- A buying spree by Cambodia’s wealthy and politically connected elites has put the fate of a string of small islands in the balance, affecting the livelihoods of local fishers.
- Resort developments threaten the Koh S’dach archipelago’s seagrass and coral ecosystems, which harbor rare and threatened marine life.
- Local fishers have also found themselves locked out of their traditional fishing grounds by the developers, leading to a loss of earnings.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.
In Sierra Leone’s fishing villages, a reality check for climate aid
- In April, Mongabay’s Ashoka Mukpo visited the Sherbro estuary, a sprawling riverine ecosystem of mangroves and coastal fishing villages on the Sierra Leonean coastline.
- Like other coastal areas in West Africa, the Sherbro estuary is already suffering the impacts of climate change, including flooding and higher temperatures.
- Between 2016 and 2021, USAID financed mangrove replanting and the construction of makeshift seawalls in villages here as part of a coastal climate resilience aid project.
- The project’s struggles here are an example of the difficulties that climate aid efforts can face when they meet the economic and social needs of people in vulnerable areas.
Protecting wetlands is key to Indonesia hitting its climate goals, study says
- Fully protecting Indonesia’s remaining peatlands and mangroves is crucial in meeting its greenhouse gas reduction goals under the Paris climate agreement, a new study says.
- Protecting these existing wetland ecosystems, including extending prevailing protections to secondary forests, has a greater climate mitigation potential than restoring degraded ecosystems, the study authors say.
- Under its Paris Agreement commitment, Indonesia has pledged to cut emissions by 31.8% by 2030 against the business-as-usual trajectory, or 43.2% with support from the international community.
- Most of the country’s emissions come from the forestry and other land use sector, but this sector receives scant climate funding for decarbonization compared to the transportation and electricity sectors.
Indonesia’s mangrove revival hindered by conflicting policies
- Indonesia’s president showcased a new conservation area to G20 leaders as an example of the country’s efforts to combat climate change.
- The country aims to add 33 more sites next year and rehabilitate 600,000 hectares of mangroves by 2024.
- Only about one-third of the country’s mangroves are in good condition, and conflicting development policies stand in the way of future conservation efforts, according to the nation’s largest environmental group.
Indonesian authorities nip island auction in marine reserve in the bud
- Indonesian officials have sought to neuter an apparent bid to auction off private tourism enclaves to foreign investors in a marine reserve in the country’s east.
- Shares of Bali-based developer PT Leadership Islands Indonesia (LII) had been up for bidding via Sotheby’s Concierge Auctions in New York from Dec. 8-14, but the deputy environment minister said this had now been annulled.
- LII holds the rights to develop tourism facilities in the Widi Islands, but not to sell off individual islands to foreign investors, which is against Indonesian law.
- The Widi Islands are part of a marine reserve in the Pacific Coral Triangle, and while most of the islands are uninhabited, they hold high social, cultural and livelihood importance for local fishing communities.
Fishers in Flores Sea opt to limit harvest of overexploited sea cucumbers
- Fishers on Indonesia’s Sapuka island have decided to regulate their sea cucumber harvests.
- Since the 1960s, sea cucumber has been an important commodity for the island, but heavy harvest pressure has pushed the fishery to overexploited status.
- Sea cucumbers play a crucial role in the marine ecosystem by providing food to other species and adding nutrients and pH balance in waters around coral reefs and other shallow-water ecosystems.
Mangrove forest loss is slowing toward a halt, new report shows
- In 2021, the Global Mangrove Alliance, a consortium of NGOs, published “The State of the World’s Mangroves,” the first snapshot study compiled from satellite imagery intended to provide an up-to-date record of global mangrove forest cover.
- The second installment of the report, published in September, draws on improved and updated maps.
- The report shows a decline in the overall rate of mangrove loss and outlines concrete actions to halt the loss for good and help mangroves begin regaining ground.
To protect the Southern Ocean, leaders must act now (commentary)
- This week in Australia, global leaders have the opportunity to protect Antarctica’s vast and biodiversity rich Southern Ocean at the annual Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) meeting.
- Emperor penguins, orcas, crabeater seals, albatross, and krill are among the species that call this region home, but the latter is a key one that plays a huge role in the health of Antarctica, since it underpins the food web.
- The commercial krill fishery produces fishmeal for pets, people and aquaculture and has become concentrated in recent years, with most of the catch taken from small, nearshore areas where wildlife feed: “We need Southern Ocean MPAs and well-designed fishery measures to effectively conserve fish populations, habitats and wildlife,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Europe considers large-scale seaweed farming; environmental effects unknown
- The European Commission is planning large-scale industrial farming of seaweed across the continent’s shores.
- The goal is to farm 8 million metric tons of seaweed annually by 2030, up from the current annual farmed production of about 3,000 metric tons.
- Proponents tout a sustainable form of farming that can produce food, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and biofuels, and sequester carbon.
- However, the potential ecological impacts have yet to be fully assessed.
Plastic impacts a grossly underestimated ‘one-two punch’ for seabirds: Study
- That plastic pollution is harmful to marine life, including seabirds, is well known, but recent research finds that the impacts may be “grossly underestimated” and that plastics can affect multiple organs.
- A new study investigated plastic ingestion by flesh-footed shearwaters and found that — as was determined in past research — initial consumption can harm the stomach. New evidence also showed that impacts are far more expansive, and may cause ongoing health problems distributed throughout body organs.
- Some forms of tissue damage detected by the new research suggest that plastic particles may also act as chemical pollutants, though this requires further study.
- Plastic pollution is a massive growing problem for the world’s oceans and marine life. Earlier this year, researchers announced that the global planetary boundary for novel entities — including plastics — has been surpassed, threatening Earth’s operating systems and life as we know it.
Heat-sensing drone cameras spy threats to sea turtle nests
- Researchers used heat-detecting cameras mounted on drones to monitor sea turtle nesting on a beach in Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula.
- Using thermal infrared imagery, researchers detected 20% more turtle nesting activity than on-the-ground patrollers did. The drone imagery also revealed 39 nest predators and other animals, as well as three people, assumed to be poachers, that were not detected by patrollers.
- In Costa Rica, turtle eggs are sold locally and illegally for their alleged aphrodisiac properties. Six out of the seven species of sea turtles are threatened globally, and protecting their eggs is one of the easiest ways to ensure they endure into the future.
- The lead author says these methods are still rather expensive and aren’t a replacement for patrollers but could be an extra tool that they can use to get a big improvement on night patrols, especially on nesting beaches that are dangerous and inaccessible.
Shallow-water mining isn’t the eco alternative to deep-sea mining, study says
- Mining in the shallow waters of the continental shelf is seen as more sustainable than deep-sea mining, but goes against global goals on sustainability and conservation, a new study says.
- There are already shallow-mining projects underway in Namibia and Indonesia; others, in Mexico, New Zealand and Sweden, have been proposed.
- But as with deep-sea mining, for which commercial operations have not yet begun, shallow-water mining can have drastic effects on marine biodiversity because it requires dredging up the seafloor to extract the minerals found there.
‘One more thing’ about plastics: They could be acidifying the ocean, study says
- New research suggests that plastic could contribute to ocean acidification, especially in highly polluted coastal areas, through the release of organic chemical compounds and carbon dioxide, both of which can lower the pH of seawater.
- The study found that sunlight enabled this process and that older, degraded plastics released a higher amount of dissolved organic carbon and did more to lower the pH of seawater.
- However, the findings of this study were conducted in a laboratory, so it’s unclear whether experiments conducted in estuaries or the open ocean would yield similar results, experts said.
Element Africa: Diamonds, oil, coltan, and more diamonds
- Offshore diamond prospecting threatens a fishing community in South Africa, while un-checked mining for the precious stones on land is silting up rivers in Zimbabwe.
- In Nigeria, serial polluter Shell is accused of not cleaning up a spill from a pipeline two months ago; the company says the spill was mostly water from flushing out the pipeline.
- Also in Nigeria, mining for coltan, the source of niobium and tantalum, important metals in electronics applications, continues to destroy farms and nature even as the government acknowledges it’s being done illegally.
- Element Africa is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin rounding up brief stories from the commodities industry in Africa.
Indonesian lobster larvae bound for Singapore reveal role of smuggling network
- Two recent seizures of lobster larvae shipments destined for Singapore have prompted an investigation by Indonesia into a smuggling network operating between the two countries.
- The shipments had an estimated value of $2.2 million, and were the latest in a string of attempts to smuggle the larvae to buyers in Singapore, Vietnam and China.
- Indonesia has banned the export of wild-caught larvae in an effort to its lobster stocks, and is encouraging the growth of the domestic lobster-farming industry.
- Lobsters are among Indonesia’s top fisheries commodities, but the illegal exports cost the country $64 million in lost revenue in 2019 alone, according to official data.
Indonesia to update conservation efforts for aquarium favorite cardinalfish
- Indonesia’s fisheries ministry says it is working on a new conservation road map for Banggai cardinalfish (Pterapogon kauderni), a popular species in the aquarium trade globally that is found only in the waters around the country’s Banggai Archipelago.
- The fish is caught in large numbers — an estimated 500,000 to 900,000 individuals annually — and is exported mainly to the United States and Europe.
- The updated conservation plan will evaluate the previous five-year plan for the cardinalfish, and use this to inform the national strategy for the next five years, the ministry said.
- The cardinalfish’s habitat, the Banggai Archipelago, is considered to be in the heart of the Pacific Coral Triangle, which is home to the highest diversity of corals and reef fishes anywhere on the planet.
Acid test: Are the world’s oceans becoming too ‘acidic’ to support life?
- The world’s oceans absorb about a quarter of humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions, buffering us against higher atmospheric CO2 levels and greater climate change. But that absorption has led to a lowering of seawater pH and the acidification of the oceans.
- The process of ocean acidification is recognized as a leading threat to ocean life due to its impairment of calcifying organisms and other marine species. The full impacts of acidification are unknown, but at some point reduced pH could be disastrous biologically.
- Researchers have designated ocean acidification as one of nine planetary boundaries whose limits, if transgressed, could threaten civilization and life as we know it. But there is debate as to whether there is a global boundary for this process, since acidification impacts some regions and species more or less than others, making it hard to quantify.
- Scientists agree that the primary solution to ocean acidification is the lowering of carbon emissions, though some researchers are investigating other solutions, such as depositing alkaline rock minerals into oceans to lower the pH of seawater.
An Indonesian rock star shines his light on mangroves, urban farming and more
- Andi Fadly Arifuddin is known to millions of Indonesians as Fadly, the vocalist of alt-rock band Padi, which formed in 1996 and relaunched as Padi Reborn in 2018.
- While many musicians sing of the need to protect the environment, Fadly walks the talk through sustainable agriculture education, urban farming and mangrove conservation.
- In his home district of Sinjai in South Sulawesi province, he’s campaigning to create a mangrove hub in collaboration with local youth and government.
The Western Indian Ocean lost 4% of its mangroves in 24 years, report finds
- Analysis presented in a new report finds the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region lost around 4% its mangrove forests between 1996 and 2020.
- The WIO region includes the coastal areas of Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar and Mozambique, which together account for 5% of the world’s mangroves.
- The report finds the majority of WIO mangrove loss was driven by unsustainable wood extraction, land clearance for agriculture and the impacts of storms and flooding.
- Mangroves provide vital ecosystem services to coastal communities and habitats, and sequester large amounts of carbon.
In Indonesia’s West Sumbawa, tide turns on taste for turtle eggs
- Consumption of turtle eggs is widespread in Indonesia’s West Sumbawa district, where they’re served to guests of honor such as local government officials.
- All seven species of sea turtle are listed as threatened worldwide, with egg poaching a key cause of endangerment.
- West Sumbawa officials have pledged to stamp out poaching and consumption of sea turtle eggs.
Seaweed an increasingly fragile lifeline for Philippine farmers
- Commercial seaweed farming began in the Philippines in the 1970s and has grown to be one of the country’s most significant aquaculture enterprises, supporting more than 200,000 coastal families.
- In communities in Palawan, seaweed farming also plays a role in protecting marine life, with small farmers serving as extra eyes and ears in the fight against illegal fishing.
- As climate change intensifies, warmer waters are making seaweed farms more susceptible to pests and diseases, threatening the survival of the industry and the families that depend on it.
Healthy mangroves build a resilient community in the Philippines’ Palawan
- According to historical accounts, the fisheries of Malampaya Sound in the Philippines’ Palawan province were once so rich it was difficult to wade to shore without stepping on crabs.
- This bounty fueled migration to the area from across the Philippines, and by the turn of the 20th century, much of the areas’ mangroves had been cleared or degraded, leading to a decline in fish catches.
- From 2011-2013, mangrove restoration efforts were initiated as part of the Philippines’ National Greening Program, but, as elsewhere in the country, the initiative performed far below target.
- Today, however, thanks to ongoing outreach initiatives, community partnerships and Indigenous belief systems, the importance of preserving mangroves is widely recognized and the area’s coastal forests and fisheries are seeing a recovery.
Niger Delta mangroves in ‘grave danger’ from oil spills, poverty, invasive species
- Southern Nigeria’s vast Niger Delta boasts Africa’s most extensive mangrove forests — and some of the world’s largest fossil fuel reserves.
- Efforts to extract oil and gas have resulted in numerous oil spills, which have damaged the region’s biodiversity, as well as the livelihoods of coastal communities.
- Niger Delta mangroves are also affected by logging, farming and urban expansion, and are being replaced by invasive nipa palm.
- Research suggests Niger Delta’s mangroves could be gone within 50 years at the current rate of loss.
Aziil Anwar, Indonesian coral-based mangrove grower, dies at 64
- Aziil Anwar, a civil servant turned award-winning mangrove restorer, has died from diabetes-related complications.
- Aziil gained prominence in the 1990s by pioneering a way to boost the success of mangrove planting in coral damaged by blast fishing on the island of Baluno in Indonesia’s West Sulawesi province.
- With the help of local children, he managed to plant some 100 hectares (nearly 250 acres), fully covering the island and extending the mangrove forest out toward the mainland.
In Sumatra, rising seas and sinking land spell hard times for fishers
- Fishers operating near the port of Belawan on the Indonesian island of Sumatra are reporting declining catches and a hit to their livelihoods from tidal flooding.
- The flooding has grown more frequent and severe, exacerbated by rising seas and the clearing of mangrove forests for oil palm plantations.
- Traders who buy local catches have also been affected by the flooding, which can cut off commercial transport routes.
- This region of northern Sumatra is one of the areas targeted by the Indonesian government for mangrove restoration, but until that yields results, the fishers say they’re essentially helpless.
Indonesia backtracks on plan criticized for ‘privatizing’ fisheries resources
- Indonesia will not go ahead with a plan to allow foreign and domestic fishing companies to operate for up to 30 years under a contract system.
- The plan was widely criticized by small-scale fishers and marine experts, who said it threatened to turn a public resource into a private one for the highest bidders.
- The fisheries ministry now says it will revert to a quota-based system for allocating fishing permits, under which new investors will be eligible for “special permits” of up to 15 years.
- Experts say details of the new fisheries management system must be made public, given that the “special permit” scheme looks suspiciously like the axed contract system.
Overlooked and at risk, seagrass is habitat of choice for many small-scale fishers
- Seagrass meadows, rather than coral reefs, are the fishing grounds of choice for many fishing households in four countries in the Indo-Pacific region, a new study shows.
- Fishers in Cambodia, Tanzania, Indonesia and Sri Lanka identified seagrass meadows as being more easily accessible than coral reefs, often without the need for a boat, and less likely to damage equipment such as nets.
- However, seagrasses around the world are disappearing at rates that rival those of coral reefs and tropical rainforests, losing as much as 7% of their area each year.
- The study makes the case for better-informed management of these marine habitats, to ensure their sustainability for the marine life and people who depend on them.
Indonesia’s mangrove restoration bid holds huge promise, but obstacles abound
- Indonesia has more mangrove forests than any other country, but much of it has been degraded for fish and shrimp farms.
- The government aims to restore 600,000 hectares of mangroves by 2024, but questions remain about its stated progress toward that goal.
- If Indonesia can completely stop mangrove destruction, it can meet one-fourth of the government’s 29% emissions reduction target for 2030.
Where do the guitarfish go? Scientists and fishers team up to find out
- In late March and early April of this year, a team of researchers and local fishers caught, sampled and released more than 50 sharks and rays in the Bijagós Archipelago of Guinea-Bissau, including several threatened species.
- A first for conservation, researchers tagged members of a critically endangered ray species, the blackchin guitarfish (Glaucostegus cemiculus), with satellite transmitters.
- Team leader Guido Leurs says the research will provide crucial information for policymakers to better protect sharks and rays in Guinea-Bissau.
- Fisheries management within the archipelago, which spans 12,950 square kilometers (5,000 square miles) and 88 islands, is a challenge for the West African nation.
Ban on use of destructive net fails to make an impact in Indonesia, experts say
- Fisheries observers say a year-old ban on a seine net considered unsustainable and destructive has been largely ineffective.
- Reports show fishers continue to use the square-meshed cantrang net despite the ban, and can even modify the diamond-meshed replacement introduced by the fisheries ministry.
- While in theory the replacement net should allow juvenile fish to escape, in practice it’s used much the same way as the cantrang, threatening already depleted fish stocks around the country.
- Observers blame the continued violations on authorities’ reluctance to crack down on the hugely popular cantrang for fear of angering the millions-strong and politically important demographic of fishing communities.
For women on Bangladesh’s coast, rising seas pose a reproductive health dilemma
- In coastal areas of Bangladesh, where poor families often can’t afford menstrual pads, women and adolescent girls are compelled to use cloth rags that they wash in water that’s becoming increasingly saline.
- This has led to a spate of uterine diseases, prompting many women and girls to misuse birth control pills in an effort to stop their menstrual cycles altogether.
- Health experts say this practice, carried out without medical advice, poses both short- and long-term risks to their reproductive and mental health.
- The root of the problem is the ever-worsening intrusion of saltwater into the water table, driven by a combination of rising sea levels, seepage from shrimp farms, and falling levels of the Ganges River.
Scientists strive to restore world’s embattled kelp forests
- Kelp forests grow along more than one-quarter of the world’s coastlines, and are among the planet’s most biodiverse ecosystems. But these critical habitats are disappearing due to warming oceans and other human impacts.
- Sudden recent wipeouts of vast kelp forests along the coastlines of Tasmania and California highlighted how little was known about protecting or restoring these vital marine ecosystems.
- Scientists are finding new ways to help restore kelp, but promising small-scale successes need to be ramped up significantly to replace massive kelp losses in some regions.
- Global interest in studying seaweed for food, carbon storage and other uses, may help improve wild kelp restoration methods.
U.N. Ocean Conference ends with promises. Is a sea change coming?
- The second United Nations Oceans Conference took place from June 27 to July 1 in Lisbon, focusing on the protection of life under water, as dictated by U.N. Sustainable Development Goal No. 14.
- The conference was originally meant to have taken place in 2020, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- While nations, NGOs and other entities made hundreds of conservation commitments, including pledges to expand marine protected areas, end destructive fishing practices, and fund conservation efforts, experts say there is still a lot of work to be done to protect our oceans.
- Coalitions of small-scale fishers and Indigenous peoples also voiced their concerns about being excluded from important conservation dialogues.
Indonesia to issue quota-based fisheries policy in July, sparking concerns
- The Indonesian government will issue a decree that manages the country’s marine fisheries based on capture quotas, prompting concerns from experts that the new strategy may threaten the sustainability of fish stocks.
- Several marine observers note that more than half of fishing zones in Indonesia are already “fully exploited.”
- They also take issue with the small portion of the quota reportedly being allocated for traditional and small-scale fishers, warning of a widening income gap and social conflicts as a result.
- Indonesia’s wild capture fisheries employ around 2.7 million workers; the majority of Indonesian fishers are small-scale operators, with vessels smaller than 10 gross tonnage.
WTO ban on ‘harmful’ subsidies won’t impact small-scale fishers, Indonesia says
- Indonesia will continue subsidizing its small-scale fishers in the wake of a recent deal struck by members of the World Trade Organization to end “harmful” subsidies.
- The legally binding agreement prohibits WTO member states from giving subsidies that support the fishing of already-overfished stocks and curbs those that contribute to illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing at sea.
- Indonesian subsidies to fishers — in the form of insurance, fishing gear and fuel subsidies, among others — amount to $92 per fisher annually, much less than in the U.S. ($4,956), Japan ($8,385) or Canada ($31,800).
- Indonesia is the second-biggest marine capture producer, after China, harvesting 84.4 million metric tons of seafood in 2018.
Study: Marine governance in Indonesia pursues exploitation over sustainability
- Marine spatial planning in Indonesia over the past 300 years has historically and systematically supported profit-oriented activities at the cost of the ocean ecosystem and coastal communities, a recent paper says.
- Researchers found that little had changed despite decades of attempts to reform marine governance to support more sustainable uses of sea resources in Indonesia.
- They also found that coastal communities, traditional and small-scale fishers had lost much of their control and influence over marine areas, while ruling elites at the national level gradually gained more of it.
- The fisheries sector has long been important to the food security of Indonesia, with most of the country’s more than 270 million inhabitants living in coastal areas.
Dig, dump, repeat, then watch the forest grow: Q&A with mangrove restorer Keila Vazquez
- Las Chelemeras is a group of 18 women in the Mexican port town of Chelem who, since 2010, have worked to restore and protect their local mangrove forests on the northern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula.
- To date, they have contributed to the reforestation of approximately 50 hectares (124 acres) of mangroves, accounting for half of Chelem’s forest cover.
- “We have learned that our work is not only a job or a paycheck, but a collaboration with the environment, and that gives us satisfaction,” says Keila Vazquez, a founding member of the group.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Vazquez talks about her work with Las Chelemeras, the challenges ahead for her community, and how the reforestation of their environment has impacted younger generations.
Sea restoration projects quilt a ‘mosaic of habitats’ with striking results
- The concept of restoring more than one type of marine habitat at a time — such as oyster reefs, seagrass meadows and salt marshes — is becoming increasingly popular as scientists and conservationists learn about the advantages of this approach.
- Many studies clearly show the mutual benefits that integrated habitats provide to each other, as well as the larger benefits offered to the ecosystem.
- Yet other studies show mixed results, drawing attention to the complex nature of this approach.
- Numerous seascape restoration projects are taking place around the world, including in the coastal bays of Virginia, U.S., the sea off the coast of South Australia, and the estuaries and lochs in the U.K.
Indonesia should take a leadership role in the Global Plastics Treaty (commentary)
- Indonesia is one of the world’s biggest producers of plastic and a top source of plastic waste in the ocean.
- The passage by the U.N. of a draft resolution toward a Global Plastics Treaty provides a key opportunity for Indonesia to take a leading role in ushering in a transition to a world without plastics, the authors argue.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Bangladeshi coastal communities plant mangroves as a shield against cyclones
- Bangladesh’s southwestern coastal districts are prone to tidal surges, which can become extreme during cyclone seasons, with surges as high as 3 meters (10 feet).
- The coasts have embankments built across to keep the seeping seawater from reaching the coastal settlements, but as cyclones get more severe under a changing climate, these embankments aren’t enough, and losing houses to cyclonic floods has become the norm for coastal communities here.
- As a protection measure, the Bangladeshi government and several NGOs, with the communities’ participation, have initiated large-scale planting of mangrove trees along the embankments to act as a natural shield against tidal surges.
- The NGOs have provided the initial financial and technical support to the communities and are encouraging a self-reliant process of planting native mangrove species.
Indigenous oyster fisheries were ‘fundamentally different’: Q&A with researcher Marco Hatch
- About 85% of oyster reefs across the world have been lost since the 19th century due to overharvesting, pollution, introduction of invasive species and habitat loss.
- According to a new study, Indigenous communities in North America and Australia sustainably managed oyster fisheries for more than 5,000 years before Europeans and commercial fisheries arrived.
- The knowledge of these traditional practices can guide sustainable fisheries management today, say the authors of the study.
- Mongabay interviewed Dr. Marco Hatch, one of the authors of the study, about traditional oyster and clam farming practices, existing threats to oysters, and Indigenous-led restoration efforts.
Community participation trumps penalties in protecting seascapes, study suggests
- Giving Indigenous peoples and local communities a say in the design and management of marine protected areas boosts conservation outcomes, a new study indicates.
- The study focused on the governance of four MPAs in Indonesia’s Bird’s Head Seascape and found that fish biomass tended to be higher in areas where these communities are more involved in decision-making and had more local management rights.
Riders of the lost waves: Surfing, and saving, Brazil’s pororocas
- Surfers and volunteers are mapping out tidal bores — spectacular waves that travel dozens of kilometers upriver from Brazil’s Atlantic coast — in an effort to preserve the phenomenon and build a tourism industry around it.
- The best-known pororocas in Brazil are in the states of Amapá, Maranhão and Pará, and once included the Araguari River, site of the 2006 world record for the longest distance surfed (nearly 12 kilometers, or 7.5 miles).
- But the Araguari pororoca disappeared in 2014 when the river’s mouth silted over, the result of development upriver that included livestock ranching and dam building.
- Enthusiasts of the phenomenon now want to develop a Pororoca Park that they say will boost tourism on the Amazon coast, providing income for the Indigenous and traditional communities where many of the remaining pororoca sites are found.
Poor planning, persistent farming undermine mangrove restoration in Tanzania
- Tanzania’s government has been working since the 1990s to replant mangroves in the Rufiji Delta, one of East Africa’s most significant mangrove sites.
- New research indicates that efforts to restore degraded mangroves have been undermined by rice farming as well as by a lack of systematic planning and analysis of site and species suitability.
- However, the research found that despite these flaws, replanted areas were regenerating faster than areas left to regrow on their own.
200 mysterious sea turtle deaths: Q&A with Kenyan fisherman and turtle rescuer Daniel Katana
- Near the town of Marereni, smack in the middle of Kenya’s Indian Ocean coastline, a group of local volunteers has been protecting sea turtles and planting mangroves for nearly two decades.
- In the past two years, however, the Marereni Biodiversity Conservancy has documented alarming spikes in sea turtle deaths and in turtles with fibropapilloma tumors, as well as a decline in sea turtle nests.
- While the causes have yet to be determined, conservancy members suspect the sea turtles’ problems may be associated with pollution from nearby salt mines.
- Mongabay interviewed the group’s CEO, Daniel Masha Katana, about how it is responding to the current threats to sea turtles.
Easing of crackdown sees Vietnam boats encroach into Indonesian waters
- Illegal fishing by Vietnamese vessels in Indonesian waters has ramped up this year, with locals and fisheries observes blaming a dearth of patrols by Indonesian authorities.
- Vessel-tracking data and satellite imagery showed more than 100 instances of Vietnamese fishing vessels in the North Natuna Sea, inside Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), between February and April.
- At the same time, enforcement against illegal fishing appears to have eased, with no Vietnamese vessels seized in Indonesian waters so far this year, compared to 54 between 2020 and 2021, and 234 between 2015 and 2019.
- Fishers and observers say these incursions threaten fish stocks that had recovered during the period of strict enforcement, and have called on the government to boost patrols.
Small-island fishers petition Indonesian president to end coastal dredging
- Fishers on a small island off Indonesia’s Sumatra have called for an end to coastal dredging that they say has decimated their daily catch.
- Sand dredging along the north coast of Rupat Island ran from September to December last year, stopping due to protests by fishers.
- The fishers have petitioned Indonesia’s president and the energy minister to revoke the dredging company’s permit, and are backed by an environmental group’s findings of high rates of shoal erosion in the area.
- The government has issued 1,400 dredging permits throughout Indonesia as of November 2021, covering an area of almost 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) and affecting some 35,000 fishers, according to activists.
Biologist fighting plastic pollution to save sea turtles wins ‘Green Oscar’
- Estrela Matilde, a conservation biologist and executive director of the NGO Fundação Príncipe, has won a Whitley Award, for her work to save sea turtles in the tiny African nation of São Tomé and Príncipe.
- Fundação Príncipe has been working since 2015 to conserve the island of Príncipe’s biodiversity by working with the local community to develop alternative livelihoods that reduce pressure on resources and protect wildlife.
- Matilde’s attention has turned to documenting and tackling plastic pollution after a conservation initiative that put cameras on sea turtles revealed just how much plastic Príncipe’s marine life encounters.
- She plans to use the award money to document via GPS the tides of plastic pollution reaching Príncipe, and to scale up a livelihood project in which local women make trinkets out of the plastic that washes up on the island’s beaches.
Fisher groups are the marine militia in Indonesia’s war on illegal fishing
- Indonesia has a vast maritime area, but not enough personnel to patrol and monitor for illegal and destructive fishing.
- To address this gap, in recent years the government has incentivized fishers and other coastal communities to form monitoring groups that are responsible for patrolling their local waters.
- In the Raja Ampat archipelago in the country’s east, Mongabay meets some of the people who have volunteered for the task of protecting their waters from blast fishing and cyanide fishing, among other violations.
Saving the near-extinct estuarine pipefish means protecting estuary health
- The critically endangered estuarine pipefish is known to inhabit only two estuaries on the eastern coast of South Africa.
- Recent studies are uncovering how the health of its estuarine habitat rests on a dynamic balance between freshwater inflows that support the food change, and salinity levels that promote growth of eelgrass habitat for pipefish and other species.
- Genetic analysis of the remaining estuarine pipefish populations has found low genetic diversity, highlighting a further risk to its conservation.
- Conservationists are working toward a plan to protect the species and the wider ecology of the estuaries it inhabits.
A seagrass restoration project to preserve the past may also protect the future
- Linani Arifin, 40, is a resident of West Yensawai village in Indonesia’s Raja Ampat archipelago, where the coastal ecosystem has been declining due to climate change impacts and development.
- Almira Nadia Kusuma is a young marine scientist who has studied seagrass for years.
- Together, they lead a group of teenagers in West Yensawai in a project to replant seagrass, aiming to protect the village from coastal erosion.
- Globally, seagrasses are disappearing at rates that rival those of coral reefs and tropical rainforests, and Indonesia is considered an important country for seagrass conservation.
Troubled waters: A massive salmon farm off the coast of Maine is stalled
- Norwegian-backed American Aquafarms was slated to build the largest salmon farm in North America along the coast of the U.S. state of Maine, using a closed-pen system said to minimize waste.
- But opponents say the closed-pen technology is untested at such a large scale, and warn that environmental impacts will devastate the pristine waters.
- The proposed salmon farm would have been right at the shorelines of Acadia National Park, threatening the region’s untarnished views and noise pollution.
- Currently, the project is indefinitely delayed as state officials terminated the lease application on April 19th. However, with Maine leasing the ocean for only $100 an acre ($250 a hectare) per year, opponents worry that future investors will see the coast as a lucrative target.
Data show decline in Indonesian fish stocks amid push for higher productivity
- The latest official fish stock estimates by the Indonesian government showed a decline from five years ago.
- The data also show more fishing zones in the Southeast Asian country’s waters are being fully exploited and require more protection.
- However, the fisheries ministry has pushed for increased productivity through, among other initiatives, allowing foreign-funded fishing vessels back into its waters.
- Indonesia is the second-biggest marine capture producer in the world, after China.
To get people thinking about seagrass, Seychelles coins new Creole words
- A Seychelles organization led a campaign to adopt Creole words for different types of seagrasses found in the country’s coastal waters.
- This move was part of a campaign to spread awareness about seagrasses’ value in protecting coastlines, providing habitat for marine life, and sequestering carbon.
- Seychelles has an estimated 20,000 km2 (7,700 mi2) of seagrass meadows in its waters, but those around the inner islands are under pressure from development and other human activities.
- In 2021, the nation pledged to protect 100% of its mangroves and seagrass meadows as part of its nationally determined contribution to the Paris Agreement.
Stranded coal barge spills cargo, disrupts fishery in Indonesian waters
- An Indonesian coal barge that ran aground off East Java has reportedly spilled much of its cargo and disrupted the local fishery.
- Local fishers blame the spill for turning the water in the area dark and affecting their fishing activities.
- An environmental group has called for an investigation by fisheries and environmental agencies into the incident.
- Indonesia is one of the world’s biggest producers of coal, but has paid a heavy price for that standing, including the massive deforestation wrought to mine the fossil fuel, as well as the numerous environmental and safety incidents associated with transporting and burning it.
‘Resilient’ leatherback turtles can survive fishing rope entanglements. Mostly
- Leatherback turtles are highly vulnerable to getting entangled in lobster pot fishing gear off the coast of Massachusetts.
- A new study now shows that they can largely survive these entanglements — if they’re reached by rescuers in time, and their injuries are treatable.
- However, researchers say the lobster fishery must move toward a ropeless model to ensure that leatherbacks, and other marine animals, can survive over the long term.
Seagrass joins other marine life in accumulating sunscreen compounds
- Ultraviolet filters typically found in sunscreen lotions can accumulate in high concentrations in seagrass rhizomes, a new study shows.
- This discovery is raising concerns about the potential effect on important seagrass ecosystems, though the full ramifications remain unclear.
- The findings indicate that such components not only end up in organisms in the coastal environment but also tend to remain there for a long time, one expert says.
- UV filters are already known to accumulate in a variety of aquatic species, such as dolphins, sea turtles, fish and mussels, and can cause harm, including birth defects and reduced fertility, as well as damage to coral reefs.
That dead whale on the beach? Let it be, study says. Or at least don’t blow it up
- When marine mammals wash ashore, government agencies often set about removing the carcass.
- Strategies include burying the body, transporting it to a landfill or incinerator, towing it out to sea, and in at least one misguided case, detonating it.
- But in removing dead, stranded cetaceans from beaches, we may be overlooking the environmental benefits they offer, according to a new study.
- The researchers recommend leaving carcasses to rot in place whenever possible, where the environmental benefits they offer include supporting communities of scavengers, such as threatened species like polar bears and California condors.
‘Right moon for fishing’: Study finds gravitational impacts on plants, animals
- A recent review of the scientific literature shows that the gravitational forces that cause the tides are also associated with the rhythms of organisms such as plants, crustaceans and corals.
- Researchers say gravitational cycles are not being accounted for in scientific experiments that otherwise control for various environmental factors in the laboratory.
- In the field of gravitational effects, many practices that are repeated out of popular wisdom, such as the best time to cut wood or plant crops, still don’t have scientific backing.
In Puerto Rico, a marathon effort builds to restore mangroves and dunes
- Hurricane Maria in 2017 devastated several mangrove ecosystems in Puerto Rico, leading ecologists to start restoration efforts.
- Mangroves provide myriad benefits: storm protection, carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation and pollution filtering, among others.
- In addition to mangroves, organizations are working to restore sand dunes to add an extra buffer against tropical storms and protect turtle nesting sites.
- And while they’ve benefited from recent injections of funding and collaboration with experts from around the world, the restoration groups note that they have more work ahead than they can currently take on.
Indonesian ex-minister gets sentence cut for ‘good work’ fueled by corruption
- Indonesia’s top appeals court has slashed the jail sentence for Edhy Prabowo, the country’s former fisheries minister, from nine years to five.
- In their ruling, the judges said a lower court had been unduly harsh in its sentencing, and specifically praised Edhy’s “good work” in lifting a ban on lobster larvae exports.
- But it was precisely over this policy that Edhy was arrested in 2020 and subsequently convicted in 2021: He was found guilty of collecting nearly $2 million in bribes from crony-linked companies that were awarded the lucrative export contracts.
- Fisheries observers have criticized the latest ruling, saying it fails to reflect the severity of Edhy’s crime.
Indonesian fishing boat found with banned trawl net highlights enforcement challenges
- A vessel seized for fishing in an off-limits area in Indonesia may have also been using a type of trawl net that’s been banned for its destructive impact on fish stocks.
- The KM Sinar Samudra was seized off the Natuna Islands on Feb. 18, and a subsequent inspection found a banned cantrang trawl net on board.
- The boat’s captain denied the net was ever used for fishing, and police have chosen not to pursue charges over the use of illegal fishing gear.
- Fisheries observers say the case highlights the challenge of policing the type of gear that fishers use in one of the world’s biggest fishing nations.
As rising seas destroy Ghana’s coastal communities, researchers warn against a seawall-only solution
- Some 37% of Ghana’s coastal land was lost to erosion and flooding between 2005 and 2017.
- Severe storm surges flooded several communities in 2021, prompting the evacuation of thousands of people.
- Research indicates around 340 million people worldwide will be affected by global warming-fueled sea level rise by the middle of the century. Ghana’s government is responding to the growing crisis by fortifying some coastal areas with seawalls, but researchers say relying on seawalls alone may do more harm than good.
- This story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center.
A more potent CO2 sink than the Amazon, Brazil’s mangroves remain overlooked
- A new study shows that the mangrove forests along Brazil’s coast store up to 4.3 times more carbon in the top 1 meter (3 feet) of soil than any other biome in the country, including the Amazon rainforest.
- Mangroves have long been known as a more effective carbon sink than other types of tropical forest, but this study is the first that tries to quantify the extent and carbon stock of Brazil’s mangroves.
- It found that Brazil’s mangroves hold 8.5% of all carbon stocks stored in mangroves worldwide, and that they sequester 13.5% of the carbon sequestered in the world’s mangroves annually.
- Despite this carbon stock potential, Brazilian mangroves aren’t included in protected areas deemed a conservation priority under Brazil’s emissions reduction commitments to the Paris Agreement, and there’s a general lack of funding for research on the ecosystem.
Latest seismic survey blocked in South Africa court on fishers’ challenge
- A South African court has blocked the continuation of a seismic survey for oil and gas off the country’s west coast.
- The judge agreed with fishing communities and civil society organizations that Australian geoscience company Searcher’s consultation process excluded fishing communities.
- The ruling is the latest successful challenge to a prospecting permit on the basis that it denied local communities their right to participate in environmental decisions.
Illegal mining fuels social conflict in Indonesian tin hub of Bangka-Belitung
- Tin mining in one of the world’s main producers of the metal has sparked the latest in a series of conflicts between illegal miners and traditional fishers in Indonesia.
- The incident stemmed from a fisher-activist’s social media posts criticizing the environmental damage wrought by mining in the Bangka-Belitung Islands’ Kelabat Bay, where mining is banned.
- Tin mining is the backbone of the Bangka Belitung economy, but has also proven deadly for workers and damaging to coral reefs, mangrove forests and local fisheries.
Marauding monkeys on an Indonesian island point to environmental pressures
- Beachgoers and residents on the Indonesian island of Batam have complained about packs of monkeys terrorizing them in search of food.
- Conservationists say the problem is that the long-tailed macaques are being squeezed out of their natural habitat by deforestation, and have become accustomed to being given food by humans.
- Visitors to Batam’s Mirota Beach often flout the “no feeding” signs, which encourages the monkeys; food waste in trash cans outside homes also draws the animals into residential areas.
- Human-primate conflicts area common in other parts of Indonesia, including in Bali’s Monkey Forest, at the foot of Java’s Mount Semeru after a recent eruption, and in Sumatra and Borneo, where orangutans are losing their forest homes.
Caffeine: Emerging contaminant of global rivers and coastal waters
- Caffeine is the most consumed psychostimulant in the world, and a regular part of many daily lives, whether contained in coffee, chocolate, energy drinks, or pharmaceuticals.
- Partially excreted in urine, it is now ubiquitous in rivers and coastal waters. So much so that its detection is used to trace wastewater and sewage pollution. A new study found it to be in more than 50% of 1,052 sampling sites on 258 rivers around the globe. Another new study enumerates caffeine harm in coastal and marine environments.
- This continual flow of caffeine into aquatic ecosystems is causing concern among scientists due to its already identified impacts on a wide range of aquatic life including microalgae, corals, bivalves, sponges, marine worms, and fish. Most environmental impacts — especially wider effects within ecosystems — have not been studied.
- Soaring global use of products containing caffeine means the problem will worsen with time. Untreated sewage is a major source. And while some sewage treatment facilities can remove caffeine, many currently can’t. Far more study is needed to determine the full scope and biological impacts of the problem.
‘We should be pretty concerned’: Study shows only 15% of coastal regions still intact
- A new study has found that only 15.5% of the world’s coastal regions remain intact, while the majority of coastal areas are either highly or extremely impacted by human activities such as fishing, agriculture and development.
- The nations with the largest swaths of undamaged coastlines included Canada, Russia and Greenland.
- The researchers only had access to data up to 2013, so their findings are likely to be an underestimation.
- The study also did not factor in the impacts of climate change, which would place additional pressure on coastal regions.
Demand for sea cucumbers turns India-Sri Lanka waters into trafficking hotspot
- From 2015 to 2020, authorities in Sri Lanka and India seized nearly 65 metric tons of sea cucumbers worth more than $2.8 million and arrested 502 people in connection with the attempted trafficking.
- The sea cucumber fishery is banned in India and restricted under a licensing system in Sri Lanka, but growing demand for the animals in East Asia has turned the waters between these South Asian countries into a hotspot for the illegal trade.
- The presence of the legal trade in Sri Lanka means Indian fishers can smuggle their catches into the country and launder them into the legal market for export.
- The overharvesting of sea cucumbers has severely depleted their populations; from 21 species of sea cucumber deemed commercially viable for fishing in 2008, there were only nine by 2015, according to surveys.
‘A bigger deal than it sounds’: Coconut crabs are vanishing, island by island
- Despite being widespread across the Pacific and Indian oceans, coconut crabs are disappearing across their range, according to a new conservation assessment that warns they’re vulnerable to extinction.
- The species, the largest land crab in the world, is threatened by habitat destruction for coastal development and agriculture, as well as by harvesting for the seafood trade.
- The harvesting is also impacting reproductive outcomes for the crabs, given the preference among both consumers and female crabs for bigger male crabs.
- Some conservation groups are already working on the ground in places like Indonesia’s West Papua province to educate community members, tourism operators, guides, and tourists about the importance of coconut crabs.
Innovative sewage solutions: Tackling the global human waste problem
- The scale of the world’s human waste problem is vast, impacting human health, coastal and terrestrial ecosystems, and even climate change. Solving the problem requires working with communities to develop solutions that suit them, providing access to adequate sanitation and adapting aging sewage systems to a rapidly changing world.
- Decentralized and nature-based solutions are considered key to cleaning up urban wastewater issues and reducing pressure on, or providing affordable and effective alternatives to, centralized sewage systems.
- Seeing sewage and wastewater — which both contain valuable nutrients and freshwater — as a resource rather than as pollutants, is vital to achieving a sustainable “circular economy.” Technology alone can only get us so far, say experts. If society is to fully embrace the suite of solutions required, a sweeping mindset change will be needed.
Guinea-Bissau turtle hatchery addresses unusual problem of too many eggs
- Five percent of all green sea turtles nest on the beaches of tiny Poilão Island, in the Bijagós Archipelago off Guinea-Bissau, leading to some nests being laid on top of each other.
- Sea turtle monitors are rescuing these “doomed clutches” of eggs and relocating them to less crowded beaches.
- In the future, they hope the sea turtle hatchery will provide educational opportunities that strengthen protection of sea turtles.
Coastal deforestation fuels more frequent storms in West Africa, study warns
- Storms are hitting the densely populated coastal pocket of West Africa twice as frequently as 30 years ago, a new study says.
- Declining forest cover is fueling this increased storm frequency in the coastal regions of southern West Africa.
- With the loss of forests, the daytime temperature difference between land and sea is widening, generating stronger winds and feeding convective storms.
- “The coastal location of deforestation in SWA [southern West Africa] is typical of many tropical deforestation hotspots, and the processes highlighted here are likely to be of wider global relevance,” the study authors write.
The thick of it: Delving into the neglected global impacts of human waste
- Though little talked about, our species has a monumental problem disposing of its human waste. A recent modeling study finds that wastewater adds around 6.2 million tons of nitrogen to coastal waters worldwide per year, contributing significantly to harmful algal blooms, eutrophication and ocean dead zones.
- The study mapped 135,000 watersheds planetwide and found that just 25 of them account for almost half the nitrogen pollution contributed by human waste. Those 25 were pinpointed in both the developing world and developed world, and include the vast Mississippi River watershed in the United States.
- Human waste — including pharmaceuticals and even microplastics contained in feces and urine — is a major public health hazard, causing disease outbreaks, and putting biodiversity at risk. Sewage is impacting estuary fish nurseries, coral reefs, and seagrasses, a habitat that stores CO2, acting as a buffer against climate change.
- Waste is often perceived as mostly a developing world problem, but the developed world is as responsible — largely due to antiquated municipal sewage systems that combine rainwater and wastewater in the same pipes. As a result, intense precipitation events regularly flush raw sewage into waterways in the U.S., U.K. and EU.
‘I feel obligated to protect them’: A lifelong love affair with Guinea-Bissau’s turtles
- Biologist Castro Barbosa has spent his career working to protect the green sea turtles that breed in Guinea-Bissau’s Bjiagós islands.
- The Bijagós are the most important sea turtle breeding grounds in Africa — 5% of the global green turtle population breeds on the island of Poilâo alone.
- Turtles are threatened by accidental capture in fishing nets, hunting, and overharvesting of their eggs, but traditional restriction of access to sacred islands in the Bijagós has protected these breeding grounds.
- Barbosa’s work monitoring turtles and their breeding grounds respects and complements these traditional protections.
Community project helps Kenya aim for climate goals one mangrove tree at a time
- Along Kenya’s southeastern coast, three communities are restoring 460 hectares (1,137 acres) of the Vanga mangrove forest to meet the country’s emission reduction targets, provide a buffer against natural disasters, and support fishing livelihoods.
- The Vanga Blue Forest project has planted more than 1,000 native mangrove trees since it started in 2019, and aims to work with neighboring communities in Tanzania to restore mangrove forests along 140 kilometers (87 miles) of the East African coastline.
- The early stages of the project were a series of trial and error to achieve successful reforestation, as previous efforts a decade earlier had only a 10% survival rate among the 750,000 trees planted.
- The project is involved in the international carbon trade market and has so far sold $44,433 of carbon credits by accumulating 5,023 metric tons of carbon above ground.
Indonesia aims for sustainable fish farming with ‘aquaculture villages’
- Indonesia plans to have a network of 136 villages dedicated to aquaculture by the end of this year.
- The initiative is part of the government’s efforts to boost exports of its world-renowned aquaculture commodities, namely shrimp, lobster, crab and seaweed.
- Experts have welcomed the plan, but say it must be supported by sound environmental planning, particularly avoiding the clearing of mangrove forests and ensuring proper waste management.
- Indonesia is one of the top exporters of farmed seafood, but fish farming in the country has long come at the expense of carbon-rich mangrove forests and other important coastal ecosystems.
Indonesia’s Womangrove collective reclaims the coast from shrimp farms
- A women’s collective in Indonesia’s Tanakeke Islands has restored dozens of hectares of mangroves since its founding six years ago.
- The Womangrove collective focuses on replanting abandoned shrimp and fish farms that were originally established in cleared mangrove areas, and have to date planted more than 110,000 seedlings.
- Indonesia has more mangrove area than any other country in the world, but has lost half of it in the past 30 years, mostly to shrimp and fish farms.
‘Great Blue Wall’ aims to ward off looming threats to western Indian Ocean
- Ten nations in the western Indian Ocean committed this November to create a network of marine conservation areas to hasten progress toward the goal of protecting 30% of the oceans by 2030.
- Less than 10% of the marine expanse in this region currently enjoys protection, and a recent assessment highlighted the price of failure: all the coral reefs are at high risk of collapse in the next 50 years.
- The focus of these efforts won’t just be coral reefs, but also mangroves and seagrass meadows, a lesser-known underwater ecosystem critical for carbon sequestration and oceanic biodiversity.
- Even as overfishing and warming take a toll on marine health, threats from oil and gas extraction are intensifying in this corner of the Indian Ocean.
In Indonesia’s Sulawesi, a community works to defuse blast-fishing crisis
- Decades of blast fishing have destroyed much of the coral reefs off Indonesia’s Lora village, reducing fish catches.
- Increased law enforcement and advocacy by NGOs has helped roll back these destructive practices, but other threats loom, including increasingly unpredictable weather and competition from large trawlers.
- A community organization is seeking to have the region zoned as a conservation area.
Court order blocks Shell’s seismic surveys off South Africa’s Wild Coast
- A petition by environmentalists, Indigenous groups and fisheries organizations succeeded in temporarily halting oil giant Shell’s plans to conduct seismic surveys off South Africa’s Wild Coast to prospect for oil and gas reserves below the seabed.
- Conservation groups cited the potential impact on the breeding grounds of southern right whales and humpback whales, and the effect on the local fisheries sector.
- The recent order hinges on whether affected communities that hold traditional rights, including fishing rights in the waters, were properly consulted.
- The judge ruled that they were not, while also noting that concerns about irreversible harm to marine life were “reasonable.”
Wary welcome for Indonesia’s ‘green port’ initiative to clean up shipping
- Indonesia is launching a program to make the country’s ports more environmentally friendly in an effort to reduce its carbon emissions and protect the marine ecosystem.
- The so-called green port initiative will encourage greater use of clean energy and strengthen environmental protection, a top official says.
- Some marine observers in have welcomed the initiative, saying it’s a crucial step toward achieving Indonesia’s emissions reduction target.
- But others say the green port initiative will serve to cover up the environmental impacts of the government’s port-building spree, and will benefit private investors over the general public.
For tradition and nature on the Bijagós Islands, loss of one threatens the other
- Communities in the Bijagós Islands off Guinea-Bissau have for generations maintained a close spiritual connection to nature that’s been credited with the archipelago remaining a biodiversity hotspot.
- In recent years, the islands’ young people have been turning their backs on these traditions in favor of education and jobs on the mainland.
- Community elders say they worry that long-held traditional knowledge, such as of plant-based medicines, will be lost.
- But the young people haven’t abandoned the Bijagós altogether, with many returning as trained nurses, midwives and teachers, bringing much-needed services to their communities.
Technology and tradition team up to watch over a sacred island’s sea turtles
- Uninhabited Poilão Island in Guinea-Bissau is Africa’s most important nesting ground for green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas).
- Local people have long regarded the island as sacred and have limited access to it, which has kept its environment in a near-pristine state.
- The island is now protected as part of a marine national park, a compromise in which local people granted researchers and some other outsiders access to the island in an exchange that included employment monitoring turtles.
- Researchers and local people now work together to study the turtles with the aim of better protecting them.
In Indonesia, a coastal town rejects ‘metropolitan’ model for mangroves
- Sofifi, the tiny capital of one of Indonesia’s remotest provinces, has made mangrove conservation and ecotourism a central part of its development.
- The town recently inaugurated the Guraping Mangrove Tourism Forest, which officials hope will draw tourists to the town and help it develop into something greater than an administrative hub.
- Indonesia is home to nearly a quarter of the world’s mangrove forests, an important ecosystem that sequesters carbon, blunt the impact of storm surges, and harbour a rich array of marine life.
Study shows ‘encouraging’ results of China’s bid to protect coastal wetlands
- China’s coastal wetlands experienced a significant recovery in recent years after many decades of loss and destruction, a new study suggests.
- Satellite imagery shows that different kinds of coastal wetlands deteriorated between 1984 and 2011, but began to improve from about 2012.
- The degradation of China’s coastal wetlands is largely attributed to land reclamation, construction and other economic activities, the study suggests.
- But the nation has recently recognized the importance of coastal wetlands, and initiated several projects aiming to restore and conserve these ecosystems.
Local communities saved Cabo Pulmo with a national park. Then came the tourists.
- A well-known conservation success story in Cabo Pulmo, Mexico, involves a local community that lobbied the government to establish a marine park and no-take zone that would save its coral reefs.
- Decades later, the area is now an extremely popular vacation destination, with more tourists entering the area than the local community can handle.
- Residents feel overwhelmed by the growth and popularity of the area. They are calling for new regulations to be put in place.
Mangrove conservation takes root with local communities on Kenya’s coast
- Mangroves are keystones of coastal ecosystems, protecting shorelines from erosion, providing habitat for fish and other marine life, and storing large amounts of carbon.
- These coastal forests are vital to local communities who have long relied on them for things like food, fuel, and construction materials.
- Kenya has lost half of its mangrove forests in the past 50 years to a combination of factors, including overexploitation by locals with limited livelihood options.
- A variety of conservation efforts in and around the southern city of Mombasa emphasize involving communities in reducing pressure on these coastal forests.
Women on storm-hit Philippine island lead Indigenous effort to restore mangroves
- Residents of low-lying coastal areas in archipelagic countries like the Philippines are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including the increase of powerful storms like 2013’s Typhoon Haiyan.
- Mangrove forests can buffer the impact of storm surges and high winds, but many of the Philippines’ mangrove ecosystems are severely degraded and efforts to restore them often fail.
- Busuanga Island, in the western province of Palawan, has a particularly effective mangrove restoration program, one that is spearheaded by Indigenous women who play a key role in planting, monitoring and protecting the forests.
Look beyond carbon credits to put a price on nature’s services, experts say
- Valuing nature as a “new asset class” could be the key to getting trillions of dollars in investments to flow to nature-based solutions, experts said at a recent sustainability conference in Singapore.
- Because policymakers and investors haven’t been able to properly value nature, the finance industry has been using carbon markets as a proxy for investing in it.
- Governments should account for the ecosystem benefits of nature beyond carbon capture, the experts said.
- Proper valuation of nature’s benefits requires inputs from not only investors, but also scientists, communities and NGOs.
Overfishing threatens to wipe out bowmouth guitarfish in Indonesia, study says
- A study has found that uncontrolled fishing of wedgefish, a family of rays, in Indonesia threatens to push the bowmouth guitarfish to extinction.
- The bowmouth guitarfish and the white-spotted guitarfish are the most commonly caught wedgefish species in Indonesia, with their fins supplying the shark fin trade.
- Researchers have called on the government to impose full protection of juvenile wedgefish and a reduction in catches of bowmouth guitarfish specifically to ensure their survival.
- Both the bowmouth and white-spotted guitarfish are critically endangered species, but neither is included in Indonesia’s protected species list.
Sea turtles: Can these great marine migrators navigate rising human threats?
- Humanity is quickly crossing critical planetary boundaries that threaten sea turtle populations, their ecosystems and, ultimately, the “safe operating space” for human existence.
- Sea turtles have survived millions of years, but marathon migrations put them at increasing risk for the additive impacts of adverse anthropogenic activity on land and at sea, including impacts from biodiversity loss, climate change, ocean acidification, land-use change, pollution (especially plastics), and more.
- The synergistic effects of anthropogenic threats and the return on conservation interventions are largely unknown. But analysts understand that their efforts will need to focus on both nesting beaches and ocean migration routes, while acting on a host of adverse impacts across many of the nine known planetary boundaries.
- Avoiding extinction will require adaptation by turtles and people, and the evolution of new, innovative conservation practices. Key strategies: boosting populations to weather growing threats, rethinking how humanity fishes, studying turtle life cycles (especially at sea), safeguarding habitat, and deeply engaging local communities.
Saving sea turtles in the ‘Anthropause’: Successes and challenges on the beach
- The COVID-19 pandemic has posed tough challenges for sea turtle conservation projects across the planet.
- Conservationists describe how economic issues have put turtles and themselves at risk from poachers, while travel restrictions have crippled operations in Costa Rica and Malaysia.
- The lull in human seashore activities also revealed that tourism pressure affects nesting turtle behavior in the Mediterranean, a study shows.
- In Lebanon, raising awareness has been key to turtle conservation successes despite the country’s economic collapse, conservationists said.
Seaweed farming offers a boost for Sri Lanka’s ‘blue economy’ ambitions
- Seaweed farming is an increasingly important part of the global food system and provides a range of benefits, including sustainable coastal livelihoods and economic diversification, food production, export revenue, climate change mitigation and adaptation, pollution control, and organic fertilizer.
- Sri Lanka used to have a prominent seaweed market in the 1930s, but today there’s only limited, small-scale seaweed farming in the country, mostly without processing or value addition.
- With greater investments of money, technology, and know-how, Sri Lanka could offer the perfect location to cultivate seaweed either on its own or as integrated mariculture, for example with shrimps, mollusks, or sea cucumbers, experts say.
- Farming seaweed in Sri Lanka could be a viable and highly beneficial part of expanding the blue economy if initial challenges are overcome and coastal communities engaged with support, guidance, technology, and quality control, experts say.
The first complete map of the world’s shallow tropical coral reefs is here
- Scientists have completed the first-ever global, high-resolution map of the world’s shallow tropical coral reefs.
- When combined with an integrated tool that tracks global coral bleaching events in near-real-time, the new resource provides a comprehensive overview of the trends and changes in global coral reef health.
- While the completion of the map is an achievement in itself, the scientists behind the Allen Coral Atlas say they hope the new resource will spur action to improve coral reef protection.
- The new mapping platform is already being used to support conservation projects in more than 30 countries, including designation of marine protected areas and to inform marine spatial plans.
Industrial fishing harbor plan raises a stink in Sierra Leone
- Landowners and environmental activists have balked at a proposal to build a Chinese-funded fishing harbor in the Sierra Leonean village of Black Johnson.
- The site falls within a national park that’s home to threatened species such as pangolins and chimpanzees, and its lagoon is an important fish-breeding area.
- The government says the project aims to retain a greater share of profits from marine resources within Sierra Leone, given that currently much of the catch from the country’s waters is processed and packaged elsewhere.
- Some in the community support the project, saying it will bring in much-needed infrastructure such as health facilities and piped water, and say those opposed to it are outsiders rather than locals.
Manatee deaths in Florida point to a global decline in seagrass ecosystems
- This year the U.S. state of Florida saw a record number of manatee deaths, and though investigations are still ongoing, experts attribute most of the deaths to the dieback of seagrass, a primary food source.
- The manatee deaths are part of a larger trend: around the world, seagrasses are on the decline, mainly because of increasingly clouded waters due to coastal development.
- Other drivers of this die-off include algal blooms, destructive fishing and boating practices, and the warmer, more acidic waters of climate change.
- There are spots of hope, yet seagrass scientists warn that we are on the brink of losing many of these important wildlife habitats and global carbon sinks.
Indonesia’s newly minted investigators to go after illegal fishing kingpins
- Indonesia’s fisheries ministry has pledged to target the ultimate beneficiaries of fisheries-related crimes in the country.
- The move comes in the wake of a court ruling that empowers ministry officials to act as investigators, including the authority to look into cases of money laundering.
- For a long time, the only people who faced any kind of prosecution for illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing were typically the crews of the vessels caught in the act; the owners of the vessels, where they could be identified, avoided any kind of punishment.
- Indonesia hosts one of the world’s richest fisheries, but the industry is notorious for its convoluted webs of corporate ownership and vessel registration, often spread across various jurisdictions, which help mask the beneficial owners of fishing activity, both legal and illegal.
Cost of wetlands: Free. Storm damage they prevent: $38 million per estuary.
- A new study has put a value on property damage from storms that can be prevented by coastal wetlands: $38 million per estuary.
- In all storm scenarios modeled by the study authors, wetlands reduced both the extent of flooding as well as damages from floods, providing the greatest benefits during the most powerful storm scenarios.
- Experts say there’s growing appreciation among policymakers and planners about the importance of nature-based engineering solutions, such as maintaining healthy estuaries, but this hasn’t translated into real action on the ground.
Mangrove restoration done right has clear economic, ecological benefits
- Much research has been done on the impact of mangrove restoration projects, but because such studies typically have their own distinct contexts, their results are not easily generalized.
- To determine the ecological and economic benefits of mangrove restoration across studies, researchers analyzed 188 peer-reviewed articles from 22 regions, mostly in East and Southeast Asia.
- They found the ecosystem functions of restored mangroves to be higher than bare tidal flats, but lower than natural mangroves.
- They also concluded that the economic benefits of mangrove restoration projects largely outweighed their costs, even at high discount rates.
Study shows how sustainable livelihood programs for Indonesian fishers can succeed
- Projects offering alternative livelihoods to fishers in Indonesia tend to succeed when they work closely with local NGOs and link participants to markets where they can sell what they produce.
- That’s the finding of a new study that looks at what makes successful sustainable livelihoods interventions tick, including partnership with local people to develop their skills and leverage traditional resource-management knowledge.
- Projects that failed tended not to understand the social context in which they were situated, including gender dynamics, resource and land-tenure systems, and the desires of local fishers.
- The study authors say the findings highlight best practices for alternative-livelihoods projects and are important given that communities with negative past experiences of such projects are less likely to engage with them again in the future.
Kenya port and ship-breaking projects threaten livelihoods and environment
- Plans to build an industrial fishing port and a ship-breaking yard along the Wasini Channel off Kenya’s coast threaten the livelihoods of local communities who depend on fishing, seaweed farming, and ecotourism, residents say.
- Underwater drilling carried out as part of surveys for the proposed port last November damaged coral reefs, while drilling for the ship-breaking yard destroyed seaweed crops.
- Community members say they fear even more devastating impacts once the projects, which also include a smelting plant, get underway in earnest.
Scientists, communities battle against Philippine land reclamation project
- A land reclamation project in the central Philippines spanning 174 hectares (430 acres) faces strong opposition from various organizations and civil society groups.
- The $456 million “smart city” project is a joint venture between Dumaguete City and E.M. Cuerpo, a local construction firm.
- While the project promises economic benefits, critics say these will be negated by its environmental impact, which includes covering 85% of Dumaguete City’s coastline and burying four marine protected areas.
- Critics also say the project has ignored the public consultation process, a requirement for a venture of this scale in the Philippines.
To save salt marshes, researchers deploy a wide arsenal of techniques
- Salt marshes sequester significant carbon in their sediment — more per hectare than tropical rainforests.
- They protect the land from storm surges and sea level rise, and they shelter a variety of birds, fish and crustaceans.
- However, salt marshes are being lost quickly to erosion and development.
- Governments, institutions and researchers around the world are looking into low-cost ways to protect and restore these vulnerable and valuable habitats.
Coastal Indonesian village adapts to life amid rising tidal floodwaters
- Cars once drove along the road in front of residents’ homes in coastal Timbulsloko village on the northern coast of Indonesia’s Java Island. Now, only canoes can pass; when the tide recedes, the water is knee-deep.
- Timbulsloko experiences severe tidal flooding caused by land subsidence, abrasion, nearby major construction, and climate change.
- Residents are starting to respond: A network of interlocking boardwalks now connects the submerged hamlets to dry land, and the village has designated a protected coastal area and prohibited the clearing of mangroves.
- The goal is to prevent further coastal damage and ensure the safety of residents’ settlements. The community is also beginning to discuss sustainable aquaculture.
Indonesia assessing fish stock health to improve sustainable planning
- Indonesia is evaluating the health of its marine fisheries in 11 fishing zones around the country.
- The assessment is expected to help policymakers create a more sustainable and better-planned marine capture fisheries model to be applied across the country’s fishing zones.
- Indonesia is one of the world’s biggest producers of marine capture fisheries, and also has high marine biodiversity.
Indonesia reimposes ban on destructive seine and trawl nets in its waters
- Indonesia has banned again the use of destructive seine and trawl nets, locally known as cantrang, to protect the ocean ecosystem.
- These devices are highly effective in sweeping up large amounts of fish, but nearly half half of what they net are bycatch or discards.
- The cantrang ban was initially imposed in 2015, then subsequently eased in the face of criticism from fishers, before being revoked last year by a minister who has since been jailed on unrelated corruption charges.
- The fisheries sector in Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelagic country, plays an important role in supporting national and global food security.
As humans close in on their habitat, crocodiles in the Philippines snap back
- In mangrove-rich Palawan, residents are advised to steer clear of crocodile habitats as the hatching season makes the reptiles more aggressive.
- There are two crocodile species in the Philippines: the endemic Philippine crocodile and the bigger and more aggressive saltwater crocodile, found throughout Asia and the Pacific.
- Crocodile attacks on humans have increased in recent years, which experts attribute to the encroachment of houses within crocodile habitats, particularly mangrove swamps.
- To minimize the risk to lives, both human and crocodile, NGOs say Palawan should implement its crocodile conservation program, which includes, among other things, relocating residents away from crocodile habitats.
Indonesian former fisheries minister jailed for bribery in lobster exports
- Indonesia’s former fisheries minister Edhy Prabowo has been sentenced to five years in jail for taking bribes to lift a ban on lobster larvae exports in 2020.
- A court in Jakarta also fined Edhy and barred him from running for elected office for three years after his release from jail.
- Despite the conviction, anti-corruption experts were left disappointed by the relatively low sentence, given his status as a high-profile active government official at the time.
- Lobsters are among Indonesia’s top fisheries commodities, but the illegal export of lobster larvae cost the country some $62 million in lost revenue in 2019 alone, and depleted the wild population.
Building back Miami’s Biscayne Bay: Do natural solutions hold hope?
- A massive fish kill in August 2020 was a red flag that historically troubled Biscayne Bay in Miami had passed a biodiversity health tipping point.
- Years of scattered efforts and mixed results of various conservation actors working toward the bay’s recovery have begun to fade in favor of more collaborative, inclusive efforts.
- Scientists and citizens are now focusing their efforts on creative ways to restore biodiversity in Biscayne Bay.
Indonesian fishers seize dredging boat in protest against offshore tin mining
- Hundreds of Indonesian fishers have seized a dredging vessel from state-owned PT Timah in protest against offshore tin mining in what they say is their fishing zone.
- The incident on July 12 is the latest development in a standoff that has been simmering since 2015, when fishers began opposing the mining in the Bangka-Belitung Islands off Sumatra.
- Tin mining is the biggest industry in Bangka-Belitung, which accounts for 90% of the tin produced in Indonesia, with the metal winding up in items like Apple’s iPhone, among others.
- But mining here, both onshore and offshore, has resulted in extensive forest degradation and deforestation, been associated with worker fatalities and child labor, and been tainted with corruption.
‘We are intimately connected with nature’: Q&A with oceanographer Kim McCoy
- The third edition of Waves and Beaches, published in March 2021 by Patagonia, examines the dynamic relationship between the sea and coast, blending lyrical prose with the theoretical study of beaches, waves and other oceanographic features.
- This new version of the book, which was published 57 years after the first edition, includes a discussion of how human-induced climate change is altering the dynamics between the sea and land, as well as the possible solutions to protecting coastlines against rising sea levels.
- The book was published as a collaboration between oceanographer Kim McCoy and the late Willard Bascom, the author of the first two editions, who acted as McCoy’s mentor in the years before his death in 2000.
Sri Lanka banks on the ocean to chart a green path toward a blue economy
- Coastal and marine ecosystems in Sri Lanka provide a variety of services that are vital to coastal communities and the environment.
- To protect these ecosystems while addressing national development needs, Sri Lanka is well-positioned to invest in a “blue economy” that focuses on economic growth that incorporates and protects the environment and ecosystem services.
- Officials and experts have identified a huge potential to enhance livelihoods and value chains in Sri Lanka’s coastal and marine sector without destroying local ecosystems, based on technical expertise and guidance.
- If development of the coastal sector can be achieved in harmony with ecosystem growth and conservation, proponents say, this will enhance Sri Lanka’s capacities for climate change mitigation and adaptation, supporting the resilience of its population and its commitments under the Paris Agreement.
Slick caught on satellite image around sunken ship not fuel oil, Sri Lanka says
- Satellite images show a silvery trail originating from a cargo ship that sank off western Sri Lanka in early June, raising fears of an oil spill.
- Authorities say the nearly 350 metric tons of fuel carried by the X-Press Pearl hasn’t leaked, but have activated contingency plans in the event of a spill.
- Experts say the consistency of the slick appears to rule out fuel oil, but say tests need to be carried out to confirm the source.
- A likely algal bloom has also sprung up around the wreck, attributed to the leak of the ship’s cargo of nitric acid, and operations are ongoing to clean up the tons of plastic beads that spilled from the ship and have washed up on shore.
Tin mines close in on an Indonesian hamlet still clinging to nature
- The Indigenous Lom people of Tuing hamlet have been guarding their area from the environmental dangers of mining activity for centuries; theirs is the only hamlet left in their community still free from tin mines.
- Tin mining dominates the economy in Bangka, an island off southeast Sumatra, but growing demand for the metal has wrought devastating ecological impact to the island that was once a paradise.
- The waters off Tuing now face a similar fate after zoning plans for coastal areas recently approved by the local government allow for mining to take place.
- The Lom people say they stand against the local government and state-owned miner PT Timah in proceeding with a mining plan that might push the island’s oldest community traditions into extinction.
Calls for independent probe after anti-mine Indonesian official dies
- Helmud Hontong, deputy head of the Sangihe Islands district in Indonesia’s North Sulawesi province, who was a staunch opponent of a planned gold mine in the district, died under mysterious circumstances on a commercial flight last week.
- Human rights and environmental activists have called for an independent investigation into Hontong’s sudden death, saying it might be connected to his stance against the concession that covers nearly three-fifths of the district’s land area.
- Hontong’s death is the latest in a disturbing pattern of environmental defenders dying under suspicious circumstances in Indonesia.
- Environmentalists say they’re worried that the mining activity will lead to ecological destruction in Sangihe and exacerbate any potential damage from an earthquake in this seismically active region.
Conservation solutions in paradise: Jamaica’s Oracabessa Bay Fishing Sanctuary
- A group of local fishermen and tourism industry stakeholders established a fishing sanctuary several years ago in Oracabessa Bay in response to a decline in vital Jamaican coastal life like coral and herbivorous fish.
- Surveys indicate an increase in reef health due to the efforts despite challenges, and the conservation model is set to be replicated at multiple other sites in Jamaica.
On an island scarred by tin mining, mangrove planting preserves shrimp tradition
- Mining, aquaculture, plantations and other commercial activities have taken a toll on mangroves in Indonesia, home to the world’s largest extent of these important ecosystems.
- On the Bangka-Belitung islands off Sumatra, residents of one village are doing their part to maintain the mangroves through replanting.
- For the Batu Betumpang villagers, the mangroves are the source of the shrimp they use to make their belacan shrimp paste, a key source of livelihood here.
- The villagers say there’s a growing awareness of the importance of mangroves, without which “our income will definitely decline because shrimp will run out.”
Relocating mangroves for Indonesian highway ‘not that easy,’ expert warns
- Indonesia is building a toll road and levee along the north coast of Java Island in an effort to reduce congestion and prevent tidal flooding.
- But the project will cut through swaths of mangrove forest, some of which will be relocated, according to officials.
- An environmental expert has warned against the mangrove relocation plan, noting that poor procedures will likely lead to failed growth of trees at the new sites.
At Vietnam’s southern tip, mangroves defend the land from the encroaching sea
- Bordered by the sea on two sides and exposed to typhoons and rising sea levels, Vietnam’s Ca Mau province is among the most vulnerable regions of a country expected to face some of the worst future impacts from climate change.
- In response, people there are working to restore and preserve mangroves like almost nowhere else in Vietnam in an attempt to protect the remaining coastal land from encroaching seas.
- In Cape Ca Mau National Park, an NGO is aiding the natural generation of a mangrove forest on an open mudflat.
- And the province, where shrimp farming is king, has kept mangrove forests growing amid aquaculture operations on a scale that is unique in the Mekong Delta.
Countries can transform the climate crisis with ocean-based action (commentary)
- Protecting coastal “blue carbon” ecosystems like mangroves, seagrasses and salt marshes is 10 times more effective at sequestering carbon per area than terrestrial forests, and is just one ocean-based solution that can help mitigate climate change.
- But lacking such action, an IPCC report estimated that climate-induced declines in ocean health will cost the global economy $428 billion by 2050 and $1.979 trillion by 2100.
- As world leaders meet at the upcoming Leaders Summit on Climate, Chile calls for countries to advocate for the adoption of new international objectives on biodiversity, such as protecting 30% of the global ocean by 2030.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Sea turtles under threat as Indian government weighs development in Andaman Islands
- Little Andaman Island is part of a rainforested archipelago far off India’s eastern coast in the Bay of Bengal.
- An Indian government think tank has proposed developing the island along with another in the archipelago. If implemented, experts say the plan would pose a threat to nesting sites of leatherback sea turtles, whose population globally is declining.
- The leatherback is the largest of all living turtles, and India and Sri Lanka are the only places in South Asia with large nesting populations.
- The island is also home to the Onge Indigenous tribe.
On the sea’s surface, a wealth of ocean life gets its start, study finds
- A new study found that surface slicks — moving patches of smooth water that form on the sea’s surface — host an array of species in larval form off the west coast of Hawaiʻi Island.
- The researchers identified more than 100 fish species from 54 families inside these slicks, representing 10% of all fish species ever recorded in Hawaiian waters.
- Surface slicks play a pivotal role in the marine ecosystem by providing food and shelter for larvae, and transporting them into different parts of the ocean.
- In addition to larvae, surface slicks accumulate large quantities of plastic, which has been found to be infiltrating the food chain.
When seas turn rough, gleaning keeps the fish on the table for some communities
- Communities living close to hard-bottomed shallow shore are more likely to catch animals for seafood consumption in the rough season when other types of fishing often aren’t possible, a new study has found.
- The study also found that shallow habitat mattered: the larger its extent, the more households glean.
- The results further suggest that worsening sea conditions due to climate change will increase the importance of coastal gleaning.
- The authors say that understanding the interactions between people and coastal ecosystems through fishing activities, such as gleaning, is essential for ensuring coastal management that supports social objectives.
Women and girls: Let’s transform the ocean by including everyone (commentary)
- On the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, co-founders of the international, Brazil-born Women’s League for the Ocean (Liga) say the healthy future of our planet’s oceans requires the indispensable presence of women in positions of leadership.
- Liga is an international women’s network co-founded by a journalist, a photographer and a scientist that seeks to be part of a movement that empowers women to engage in actions to protect the ocean – from a feminine perspective.
- The more than 2,600 global members of Liga includes scientists, activists, sportswomen, photographers, documentary filmmakers, NGO leaders and journalists.
- Liga’s founders say they want their work to contribute toward healing humanity’s interdependent relationship with the ocean, and promote more sustainable practices from their network outward. This article is a commentary and the views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
This Mediterranean seagrass filters plastic waste — but it’s also under threat
- Posidonia oceanica, a species of seagrass that grows in meadows in the Mediterranean Sea, has been found to trap plastic waste particles at much higher concentrations than previously thought.
- Researchers in Spain found that balled-up clumps of this fibrous plant were trapping up to 1,500 plastic particles per kilogram of seagrass.
- They estimate that the total extent of P. oceanica may be capable of trapping nearly 900 million pieces of plastic debris each year.
- However, the seagrass meadows are receding across their range, due to threats from climate change, the spread of invasive species, pollution, erosion, and loss of coastal habitats from dredging, trawling and boat anchoring.
Mozambique’s new fisheries law expands protections but old problems persist
- Conservationists are praising a new fisheries law enacted by Mozambique this month for granting protection to an array of marine species, including whale sharks, manta rays and dolphins, and for empowering fishing communities.
- With a coastline of 2,700 kilometers (1,700 miles), and more than two-thirds of people living within 150 km (93 mi) of the coast, enabling communities appears to be the only way for Mozambique to manage its coastal riches sustainably.
- The new law clarifies the path for community fisheries councils (CCPs) to become legal entities, which will allow them to designate community management areas and better implement rules regulating access to marine resources.
- Experts caution that entrenched problems like growing pressure on fisheries, lack of enforcement capabilities and financial independence, will not be resolved by laws alone.
Analysis: Years in the making, Vietnam’s Mekong Delta policy takes the long view
- A vast experiment in land and water use management is now underway in the Mekong Delta, the part of Vietnam most threatened by the destabilizing effects of climate change.
- Competing visions for how to manage the delta in a new era of rising seas and upstream dam building have pitted adaptive fixes against more mechanical ones.
Indonesia allows use of destructive seine and trawl nets in its waters again
- The Indonesian government has lifted a ban on the use of seine and trawl nets, which marine conservationists and scientists have blamed for overfishing and damage to coastal reef ecosystems.
- The policy was signed by the fisheries minister, Edhy Prabowo, on Nov. 18, a month before he was arrested for corruption in a separate case.
- Marine observers have lambasted the new policy, saying it will only benefit large-scale fishers and put additional pressure on already overexploited fishing grounds.
- Indonesia’s waters support some of the highest levels of marine biodiversity in the world, and the fisheries industry employs about 12 million Indonesians, making it the second-largest fish producer in the world.
Lobster export policy that landed Indonesian minister in jail could resume
- Indonesia’s interim fisheries minister has indicated a controversial program to export lobster larvae could likely resume, despite being at the heart of an ongoing corruption investigation that has ensnared his predecessor.
- The former minister, Edhy Prabowo, was arrested Nov. 25 on allegations of bribery related to the issuance of permits for the export of lobster larvae.
- Resuming exports was itself a controversial move, reversing a ban imposed by Edhy’s predecessor, Susi Pudjiastuti, to allow Indonesia’s wild lobster populations to replenish after decades of overfishing.
- But Luhut Pandjaitan, the coordinating minister for maritime affairs, who has taken over as interim fisheries minister, says there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the program and that it could soon continue, following an evaluation.
Indonesian fisheries minister arrested over graft in lobster policy
- Indonesia’s fisheries minister Edhy Prabowo and other top officials have been arrested by the anti-graft agency in connection to the new lobster seed export policy that was issued in May.
- Fishery watchdogs have praised the KPK for the arrest of Edhy in connection to the lobster export policy which observers have criticized for catering more to the interests of few businesses and politicians than those of the small fishers.
- Lobsters are among Indonesia’s top fisheries commodities, but the illegal export of larvae cost the country 900 billion rupiah ($62 million) in lost revenue in 2019 alone, according to the the government’s anti-money-laundering watchdog.
Bribery-tainted coal plant in Indonesia held up as landowners hold out
- Landowners in Indonesia have refused the compensation offered by a power plant developer seeking to build on their land.
- This marks the latest setback for the Cirebon 2 coal-fired power plant project, which says it only wants to rent the land and not buy it outright.
- Construction of the 1,000-megawatt plant has already been held up by the COVID-19 pandemic, while the project developers also face allegations of bribing local officials to greenlight the venture.
- Other coal power plant projects in Indonesia have also been mired in corruption, with activists saying the confluence of money, politics and power makes them a “bribery hotspot.”
Entangled: How a global seaweed ‘plague’ threatens West Africa’s coastline
- For nearly a decade, vast quantities of Sargassum seaweed have been washing ashore on either side of the Atlantic.
- The seaweed hampers the activities of coastal communities and damages ecosystems.
- Researchers are working to better understand the phenomenon, which may be linked to wind and ocean currents shifted by climate change, to nutrient-rich discharge from the Amazon and Congo rivers, or iron-laden dust from the Sahara.
- The seaweed comes from a new perennial bloom that may be a permanent feature of the Atlantic Ocean.
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