I heard about the BBC Earth Experience in London and naturally knew it would be exceptional. David Attenborough narrating shorts films about the seven continents in an immersive way sounded absolutely fantastic. 

Arriving at Earls Court station we strolled through the concrete buildings that surround and lead you to the venue. The tall apartment blocks, housing and building site that guide you into the building which is surrounded in wild flowers and wooden benches is beautiful.

The vibrancy of the staff when you get there is phenomenal. They all know what lay in store for you and are excited to share it. Soon you will be immersed and they are genuinely happy that you are there and that you want to see the installation. You can hear Attenborough’s calm voice in the background and flashing bits of light as people enter and exit the exhibit hall. It is enormously exciting.

It is hard to explain or describe how you feel when you first walk in. Huge cinema screens are rolling, different shapes and projecting the film and the natural World in all its glory beams in front of you. It is quite emotional. 

It is more than incredible to be able to access footage in this way, scenes that we will never see in our life time, access to the tiniest of creatures and the most hard to find habitats. The sounds of flamboyant cuttlefish pulsating or spiders weaving a web is glorious. It feels magic to be a part of it.

We flew over mountains, sat in the middle of thunder storms and tornados and were followed by schools of fish and roaming sharks. 

You don’t have to be an environmentalist, conservationist, marine biologist or zoologist to see this exhibition. You just need to be human, you just need to be open to understanding that we are all connected in ways we can never imagine and that we need a symbiotic relationship to survive.

As you move around the experience to meet creepy crawlies, tackle weather bands, spot sea creatures and meet polar bears you are gently guided out and as you exit you are met with a giant globe, projected quite beautifully above you. David Attenborough leaves you with his final words of advice as you depart, his plea to help preserve and protect our planet.

The totally over whelming planet that spins around you surrounded by stars and planets and moons is a stark reminder of how lucky we are. It is a reminder of what we are all a part of and a scary reminder of what we could loose.

You enter the building eager to be inspired and you exit consumed with a passion to engage more in nature. You walk back into the city, the grey concrete and towering buildings and you understand how small and special natural environments are and how much of it has been taken over by humans. Our extensive use of resources and land has drained the planet and ultimately us.

Thank you BBC Earth for giving us insight. Thank you for exploring and for showing us things we might not ever be lucky enough to see for ourselves.

Manufacturing companies around the world create plastic products using synthetic polymers. These products have affected our marine ecology for years, and understanding their effects will help you learn how to help ocean life. Read on to learn more about the effects of synthetic polymers in the ocean and why keeping them away from water sources is essential.

What Are Polymers?

Polymers are combinations of different chemicals that form a new product. These polymers have two varieties: synthetic and natural. The difference between synthetic and natural polymers is in how they’re made. 

Natural polymers occur naturally, such as from the adhesion found in tree bark, while people manufacture synthetic polymers. Synthetic polymers may come from natural or synthetic molecules that combine to make a new product, and in most cases, that polymer will make a type of plastic product.

Harmful Chemicals

Synthetic polymers degrade over time, and their environment will significantly impact how they break down. In wet environments such as a lake or the sea, the chemicals of the polymer will “wash” away because of the water and mix with the liquid. This mixture presents a toxic threat to marine life, such as fish and amphibians.

The ingested toxins will also present a danger to people who fish as the fish they catch may cause sickness when not cooked correctly. Keep synthetic polymers away from water as much as possible. Even small streams eventually lead to larger bodies of water where fish may come into contact with chemicals.

Choking Hazards

Many animals eat various objects that humans wouldn’t consider eating, such as paper or old food scraps. Animals may unintentionally ingest plastic, thinking it’s food due to the smell or substances on it. Synthetic polymers may have a sharp point or an awkward shape that could cause the animal to choke.

This is a common effect synthetic polymers have on the ocean. Many water-dwelling animals suffer from choking, strangulation, or severe sickness when they ingest synthetic polymers. Smaller plastics are a problem because more animals can eat them, and larger animals tend to accumulate them.

Take time to recycle plastics or prevent them from falling into a water source. Since animals are everywhere, they will eventually find plastic and may take a bite.

Reduction in Populations

The dangerous effects of synthetic polymers will lead to more marine life dying or becoming too sick to fend for themselves. The resulting deaths will eventually decrease certain populations and create a domino effect that harms other species. Many animals rely on the presence of other animals, and when one species has a depression in its population or a new threat takes the stage, the ecosystem will feel it.

Keeping synthetic polymers away from bodies of water is essential to protecting and conserving marine environments. Remember these effects as you walk in nature, throw away the trash, or sort through recycling; synthetic polymers are everywhere, and protecting marine life will ensure that there aren’t as many harmful effects on the planet.

On Saturday 20th May thousands of people united on their local beaches to protest against sewage in our seas. The Surfers Against Sewage event brought people together to shout about keeping the water they loved spending time in clean.

Surfers Against Sewage is a marine conservation charity working with communities to protect oceans, waves, beaches and marine life. It was created in 1990 by a group of Cornish surfers from the villages of St Agnes and Porthtowan on the north coast of Cornwall.

The event created a stir nationally and invited anyone and everyone to be heard, to voice their concerns and worries about the condition of the water that they interact with and in. It allowed people to say that enough is enough. 

Protesters took to the water around the country to demand change. The organised and peaceful demonstrations were led by surfers, paddle boards, divers, kayakers and swimmers. Everyone of them having the same goal, to just feel safer in the water.

Thankyou SAS for continuously fighting for all of us and for bringing us together. 

Learn more about SAS at: https://www.sas.org.uk

Preservation of the oceans and water systems has become one of the most important challenges of the modern era. Water and the life of the oceans are crucial for life on our planet and this is why it’s worth knowing how to protect it. We got some expert fishing tips from FindYourFish regarding the preservation of wildlife through sustainable fishing. 

The Problem of Overfishing 

Before we jump into the information about sustainable fishing, let’s talk about one of the biggest problems with this activity. Overfishing is very common nowadays. It can result in an immediate payoff for those who catch fish. However, it also causes a drastic reduction in the already very small fish population. 

When too many fish are taken from the ocean, there is no time and opportunity for species to reproduce, and in effect, we can even face species extinctions. If the balance is not kept, fishing can destroy waters which has dreadful consequences not only on marine ecosystems but also the lives of many people. 

The Importance of Sustainable Fishing 

Sustainable fishing is usually practiced on a small-scale and can be called artisanal. This type of fishing considers economic, social, and environmental problems. The goal of it is to protect fragile ecosystems, as well as support local communities, and to help people benefit from artisanal fishing. 

In sustainable fishing, respect for the marine ecosystem is very important. This type of fishing is adapted to the reproductive rate of fish. In effect, the balance of fish is kept, and that provides a higher probability for the survival of all species. 

The idea of sustainable fishing is to catch only the species that are not endangered and which can be used for commercial purposes. The bycatch rate is decreased to the minimum. 

Thanks to the locality of sustainable fishing, over 66% of all catches go directly to local populations. This increases food security and reduces pollution connected to fish transport. 

It might be hard to believe but 90% of employment in the global fishing industry is provided by artisanal fishing. Because of that, small fishing communities can develop and people can have better chances for employment.  

How Anglers Can Fish More Sustainably 

If you are an angler, perhaps you wonder how you can make your fishing more sustainable and eco friendly. There are a few ways to do it. 

Using a rod with only a few hooks is already quite a sustainable choice. You can monitor which fish bite and quickly remove those that shouldn’t leave the waters. When you learn how to unhook fish correctly, they can easily go back to the water unharmed. Choose more modern gear, especially hooks that were designed to not damage fish, even when caught. 

As an angler, you should always check the rules about species you can catch and take home with you. Be sure to always refresh those rules, as they can change depending on the region, as well as on the time of year. Many fish cannot be caught during their breeding season. 

University of Arizona Professor achieves an underwater first – ‘camping’.

A May 2023 diving science and technology exercise successfully demonstrated the concept of an ‘underwater camping trip’.

The project took place within the University of Arizona’s Biosphere 2 facility, which is best known for its enclosed environments for earth science research, as well as studying human performance within such environments. The Biosphere 2 recently celebrated the recent accomplishment of enabling terrestrial Mars simulations at the Biosphere.

Within the Biosphere is an ‘ocean’, which for three years has been utilized as a testbed to advance lightweight, portable underwater tent technology. The technology’s co-inventors, Michael Lombardi of Lombardi Undersea LLC (Rhode Island), and Dr. Winslow Burleson of the University of Arizona were awarded a patent for the technology in 2018 entitled “Portable Inflatable Habitat with Modular Payload, System and Method”. The patent was licensed to Subsalve USA, also of Rhode Island, the leader in engineered inflatables for underwater applications who supplies commercial and defense customers worldwide. Subsalve Founder & Chief Growth Officer Rick Fryburg commented, “We are very proud to contribute our 40 years of manufacturing expertise within the subsea inflatable space to making these important scientific advances.”

The ‘tent’, or habitat, provides a relatively dry and protected space underwater for divers to enter, remove their equipment, and carry out any number of tasks before returning to the surface. Michael Lombardi commented, “Underwater habitation and the quest to live beneath the sea has been a dream for over half a century, though is met with very complex challenges – the reality of human physiology and expense make it a difficult proposition. Techniques in saturation diving, where humans live under pressure for weeks or longer, are well established and used in the offshore oil and gas industries via mobile diving saturation vessels. By contrast, marine science has sporadically made use of fixed permanent habitats resting on the seafloor. Both rely on high operational costs and heavy infrastructure. In the last 20 years, techniques in ‘technical diving’, typically for sport, have made dive excursions in excess of 5 hours using only personal life support fairly routine. We’ve leveraged technology and techniques from that sector to afford a new lightweight mode of intervention, akin to camping, where we’ve demonstrated these 5 hours can be extended to a day or more all without the massive infrastructure of the current paradigm”. 

During the recent tests at Biosphere 2, the Ocean Space Habitat® system was deployed by a small team, then Professor Win Burleson entered the habitat using life support carried independently, and spent an overnight. Total cumulative time spent underwater by Burleson along with safety divers was 26 person hours. He stated, “I was able to get comfortable enough to sleep through the night and be reliant on the ultra portable self-contained life systems engineered for the habitat. This capability results in orders of magnitude less expense than conventional fixed habitats and saturation diving, and exposes a new cross section in human intervention that might make advances in marine sciences possible”.

In today’s marine science paradigm, researchers require being mobile, visiting multiple sites, even within a single field mission. Lombardi went on to state, “…the underwater value is analogous to a backpacking excursion – we certainly learn more from an overnight in the environment than a short walk [scuba]in the park. When coupling our portable habitat technology with modern rebreather (gas recycling) apparatus, spending up to a few days underwater is well within reach. Within this model, an environment can be responsibly studied, but not beat up and destroyed by heavy dive traffic over lengthy periods of time which has been the case with previous permanent stations.”

During the recent Biosphere 2 mission, Northeastern University’s Ocean Genome Legacy (OGL) partnered with the project. Burleson and Lombardi collected marine organism tissue samples which have been isolated within Biosphere 2’s ‘ocean’ for 30 years, and processed them within the Ocean Space Habitat® to demonstrate use as a viable science station. Genomic libraries will be constructed by the OGL and maintained in repository such that researchers not having access to the Biosphere’s ocean may still study its novel biodiversity. Lombardi shared, “there are numerous very challenging ocean environments that are far from fully understood, and the reality is that accessing them requires considerable specialization. Our team has been developing these capabilities since the early 2000s, initially within the now defunct NOAA Undersea Research Program (NURP) framework and now also privately, and we’re now ready to meet the call for unlocking the ocean’s many secrets in ways that robotic intervention cannot. A core team of ‘Aquanauts’ can be trained and mobilized using our habitat systems along with associated technology and techniques to afford science with dexterous manipulation [hands], spatial awareness [eyes], and rapid decision making [brain]within these environments.”

Research and development efforts are ongoing.

This Earth Day, Explorer Ventures Fleet is celebrating the planet by donating $100 per person from each new Caribbean booking to ocean conservation! Whether you’re a dedicated conservationist or a diver just wanting to do the right thing, you can feel good about booking a trip this April. 

How it works: Reserve a liveaboard holiday on two Green Fins’ certified vessels Caribbean Explorer II or Turks & Caicos Explorer II between April 19-26, for travel now until the end of December 2023. Then Explorer Ventures will donate $100 per person to local marine conservation efforts. Donations will be sent to Saba’s Sea & Learn Program (Caribbean Explorer II) or the Turks & Caicos Reef Fund (Turks & Caicos Explorer II).

This month’s donation offer is a small part of Explorer Ventures Fleet’s Dive Green environmental management program. They are constantly taking steps towards more sustainable operations. Other recent steps have included:

• Creating a new Dive Green downloadable conservation toolkit. This info package goes pre-trip to the Caribbean & Turks & Caicos guests. However, it’s now available in one spot online for everyone to read to encourage all guests to help protect our reefs. 
• Reducing paper usage at the head office and at tradeshows. 
• Donating free trips to help raise funds for conservation organizations like Shark Angels.
• Implementing anchor policies that minimize impact on marine life. 
• Conducting two beach cleanup events, a third coming soon.  
• Starting micro-plastic monitoring with Sint Maarten Nature Foundation.
• Assisting the local community with mooring installation and reef surveys.
• Adding more fleet vessels as Green Fins members, completing assessments and starting their individual action programs.

Learn more about Dive Green here.

Help Explorer Ventures celebrate the planet. Book a trip today! – https://www.explorerventures.com

Terms & Conditions: The Earth Day Special is valid for new reservations only, booked and deposited between April 19-26, 2023 for travel from April 19-December 31, 2023. The donation offer cannot be combined with group comps or FAM trips. Not applicable on existing bookings made before April 19, 2023. Additional booking terms and requirements may apply, contact us for details.

A South Tyneside Council-led project aims to strengthen North Eastern coastlines and communities in the face of flooding, erosion and the impacts of climate change

South Tyneside Council has secured £6.9m in funding for the region’s Stronger Shores initiative, which will take a new approach to making British coastlines and communities stronger in the face of flooding, erosion and the impacts of climate change.

The project explores how to use the power of nature to restore our ocean’s health while cementing a more sustainable, healthy and prosperous future for coastal communities. Through Stronger Shores’ game-changing potential, the North East is trailblazing a path for the UK to be a world-leader in establishing proven, affordable and long-term solutions to the climate crisis.

This project is funded by Defra as part of the £150 million Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme which is managed by the Environment Agency to develop and test new approaches to help communities become more resilient to the effects of flooding and climate change.

Councillor Ernest Gibson, Lead Member for Transport and Neighbourhoods at South Tyneside Council and Chair of the Local Government Association (LGA) Coastal Special Interest Group (SIG) said: “Our coastline is one of our greatest treasures but, over the years, important natural habitats have been lost. Many areas are threatened by flooding, erosion and storms and climate change will only make this worse. If we do nothing, habitats, man-made coastal defences and communities could all suffer. That’s why we’re proud to have secured this funding for Stronger Shores, which will allow us to turn to the hidden habitats below the waves for an affordable, long-term solution.”

Councillor Gibson continued: “Traditional man-made coastal protection solutions are often expensive to install, maintain and replace. Sand dunes and saltmarshes offer protection but are themselves threatened by rising sea levels and development pressures. However, marine habitats such as seagrass meadows, kelp forests and oyster reefs can act as natural buffers that protect coastlines, enhance community benefits and reduce maintenance costs for existing coastal protection. By investing in protecting these seabed habitats now, we hope to see ongoing benefits for people and planet.”

Through Stronger Shores, a network of experts will test new restoration approaches to better understand how these habitats can benefit communities in the North East and beyond through: improving water quality, reducing erosion and structural damage, helping to stabilise shorelines, reducing wave impacts, creating rich wildlife, protecting against pollution, improving fisheries, protecting against climate change, providing community recreation areas, and extending the lifespan of man-made coastal defences.

The project is supported by: Newcastle University, University of Plymouth, Tees Rivers Trust, The North Sea Wildlife Trusts, Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Groundwork North East & Cumbria (GWNEC).

Celine Gamble, Restoration Project Manager, Zoological Society of London added: “This Stronger Shores funding will help us and Groundwork North East and Cumbria build on our previous work on the Wild Oyster Project. By allowing us to scale up, this investment will mean we can increase our habitat restoration efforts and deliver a more extensive, longer-term monitoring programme. As a result, we’ll be able to better understand and quantify the benefits of native oyster reefs for local habitats and communities. Even more exciting is the potential to transform how the UK government approaches coastal protection. Proving the success of affordable, long-term solutions to coastal threats – such as native oyster reefs – could justify policy change and unlock future funding for marine habitat restoration.”

Clare Fitzsimmons, Professor of Marine Ecosystems and Governance, from Newcastle University, said: “We are very excited to be working with Stronger Shores in the delivery of ground-breaking, interdisciplinary research to determine the roles of natural and restored kelp, seagrass and oyster beds in protecting our coasts. We will pilot restoration of key habitats testing new techniques to support recovery, while making sure our innovative measurement and monitoring methods can identify the most effective solutions. Then, working with University of Plymouth, we can identify critical links between ecological outcomes and benefits for society, filling significant knowledge gaps and testing a robust framework for future projects to follow.”

Mark Dinning, Head of Conservation, for Durham Wildlife Trust, said: “Connecting people with the marine environment is vitally important in securing its protection and restoration. Durham, Northumberland and Tees Valley Wildlife Trusts are excited to be delivering this element of the Stronger Shores programme. Stronger Shores offers opportunities to boost existing conservation projects by sharing resources, expertise and information with other organisations. Expertise from the North Sea Wildlife Trusts will allow the development of important seagrass restoration work along the North East England coast by testing innovative methodologies for seed planting and monitoring. This is a practical, value-for-money approach that can save money, assets and infrastructure later if we can create a proven framework for others follow – not just in the North East but across the UK and beyond.”

Simon Wilson, Environment Agency Area Flood and Coastal Risk Manager for the North East, said: “We’re excited to be supporting Stronger Shores, which has huge potential to help communities become more resilient to the effects of flooding and climate change. It’s one of 25 innovative projects being funded by Defra as part of the £150 million Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme, which is managed by the Environment Agency. Climate change is happening now and we will see future impact on people, communities, wildlife and the economy. Stronger Shores will be key in finding long-term solutions to protect communities across South Tyneside and the rest of the country. We look forward to using the evidence gathered to inform future management approaches around the coast.”

Stronger Shores is expected to launch in Spring 2023 and there will be lots of opportunities for members of the public to get involved through volunteering, citizen science and more. In the meantime, South Tyneside Council is keen to hear people’s views on the project. For more information or to share views, email strongershores@southtyneside.gov.uk

Scuba divers rally to protect an unprecedented 60 threatened species

PADI^® (Professional Association of Diving Instructors^®) is celebrating a major win today in their fight to save sharks. At the 19^th meeting of CITES (the Convention on Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) in Panama City, government representatives agreed to restrict international trade for all requiem sharks, one of the biggest family of species, all hammerhead sharks, and all guitar sharks adding an extra 60 species to the list of shark species protected by CITES on Appendix II.

This positive outcome follows PADI being asked by the host nation of Panama to provide specialist advice and research to all attending government representatives to help secure support for a critical vote to double the amount of protected shark and ray species.  In the lead-up to this important vote, PADI actively mobilized their global community of 128,000 PADI Professionals, 6,600 PADI Dive Centers and Resorts, and the over 29 million certified PADI Divers to take part by urging their own local governments to take action at CITES – and asking all ocean torchbearers (whether a diver or not) who are passionately committed to creating positive ocean change to sign the petition that urged governments to vote “YES”.

“Today’s decision to restrict the unsustainable global trade in some of the most threatened species on the planet provides us all with a hope and optimism that we are not too late to end the dramatic declines in the ocean’s most iconic, and critical, animals,” said Ian Campbell, Associate Director of Policy and Campaigns for the PADI AWARE Foundation^TM, which is PADI’s global non-profit. 

“The listing of requiem sharks, an iconic group of species that includes diver favorites such as the blacktip reef shark, bull shark and grey reef shark sends a strong signal that healthy populations of these animals are economically important far more than just the trade in their harvested fins, meat and organs.”

Shark tourism generates hundreds of millions of dollars globally, contributing to the economies of countries around the world and supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs. Previous studies of the tourism sector indicate shark-based tourism is on track to generate over three-quarters of a billion dollars a year over the next decade.

With the global pandemic having a significant impact on the economies of island nations such as Fiji, the Maldives and the Bahamas, the growth in shark tourism is likely to play a significant role in the financial recovery of countries with healthy shark populations around the world.

“This result, to limit the international trade in shark species that are found at the world’s most popular dive spots, will bring a huge economic boost to communities across the globe,” says Julio Salvatori, the South America Regional Manager for PADI and technical adviser to the Panamanian government. “The prospect of diving with sharks in their natural environment is a major attraction for the recreational dive sector, many of which made their concerns known to the decision-makers. We are optimistic that this can be a turning point for shark populations worldwide.”

Recent studies have indicated that sharks – and their close relatives the rays – are one of the most threatened groups of animals on the planet. Over a third of all species are classed as facing an increased risk of extinction, mainly due to overfishing, habitat loss and unsustainable trade.

“We commend the strong leadership and commitment to conservation shown by the government of Panama, supported by many others, to secure this much-needed trade restriction,” continues Campbell. We also realize that this decision is only the start of the recovery for many shark species, and the revenue-generating recreational diving sector is primed to play its role in implementing the commitments made today.”

Protecting sharks is a core component of PADI’s Blueprint for Ocean Action, with the established goal of reducing the number of sharks and rays facing extinction by 25% in the next decade. To date, PADI has already helped secure protection measures for 51 species of sharks and rays, with today’s vote more than doubling that number to a total of 105 species. 

To learn more about how to support PADI’s continued conservation efforts to save vulnerable marine species like sharks, visit https://www.padi.com/aware

From direct action to marine conservation research, Sea Shepherd protects endangered wildlife in some of the most fragile ecosystems.

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s contributions to the scientific community are featured in the prestigious academic journal Science.

Founded in 1880, Science is internationally recognized as a top-tier academic journal, publishing the best in scientific research across a variety of disciplines. Its articles are among the most cited in the world, and the journal is a trusted primary source of high-profile, peer-reviewed scientific research.

The article highlights Sea Shepherd’s transformation from a grassroots activism organization into an international marine conservation organization, collaborating with governments and researchers worldwide. Sea Shepherd’s scientific campaigns contribute to the research needed to shape policy and enhance protections for all marine wildlife. The non-profit environmental group has expanded efforts to work with the scientific community in recent years, establishing multiple campaigns focused on supporting conservation research.

In Mexico, Sea Shepherd’s collaborative campaign with Dr. Gustavo Cárdenas Hinojosa of the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas, referenced in the Science article, has helped to establish one of the largest photo identification databases of Cuvier’s beaked whales in existence. In 2020, the project led to the possible discovery of a new species of whale. In 2021, researchers on board Sea Shepherd’s vessel Sharpiesighted multiple vaquitas – the rarest marine mammal in the world – contributing to updated population estimates for this critically endangered animal. This work ties closely to Sea Shepherd’s Operation Milagro, a collaborative campaign with the Government of Mexico which aims to protect the vaquita by removing illegal fishing gear from the Zero Tolerance Area of the Vaquita Refuge.

“I am grateful to Science magazine for featuring Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s science focus,” said Dr. John Payne, Sea Shepherd’s Director of Science. “Ocean life is threatened by global warming, acidification, fishing, and pollution, and it will take a concerted effort by the world’s science community to best address those threats. Sea Shepherd’s goal is to support the best scientists from countries around the world and help advance their work to protect the oceans.” 

Learn more about Sea Shepherd at: https://seashepherd.org

To reduce the pressures on coral reefs and increase the value of sustainable marine tourism

The Reef-World Foundation, the Onna Village Diving Association, the local government, and Oceana are delighted to announce that Japan is now the 14th country globally to implement the Green Fins initiative – a UN Environment Programme initiative. Onna Village in Okinawa is the first Japanese tourist destination to adopt Green Fins environmental standards to reduce the threats associated with diving and snorkelling on the marine environment.

Green Fins is piloted in Onna Village, Okinawa prefecture, an area renowned for its marine sports and has been working to protect its reefs for many years. Green Fins is implemented as part of the national Sustainable Development Goals project, which aims to manage and illustrate to the local industry how sustainable tourism can play a role in reef conservation. The economic benefits of the reefs benefit not only the fisheries industry but also the tourism industry as it has rocketed in recent decades. 

If the project is successful – proving the value of sustainable tourism – the model has the potential to be escalated to a national level. A wide rollout would allow Reef-World to focus on uptake and expansion into other marine tourism and biodiversity hotspots across Japan. Green Fins implementation in Japan would provide practical solutions to many of the common problems faced in the area. It would also help to promote high standards for diving in the country. Improving the quality of the diving industry through Green Fins would demonstrate the added value of Onna Village’s tourism product. This, in turn, will encourage tourists to spend more time and money diving in the region.

Following a week of training by Reef-World (23 to 28 May 2022), Japan now has a national Green Fins team comprised of four fully certified Green Fins Assessors and two Green Fins Coordinators from Oceana and the local government. They will be responsible for recruiting, assessing, training and certifying dive and snorkel operators to become Green Fins members in the country. This involves providing training about the ecology and threats to coral reefs, simple and local everyday solutions to these threats and Green Fins’ environmental standards to dive and snorkel operators. Green Fins membership will help marine tourism operators improve their sustainability and prove they are working hard to follow environmental best practices as a way of attracting eco-minded tourists.

James Harvey, Director at The Reef-World Foundation, said: “We are really excited to finally introduce Green Fins in Japan. We have been planning this for almost three years, but the travel restrictions related to the pandemic hindered progress. The diving industry in Okinawa and the marine life upon which it has been built is so unique, it must be preserved for generations to come. The Okinawa diving community is very passionate about protecting their marine environment, and Green Fins has given them an opportunity to collectively work to reduce their environmental impact and pursue exemplary environmental standards.”

Diving and snorkelling related damage to sensitive marine ecosystems, including coral reefs, is becoming an increasingly significant issue. This damage makes them less likely to survive other local and wider stressors, such as overfishing or plastic debris and the effects of climate change. Based on robust individual assessments, the Green Fins initiative helps identify and mitigate these risks by providing environmental consultation and support to dive and snorkel operators. Through Green Fins implementation in Japan, Reef-World aims to reduce negative environmental impacts in the region by reaching 10 marine tourism operators, training 50 dive guides and raising awareness of sustainability best practices among 10,000 tourists in the first year.

Yuta Kawamoto, CEO of Oceana, said: “Green Fins will help to unify all the conservation efforts in Okinawa by applying the guidelines in many areas and raising tourists awareness. We hope this will increase the sustainable value in the diving industry and in turn increase the diving standards in the country.”

Green Fins is a UN Environment Programme initiative, internationally coordinated by The Reef-World Foundation, which aims to protect and conserve coral reefs through environmentally friendly guidelines to promote a sustainable diving and snorkelling tourism industry. Green Fins provides the only internationally recognised environmental standards for the diving and snorkelling industry and has a robust assessment system to measure compliance. 

To date, four dive operators in Onna Village have joined the global network of 600+ trained and assessed Green Fins members. These are: Benthos Divers, Okinawa Diving Center, Arch Angel and Pink Marlin Club. There has also been significant interest from other operators, even those that are not located in Onna Village, for Green Fins training and assessment.

Suika Tsumita from Oceana said: “Green Fins serve as an important tool for local diving communities to move towards a more sustainable use of their dive sites; so that they can maintain their scenic beauty and biological richness to provide livelihoods for many generations to come.”

For more information, please visit www.reef-world.org or  www.greenfins.net/countries/japan.

Dive and snorkel operators interested in signing up for Green Fins can find the membership application form at: www.greenfins.net/how-to-join.

Dive and snorkel operators in Japan interested in signing up to be Green Fins members can contact the Green Fins Japan team at japan@greenfins.net.

UNESCO has announced the endorsement of 63 new endorsed Actions in the context of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-2030 (the ‘Ocean Decade’). The announcement adds to global celebrations of the UN World Oceans Day, themed this year around the theme “Revitalization: Collective Action for the Ocean”.

Collective action to create ‘the ocean we want’

With the aim of achieving the Ocean Decade vision of ‘the science we need for the ocean we want’, the newly endorsed Decade Actions address priority issues including marine pollution, management and restoration of  marine ecosystems and the ocean-climate nexus.

Four new Decade Programmes will contribute to generating new knowledge and solutions to the impacts of climate change and other stressors on the ocean through collaborative approaches, as well as reducing the gaps between science and policy.

In addition, the results of the second Call for Decade Actions also include 38 shorter more focused Decade Projects and 4 Contributions of in-kind or financial resources. 

A further 9 Projects have received official endorsement following a Decade co-branded call with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) as part of the Ocean Decade-DFO partnership.

The identification of 8 fellows from the AXA Research Fund “Towards more resilient coastal livelihood” also comes to grow the network of collective ocean action, aiming to advance science on key coastal livelihood preservation and resilience risks.

Three Projects submitted during the first Call for Decade Actions complete this set, bringing to 63 new endorsed Decade Actions that will bolster the collaborative design of the science we need to deliver a healthy and resilient ocean by 2030.

Ocean Decade expands global network

The Decade Coordination Unit (DCU) will benefit from targeted support from two new Decade Collaborative Centres:

• Ocean Visions – UN Decade Collaborative Centre for Ocean-Climate Solutions, hosted by Ocean Visions, Georgia Tech and Georgia Aquarium, United States
• Decade Collaborative Centre for the Northeast Pacific Ocean, hosted by the Tula Foundation in British Columbia, Canada

These Centres will help coordinate efforts between national, regional and global initiatives, share knowledge and tools developed, create links between potential Decade partners and monitor and report on the impact of the Decade.

Three new Decade Implementing Partners have also joined the Ocean Decade ecosystem to strengthen the work of the DCU and other decentralized coordination structures, including Collaborative Centres:

• Heirs to Our Ocean, based in the United States
• EurOcean, based in Portugal
• National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries (NIOF), based in Egypt

Discover the new decade actions at: https://www.oceandecade.org

When I was 18, just as my friends were finishing A levels and heading off to Uni, my mum put me into my wheelchair and pushed me across the road to feed the ducks. That wiped me out and after all the excitement of duck feeding, it was back to bed for the rest of the day. I had always been a ‘sickly child’- shoulder problems, back pain, asthma, eczema, you name it, we’d been to the GP for it, and I’d ended up crashing out of A levels and into hospital appointments with an ‘inexplicable illness’.

That summer, I had been diagnosed with chronic fatigue. The fact I predominantly struggled with gastro issues and joint pain were, I was told, irrelevant to the diagnosis. I returned to school that September to re-sit year 13, and with a restricted diet and careful pacing, made it through my A levels and off to Uni. Fitness and activity seemed a world completely excluded to me- when even walking to the bus stop after a day of lectures could wipe me out. I dislocated my knee and trapped a nerve in final year, but was told everything was unrelated.

Fast forward 5 years and I had graduated, was working as a teacher, and was stressed. Social media showed that loads of my friends were doing couch to 5 k- so I started too. Suddenly, I was out in nature, calming my thoughts, pushing my boundaries- I loved it! I ran the Great South Run, Man v Horse (as a relay) and was all set for a future of exciting running until- the dislocations returned with a vengeance. The knee was in and out. I taught Y2 SATs prep on crutches in the school hall to comply with our insurance. Shoulders popped and cracked. I ended up with shingles over 25 times in 3 years- all apparently unrelated. The issues made running impossible- I was constantly returning to C25K and recovering from the latest injury. The amazing lower limb physios at St Mary’s hospital told me running may not be the sport for me. I tried walking- 106km round the Isle of Wight, 100km of the Camino de Santiago, but it took its toll on my knees and ankles.       

Finally, in January 2020, I got a diagnosis. EDS (Ehlers Danlos Syndrome)- a congenital issue with the connective tissues. It’s EDS awareness month in May, and you can learn more about the condition here. The joint pain, the recurring skin issues, the gastro problems were all related, and now I knew what it was. The pandemic followed close after- and I was cast adrift. I couldn’t run, so I walked for miles around the city and across the common, but nothing was challenging me, pushing me or giving me the sense of achievement I got from running. Even worse, working from home was causing havoc with my spine and neck. Migraines became a common occurrence, and I was often ending the day popping prescription pain medication and trying to uncurl my back across a gym ball from the spasms I got in my work chair. My anxiety was peaking and my body was breaking.

Spring 2021 came and I was lying on the gym ball, stretching my back out when I saw an advert for a swim study being undertaken by the University of Portsmouth, for beginners to open water swimming. Before I knew what I was doing, I found myself expressing interest in an email. Because of my EDS, next was an ECG to make sure I would be safe in the cold water. Heather, the researcher, came to my house, masked up due to covid, and checked me over. The cat watched, and my nerves at not being able to join in messed up the first reading. I breathed, we ran it again, and everything was fine. I was good to go.

The swim course changed my life. Our incredible coaches Tori and Bec gently and gradually introduced us to the sea, the tides, the currents, acclimatisation and the utter irrelevance of underwear after a sea swim. I made great friends, and met my swim buddy CP with whom I proceeded to swim through the winter, as he completed the gold polar bear challenge and I (with neoprene socks and gloves) completed the penguin. 

The unexpected outcome of my introduction to sea swimming was the almost immediate and lasting impact it had on my health and pain levels. Whereas running had always caused me more pain (but I loved the endorphins and subscribed to a somewhat ‘no pain no gain’ mentality), swimming in cold water felt like it turned my pain levels right down. With 3 or 4 swims a week, I weaned myself off the naproxen, watched the migraines drop from multiple per week to one every few months, and felt my mental health bolster and begin to recover. The sea quickly became my restorative reset point, and I couldn’t imagine returning to my indoor, achy, oppressive pre-swimming pandemic existence.

Then in October I became aware of the impact that sewage discharges were having on the Solent. My mood swung between anger (at Southern Water for doing this, legally, all the time) and fear- what if I had to stop swimming? What would I do in winter when all the lidos were closed? What would restarting and staying on pain medication do to my liver? What about my friends from the swim course who were immune-supressed?

I set up Stop the Sewage Southsea in October 2021 and we’ve been working ever since, to put pressure onto Southern Water to stop dumping sewage, on government to change legislation and on Portsmouth City Council to do more to keep swimmers safe and to reduce rain water going into drains. There is still so much to do, but we now have a core team of activists and are planning for a summer of campaigns.

On Christmas Eve, in one of my swim groups I saw someone share a flyer looking for people to swim the Solent to raise money for Surfers Against Sewage. Immediately, my interest was piqued! A cause that I’m passionate about and a challenge that terrified me but felt just on the very periphery of ‘doable’? It had to be worth a go! Tori, one of the swim group leaders, had spoken about doing this swim and how much she’d enjoyed it. I clicked and signed up before I could change my mind. My co-leader for Stop the Sewage, and all-round open water swimming legend Rachel Whitfield also signed up.

It’s been quite the journey training- 2 nasty chest infections over winter, a sub-laxed knee and a huge armpit abscess caused by saltwater chafe have all been overcome, and now with 6 weeks to go, I just completed my longest training swim to date- 3 km. I’ve been working with an incredible swim coach, Mike Porteous, who supports disabled swimmers and has been incredible at modifying my training plan to keep me in the water and swimming when different joints have been protesting the training. 

I couldn’t be more excited for my first physical challenge since diagnosis. On 9^th July I’ll be swimming not only for the protection of the beautiful Solent from sewage pollution, but also in honour of the thousands of other EDS patients who are not able to swim, walk or engage with nature in the way that I am so lucky to be able to.

Please do consider sponsoring me: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/sarahswimssolent

A fleet of tuna fishing vessels with a history of illegal activity has been blacklisted in the Indian Ocean by a key international body. This decision by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission comes after investigations by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) led to the fleet being banned from catching tuna in the Atlantic and being dropped by its insurer. EJF applauds these actions, saying that protecting our ocean from these illegal operators is a vital step in safeguarding irreplaceable marine ecosystems.  
 
A fleet of vessels, known for operating illegally in the Atlantic for many years, has been blacklisted by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) at the 26th session meeting of the IOTC in Seychelles. As such, any tuna fishing in the Indian Ocean is strictly prohibited. This comes after the fleet was blacklisted by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in 2021 and dropped by its insurers in March 2022.
 
The fact that the fleet is now banned from both the Atlantic and Indian oceans demonstrates the scale of the illegality. Moreover, this fleet has gone to extreme lengths to evade scrutiny of its illegal actions. This includes relocating its fishing activities from one ocean to the other, changing the nation’s flag under which the vessels were operating, changing the names of the vessels and engaging in illegal trans-shipment.
 
This is a textbook example of operators using the chronic lack of transparency in fisheries to perpetrate illegal activities and decimate ocean ecosystems – this urgently needs to change. There are simple, low-cost measures which are well within the reach of any country and could play a pivotal role in the battle against illegal fishing and accompanying human rights abuse in the sector.
 
Steve Trent, CEO of the Environmental Justice Foundation, said: “I applaud both the Atlantic and Indian Ocean tuna commissions for taking action to prevent this fleet from continuing to decimate ocean ecosystems with impunity – however tackling each illegal fleet one by one is not the solution. To safeguard the ocean, food security and livelihoods around the world, we need to place transparency at the heart of global fisheries. Cracking down on opacity by preventing the use of flags of convenience and improving port inspections, coupled with the publishing and sharing of information – such as vessel license lists, history of offenses, and full ownership details – can help governments, regional fisheries management organisations, law-abiding fishing companies, NGOs, retailers and even consumers to work together to rid our oceans of these damaging operators. We need to hold these illegal operators to account, and that starts with transparency.”
 
Fleets such as this cause irreversible damage to our ocean, threatening marine life and the people who depend on it around the world. This was recognised by nations in attendance at the IOTC meeting this week, where the several member countries urged the Commission to blacklist the fleet.

Learn more at: https://www.ejfoundation.org

This week, in two key votes, the European Parliament called on the EU to urgently tackle the damage that bottom trawling causes to marine life and a stable climate, and to prohibit all damaging extractive industrial activities in marine protected areas. This strong signal shows that political momentum is building, and all nations must step up to make true ocean protection a reality, say Oceana and the Environmental Justice Foundation. Germany especially, as a key player in the EU and current president of the G7, has the power to translate ocean pledges into concrete and ambitious action.

Steve Trent, CEO and founder of the Environmental Justice Foundation, said: “Current levels of ocean protection are a cause for international shame – especially in the EU. Less than 1% of EU waters are actually protected from destructive fishing like bottom trawling, and in fact studies have found that trawling is 1.4 times more intense withinso-called ‘protected’ areas. This degradation endangers both our climate and the planet’s irreplaceable marine life.

Germany has a unique opportunity to bring nations together to safeguard our climate, fisheries, and ocean ecosystems. At the G7 meetings this summer, at the UN Biodiversity conference COP15 in the autumn, and in EU discussions, Germany must lead on setting binding, measurable biodiversity restoration and conservation targets. In particular, bottom trawling in marine protected areas must be stopped.”

Vera Coelho, Senior Director of Advocacy at Oceana in Europe, said “On paper, Germany has surpassed the 30% target for marine protection – but in reality very little of that is effectively protected against destructive fishing, such as bottom-trawling. For instance, the Wadden Sea MPA in Lower Saxony, an iconic place designated as a National Park, a Natura 2000 site and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, suffered from more than 22,000 hours of bottom-trawling inside its boundaries in 2021.

The IUCN expressly recognizes bottom-trawling as industrial fishing, and industrial fishing is not compatible with any type of marine protected area. The German government has made ambitious commitments on marine protection. It now needs to lead by example, by truly protecting its MPAs against destructive fishing.”

Learn more with the Environmental Justice Foundation at: https://www.ejfoundation.org

In an important step for the protection of the ocean and the climate, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) adopted amendments which call on the European Union to prohibit extractive industrial activities – which include fishing practices like bottom trawling – in all marine protected areas.

The plenary vote on the Own-Initiative Report of MEP Mrs. Isabel Carvalhais “Toward a sustainable blue economy in the EU” gave the opportunity to address the pressing issue of destructive fishing in so-called marine “protected” areas and beyond.

In two key amendments, MEPs voted to call on the EU to urgently tackle the damage that bottom fishing causes to marine life and a stable climate, and prohibit all environmentally damaging extractive industrial activities in marine protected areas (MPAs). Along with bottom trawling, this would include deep sea mining and drilling for fossil fuels according to international standards. 

The result reinforces the message sent by the European Parliament on the report by MEP Cesar Luena in 2020 on the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 (2020/2273(INI)), which also called on the Commission and the Member States to prohibit harmful human activities in MPAs.

This is a strong political signal to the European Commission that marine protected areas must be truly protected by banning bottom trawling and all destructive industrial activities. Although specific reference to bottom trawling in MPAs was removed, MEPs also called on the EU to limit the use of detrimental fishing techniques – which includes bottom trawling – outside marine protected areas.

The European Parliament also voted to map and restore carbon-rich marine habitats, protecting them from activities that can disturb and release carbon stored in the seabed, like bottom trawling. This is another clear signal that the European Commission should make ambitious proposals in its draft budget, Action Plan to restore fisheries resources and protected marine ecosystems, and the EU Nature Restoration Law, which are due to be published before the summer.

Although not legally binding, the result is therefore politically very timely and is the first important step towards a legal prohibition of destructive fishing methods in EU MPAs. NGOs now call on the European Commission to swiftly take this baton from the European Parliament and produce a legislative proposal that finally ends Europe’s shameful record by banning destructive fisheries and industrial extractive activities in MPAs. It should also limit their use beyond MPAs, starting with the upcoming publication of the Action Plan on marine ecosystems and fisheries and of the Nature Restoration law expected before the summer.

Learn more about the Environmental Justice Foundation at: https://www.ejfoundation.org

This week we came together. Surfers, divers and swimmers stood in solidarity to demand action from water companies and their greedy drive to make profit from doing what can only be described as something catastrophically wrong and dangerous. 

Sea folk lined the street, donned with banners, flags and signs to shout about what they believe in and it was quite a sight. We at The Scuba News UK attended the based protest along with our pal Cliff Culver from Surfers Against Sewage and marched with intent to be heard and to show people that enough is enough and that in a nutshell it was time to ‘cut the crap!’

We also met up with our wonderful buddy Sarah Elizabeth and her trusted crew from Portsmouth to represent Southsea. She even managed to jump up on stage for a few minutes to tell people how she is pushing for change in her area. 

To be able to come together in a safe and well organised environment with a bunch of like minded people is fantastic and the turn out was vastly more than anticipated. The mood of the day was nothing short of epic. People shouted out to the Government, media and water companies for change and demanded action. 

Our interaction with the ocean is so precious. Our marine and wildlife is even more precious and none of us want to loose it or risk its survival and so the time is now to stand up and say ‘No more.’

Surfers Against Sewage is a national marine conservation and campaigning charity that inspires, unites and empowers communities to take action to protect the Sea and our blue spaces. They took the lead this week and pulled off a huge event that spoke volumes about how people feel and what they want for all of our future.

Their campaigns include, water quality, sewage and agricultural pollution management. Ocean and climate study support to try to reverse some of the already existing climate crisis/damage done. Reduction in carbon dioxide emissions and promotion of nature based solutions. Ocean recovery and bio diversity support and the most obvious plastic pollution. We were glad to be at the event and thrilled to be standing along side so many like minded people. It felt motivational and right.

We look forward to more events and will be there making our stand alongside others in our watery community.

Two of the world’s most respected marine-focused organizations – PADI® and SeaLegacy – have joined forces to accelerate much-needed ocean protection. The first initiative of this multi-year collaboration kicks off this month, with a grassroots campaign developed to spark immediate and meaningful change for our blue planet.

The Role of 30×30 in Advancing Ocean Conservation

Scientific research indicates that protecting at least 30% of the global ocean by 2030 (i.e. 30×30) is critical to restore the health of the ocean, reverse existing adverse impacts, increase resilience to climate change, and sustain ecosystem services to humanity. But despite the clear need for increased protection, less than 5% of the global ocean is fully protected in no-take reserves.

The ocean is facing growing challenges triggering a global advocacy movement urging immediate and lasting change to protect it for current and future generations. Illustrating the power of partnerships to amplify exponential change, PADI and SeaLegacy are harnessing one another’s strengths–leveraging the power of media, storytelling, and advocacy to compel ocean activists across the planet to take action and urge world leaders to step up to protect at least 30% of the ocean by 2030. 

“PADI is fueling a movement of one billion torchbearers to create ocean change, and we are thrilled to partner with like-minded organizations to scale this critical mission,” says Drew Richardson, CEO of PADI Worldwide. “Working with SeaLegacy not only allows us to rapidly grow the global torchbearer community, but also empower us allwith meaningful ways to take real, positive action to protect our blue planet – and all life that calls it home.”

Global Petition to Inspire Action Amongst World Leaders

This April, PADI and SeaLegacy will launch a joint 30×30 campaign designed to generate immediate action from a combined global audience that includes millions of ocean enthusiasts, divers, snorkelers and conservationists looking for means to protect what they love.  

The goal of the PADI and SeaLegacy 30×30 campaign is to urge world leaders to adopt the 30X30 target, calling for conservation of “at least 30% of sea areas globally through effective, equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas.” PADI and SeaLegacy will be pushing for an agreement to be reached at the UN Biodiversity COP15 in the third quarter of 2022 in Kunming, China.

“In a time when so many people around the world are concerned about climate change, biodiversity loss, sea level rise, and so much more, we need to channel that anxiety into action,” says Cristina Mittermeier, president of SeaLegacy. “People everywhere are looking for hope and opportunities to have real impact, and one great way to get involved is to sign our petition to have the 30×30 target adopted at the Convention of Biodiversity.”

Long-Term Partnership Goals 

With their shared 30×30 goal, SeaLegacy and PADI will work to increase meaningful marine protection around the world, including the creation and effective management of marine protected areas (MPAs) and biodiversity conservation, while collaborating with local communities and leaders on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

“The ocean offers so many of the critical climate solutions we need, and MPAs are a major piece of that. MPAs not only protect local species and ecosystems, but sequester carbon, increase coastal resilience, and revitalize local economies. We know that change is possible in this decade, and this kind of action will help us make major strides toward healing our ocean and saving our planet,” says Mittermeier.

To sign the petition, visit only.one/ocean30. To learn more about the SeaLegacy and PADI partnership, and ways to get involved, visit padi.com/conservation.

The need for metals, particularly for batteries as we move away from a carbon-based energy sector, has renewed interest in deep-sea mining. On the high seas, twenty-seven global mining exploration licenses covering over 1.5 million km2 of seafloor have been granted by the International Seabed Authority. There are significant risks from these activities to both seafloor and midwater ecosystems over potentially very large areas. Dr. Jeff Drazen, Professor, Department of Oceanography, UH Mānoa will outline the potential risks to biodiversity, carbon cycling and particularly fisheries, sharing what we know and don’t yet understand. He will discuss the potential of US Pacific Monuments for conserving biodiversity and deep-sea ecosystem health in the face of the developing mining industry.

This presentation is part of the Third Thursday By the Bay Presentation Series at Mokupāpapa Discovery Center, which is the visitor center for Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in Hilo, Hawaiʻi. This State of the Monument lecture series is also supported by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation through a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

The National Marine Sanctuaries Webinar Series provides educators with educational and scientific expertise, resources, and training to support ocean and climate literacy in the classroom. This series currently targets formal and informal educators, students (high school through college), as well as members of the community, including families. You can also visit the archives of the webinar series to catch up on presentations you may have missed here.

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. The Webinar ID is 176-816-571. 

Register for the Webinar at: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/3913124920171214859

New data released by the Environment Agency, shows that water companies were responsible for pouring sewage into river, lakes, estuaries and our seas a disgusting 372,500 times in 2021. That’s an eye watering 2.6 million hours of sewage flowing into some of our most treasured ecosystems, where wildlife should be free to flourish and where we love to surf, swim and play.

This is ecological vandalism at a shameless scale. And so goes another day in the total shit show of the UK water industry.

We’ve seen a bit of a overall decrease on 2020 figures but we suspect this is due to the fact that we have had a dryer year rather than any action being taken by the industry.

Shockingly, 50% of sewage overflows pumped out sewage over 40 times. And one in five sewage overflows spewed out sewage over 60 times per year. At this rate, an Environment Agency (EA) investigation should be triggered. But we know that the EA has had its budgets slashed and are unable to enforce properly. Allowing the water industry to ‘self-monitor’ is simply allowing them to keep pumping out pollution while pocketing the dirty profits.

A culture of contempt for the environment

The new data shows the extent of the sewage pollution scandal and shines an ever-brighter spotlight on the complete contempt the water industry has for the environment. At the end of last year, we saw the launch one of the largest investigations the EA has ever launched, looking into over 2,000 water treatment works for illegally discharging sewage. And, as we speak, United Utilities are fighting the water industry’s dirty battle in the courts. Can you believe that they’re trying to make it even harder for NGOs, campaigners and people like you and me to hold water companies to account? They’re looking to close the door on legal challenges against water companies for dumping untreated sewage into waterways. But campaigners are fighting back.

And to top it all off, a few days ago, Liv Garfield, CEO of Severn Trent, was quoted in The Telegraph saying that water companies haven’t done more to end sewage pollution ‘because it was not on their customers’ priority list’ and that the issue had not risen to public consciousness until 2020. It was subsequently revealed that the issue of sewage pollution and protecting the environment was high up on Severn Trent customer priority lists years ago, as indicated in their very own surveys back in 2017. They are out of touch with the public and their own intelligence. We’re pretty sure that customers haven’t been calling for eye-watering water company pay and profits but this has never stopped them.

Commenting on the EA data release, Hugo Tagholm, CEO at Surfers Against Sewage says:

“Millions of hours of untreated sewage are destroying our waterways and yet water company bosses have the gall to say “but this wasn’t on our customers priority list”. Water company CEOs and their hedge fund shareholders are creaming off extortionate profits whilst we all are left choking on their sewage pollution that’s making us, and our environment, sick. We will not allow polluters to kick this into the long grass any longer. We demand that water companies reinvest their profits into restoring our blue spaces for nature and people.”

Taking the fight to the polluters

Water companies are making rampant profits at the expense the health of our rivers, ocean and people. At a time when many are struggling with the escalating cost of living and relying more and more on nature for mental health and wellbeing, this has to stop. We need radical action and we need it now.

We won’t stop taking the fight to the profiteering polluters until we see an end to sewage pollution. So, on the 23rd April, thousands of water lovers will be taking to the streets across the country, marching in 11 protests against 11 of the major water companies. The proud British public, raising their voice for people and planet and demanding water companies ACT NOW to end sewage pollution.

Commenting on the sewage scandal, Amy Slack, Head of Campaigns & Policy at SAS, says:

“This wilful destruction of the UK’s rivers and seas will not simply be washed away with tomorrow’s news cycle. People across the UK demand an end to sewage pollution and will be coming together in mass protest on 23rd April – we urge everyone who cares for our rivers and seas to join us in telling the profiteering polluters of the water industry just what we think of them”

Learn more at: https://sas.org.uk/EndSewagePollutionProtests/

By Amy Slack
Surfers against Sewage

China’s distant water fleet ­– by far the world’s largest – is rife with human rights abuses and illegal fishing, and targets endangered and protected marine life across the world’s ocean, EJF’s new report reveals. In the most comprehensive analysis of the fleet to date, EJF shows that China’s state subsidies have allowed the grossly overcapacity fleet to exploit the waters of developing nations that rely on marine resources for livelihoods and food security.

This destruction is enabled by the often total lack of transparency across global fisheries, says EJF, and to prevent it, all nations must implement freely available, cost-effective measures that would give all stakeholders much greater control over their seafood supply chains.

China’s distant water fleet operates across the entire globe with consequences that impact almost every nation, shows EJF’s report ­– which cross-references data from the Chinese government with illegal fishing records and testimony from crew.

Illegal fishing

Illegal fishing is rife among the fleet, EJF found. Testimony from over a hundred crew aboard 88 vessels showed that 95% reported witnessing some form of illegal fishing.

Almost all the crew interviewed said that sharks were illegally finned on their vessels, a cruel and wasteful process where the more valuable fins are removed, and the shark is thrown overboard to die. Smartphone footage obtained by EJF also shows seals being clubbed to death and beheaded, with over a third of the interviewees reporting that protected species such as turtles and seals were caught and killed on their vessels. Around a fifth of the crew also said dolphins were routinely slaughtered as bait for sharks.

“It did not matter whether the shark was big or small, even babies inside the sharks’ belly – we took them all. I guess you could call it a ‘devil vessel’ because it really took everything,” said one crew member.

Human rights abuse

These destructive practices are enabled not only by harmful state subsidies – amounting to around US$ 1.8 billion – but also by gross human rights abuses of migrant crew. These workers spoke of physical and verbal abuse, gruelling hours, inadequate food and water, and forced labour at the hands of Chinese captains and senior crew.

The testimony and footage EJF received revealed Indonesian crew being beaten with metal pipes and threatened with knives by senior Chinese crew. Overall, 58% of the crew EJF interviewed said they had witnessed or experienced physical violence and 85% reported abusive working and living conditions. “I was being restrained and hit. They beat every part of my body,” said one Indonesian man. In addition, almost all the crew (97%) interviewed said they had experienced some form of debt bondage or had documents such as passports confiscated. 

Opaque corporations 

As well as offenses carried out at sea, the report examines the corporations involved in these infringements – mapping the complex onshore corporate structures of the fleet. In Ghana, for instance, at least 90% of the nation’s industrial trawl fleet is suspected to be owned by Chinese corporations who use local ‘front’ companies to register as Ghanaian and circumvent the law. Many of these vessels have been repeatedly associated with illegal fishing.

Where the fish caught by the fleet ends up is also shrouded by opacity, making it difficult or impossible to trace supply chains. However, what is known is that a number of Chinese distant-water vessels are licensed to export to Europe, and China is the US’s largest seafood trading partner. 

Exploitation of developing nations’ waters

The Chinese fleet has become a substantial presence in many developing countries and regions that have limited capacity for monitoring fishing vessels yet are heavily dependent on fishing for local food security and livelihoods, the report shows.

Africa stands out, accounting for 78.5% of the Chinese government-approved fishery projects in other countries’ waters. In West Africa, an area known to be rife with illegal fishing, the Chinese bottom trawl fleet catches an estimated 2.35 million tonnes of seafood every year – by some estimates, around half of China’s total distant-water catch – valued at over US$ 5 billion. Many fish populations in Africa are heavily exploited, to the point of possible collapse, which would spell disaster for impoverished coastal communities.

Steve Trent, CEO and founder of the Environmental Justice Foundation, said: “These state-subsidised vessels are ravaging the ocean, committing human rights abuses and driving environmental injustice, all while hiding behind complex onshore corporate structures preventing those responsible from being held to account. These findings highlight the overarching failure of the Chinese government to effectively control and regulate its distant-water fleet, but also reveal a wider international problem: the shocking lack of transparency across the sector. As well as China controlling its fleet, any nation importing fish caught by Chinese vessels should be demanding full transparency along the whole supply chain. That is the only way we can be sure that we, as consumers, don’t end up eating slave-caught fish and driving the destruction of our ocean.”  

Learn more about Environmental Justice Foundation at: https://www.ejfoundation.org

New Chapter in Operation Milagro Gives Vaquita Improved Chance For Survival

First in San Felipe, then days later in Mexico City, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) and the Mexican Navy demonstrated the enhanced Operation Milagro partnership that is giving the vaquita, the world’s most endangered cetacean, a significantly improved chance for survival. 

Operation Milagro is a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) initiative aimed at collaborating with the members of the Intergovernmental Group (GIS) led by the Secretary of the Navy, under the protection of the current collaboration agreement. Since 2015, Sea Shepherd has worked with Mexican authorities and leading researchers to protect the vaquita by preventing and removing illegal fishing gear inside the Vaquita Refuge – a UNESCO-recognized and federally protected area in which gillnet fishing is banned. In early January 2022, Sea Shepherd and the Mexican Navy began a new reporting and response protocol in the Zero Tolerance Area (ZTA), a high-priority area within the Vaquita Refuge covering over 225 square kilometers. This enhanced protocol has led to a substantial reduction in the number of fishing vessels in the ZTA.

For the first time ever, a delegation from SSCS and leadership from the Mexican Navy’s Second Region toured each other’s ships. On Wednesday, March 30, 2022, the SSCS delegation hosted Commandante José Carlos Tinoco Castrejón, Commander of San Felipe’s Navy Sector, on their ship, M/V John Paul DeJoria, where SSCS demonstrated the monitoring and reporting protocols used to detect the illegal fishing in the ZTA that threatens the vaquita’s survival. 

The following day, Thursday, March 31, the Mexican Navy hosted the SSCS delegation on their ship Sonora, where the Navy demonstrated their process for responding to SSCS reports of illegal fishing in the ZTA. The demonstration included the Mexican Navy’s Interceptors, which are light, high-speed boats, as well as planes and helicopters. This process, in place since January of this year, has led to a substantial reduction in the illegal placement of nets that ensnare and kill vaquitas.

Admiral Portillo reflected on the importance of the Operation Milagro partnership, saying, “There is much gratitude, on the part of the Navy, for the work that Sea Shepherd does, in coordination with the marine authorities.”

After the Mexican Navy demonstrations, SSCS Chairman of the Board Pritam Singh remarked, “This new updated partnership and coordinated effort in the Vaquita Refuge since January 2022 is effective in keeping nets out of the ZTA. Together with the Mexican Navy, we are improving the chances of survival for the vaquita.” 

Days later, in Mexico City, the SSCS delegation, including CEO Chuck Lindsey and COO David Hance along with Chairman Singh, updated American officials at the US Embassy on Monday, April 4, then met with Secretary of the Mexican Navy Jose Rafael Ojeda Duran on Tuesday, April 5. The SSCS delegation updated the Secretary on the Operation Milagro partnership and the positive impact witnessed at the ZTA since the new protocol was put in place in January. 

Background

The vaquita is an endemic species that exists only in a small region of Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California. Scientists estimate that fewer than 20 vaquitas remain. Entanglement in fishing gear is the greatest documented threat to the survival of the species. 

Since 2015, Sea Shepherd’s fleet has removed over 1,000 pieces of illegal fishing gear from the refuge to date, giving the vaquita a fighting chance at survival as well as helping the threatened totoaba. Beginning January 2022, Sea Shepherd and the Mexican Navy started patrolling the Zero Tolerance Area of the Vaquita Refuge, utilizing a new report protocol in the high priority region for scientists and conservationists where the remaining vaquita population is believed to be located. Between October and November of 2021, the Sea Shepherd vessel M/V Sharpie and the Museo de la Ballena’s M/V Narval conducted a scientific survey to identify the presence of vaquitas in the Zero Tolerance Area. The survey was carried out by a team of leading vaquita researchers. The scientists made eight vaquita sightings over five days of the expedition, estimating that 7-8 adults exist and 1-2 calves. 

More information on the campaign to save the vaquita: https://seashepherd.org/milagro/

Sustainable Travel International launched a new online carbon footprint calculator that promotes climate-friendly travel by enabling users to measure and offset their travel emissions. This new tool is designed specifically for travel activities including commercial and charter flights, vehicles, cruises, liveaboards, and yachts. 

For the past two decades, Sustainable Travel International has fostered environmentally and socially responsible travel, working in more than 100 destinations and engaging governments, companies, and consumers in sustainable practices. Sustainable Travel International is recognized as a leading organization for climate action in tourism, having supported more than 50,000 travelers and businesses in mitigating their carbon footprint and being named the best carbon offset provider for travel by Investopedia, Treehugger, and EcoWatch. 

“Travel is fueled by our desire to discover the planet’s natural and cultural wealth. It’s those unparalleled experiences, like snorkeling over a colorful coral reef or sailing between towering ice sheets, that make travel so fulfilling – but climate change puts all of this at risk. If we don’t act now, these destinations and experiences will cease to exist,” said Paloma Zapata, CEO of Sustainable Travel International. “Travel is often viewed as part of the problem, when really it should be part of the solution. We believe that this new calculator has the potential to stimulate climate action by channeling investment to projects that pave the way for a net zero future.” 

Over the past two years, the COVID-19 pandemic shifted the traveler mindset, with consumers becoming more conscientious about their impacts on destinations and the planet. According to research conducted by Booking.com, more than two-thirds of travelers (69%) are now committed to reducing or offsetting the carbon footprint of their trip. 

Sustainable Travel International’s new carbon calculator makes it easy for travelers to do just this. The calculator was completely redesigned and rebuilt to account for nearly all the high emissions aspects of travel, utilizing the latest methodologies for travel footprinting while maintaining a balance between scientific accuracy and ease of use. Users simply enter their travel activities – for instance, a round-trip flight from Chicago to Miami and a 5-day cruise – and the calculator will automatically compute their carbon footprint. The user can then choose to purchase carbon offsets, which typically cost around $5 to $30 for a trip. 

The offset dollars help fund carbon reduction projects around the world, such as forest conservation and clean energy initiatives, that are scientifically proven to mitigate climate change. Sustainable Travel International carefully vets all projects to ensure they meet the most rigorous standards for carbon offsetting, such as the Gold Standard and Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), and conducts its own, additional due-diligence on projects to ensure the utmost level of integrity and impact. Sustainable Travel International only supports high-quality projects that contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and deliver benefits beyond climate mitigation by creating local jobs, strengthening indigenous land rights, improving sanitation, protecting endangered species, and more. 

Sustainable Travel International also offers business solutions through their Climate Rangers Program, including carbon footprint measurement, climate action planning support, business carbon offset programs, and employee climate education. 

The new carbon calculator can be accessed online at: https://sustainabletravel.org/carbon-calculator/

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society will conduct a press conference Tuesday, April 5, 3:00 pm Central Mexico Time, 5:00 pm EST with updates about Operation Milagro, our ongoing campaign to prevent the extinction of the world’s most endangered marine mammal – the vaquita porpoise. Sign up HERE to attend this live briefing.

Operation Milagro is a partnership between six agencies of the Mexican government and led by the Navy of Mexico and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Since 2015, Sea Shepherd has worked with Mexican authorities and leading researchers to protect the vaquita by preventing and removing illegal fishing gear inside the Vaquita Refuge – a UNESCO-recognized and federally protected area in which gillnet fishing is banned. The vaquita is an endemic species that exists only in a small region of Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California. Scientists estimate that fewer than 20 vaquitas remain. Entanglement in fishing gear is the greatest documented threat to the survival of the species. 

Since 2015, Sea Shepherd’s fleet has removed over 1,000 pieces of illegal fishing gear from the refuge to date, giving the vaquita a fighting chance at survival as well as helping the threatened totoaba. Beginning in November 2021, Sea Shepherd and the Mexican Navy started patrolling the Zero Tolerance Area of the Vaquita Refuge, a high priority region for scientists and conservationists where the remaining vaquita population is believed to be located. 

Between October and November of 2021, the Sea Shepherd vessel MV Sharpie and the Museo de la Ballena’s MV Narval conducted a scientific survey to identify the presence of vaquitas in the Zero Tolerance Area. The survey was carried out by a team of leading vaquita researchers. The scientists made eight vaquita sightings over five days of the expedition. 

In early January 2022, Sea Shepherd and the Mexican Navy began a new reporting and response protocol resulting in a substantial reduction in the number of fishing vessels in the Zero Tolerance Area and the length of time nets remain in the water. 

In this Press Conference, Sea Shepherd will update the media on the campaign, the partnership with the Navy of Mexico, and the next steps for saving the world’s rarest cetacean.

More information on the campaign to save the vaquita: https://seashepherd.org/milagro/

Insurance company Hydor has ended its contract with a fleet of vessels that were discovered fishing illegally across the Atlantic by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF). Without insurance, the fleet operators are at risk of severe financial losses. Oceana, who worked with EJF to warn Hydor about its unwitting association with an illegal fleet, says that other insurers should follow suit to tighten the net and make illegal fishing untenable.
 
The fleet was blacklisted by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) late last year, after having been discovered engaging in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) tuna fishing.
 
The operator took extensive actions that raise suspicion it was attempting to avoid any oversight of its suspected illegal activity. For example, the vessels appear to have started off flying the flags of one nation, only to switch to another. There is also a good indication that they were ‘stateless’ for a time – registered to no country’s flag at all.
 
EJF’s investigation further uncovered evidence that the vessels appeared to have changed names: they left West Africa under one identity and entered port in Mauritius using a different identity, switching ID codes mid-voyage on the ‘automatic identification system’ that is used by fishing vessels to prevent collisions.
 
EJF’s investigations also revealed suspected illegal transhipments. Under this practice, vessels meet at sea to transfer catch, supplies, or crew. While this can occur legally if properly registered and monitored, it is often used by illegal operators to ‘launder’ fish caught illegally and perpetuate the abuse and enslavement of crew, by enabling vessels to stay away from port for months or even years.
 
Pascale Moehrle, Executive Director of Oceana in Europe, said: “There are clear actions companies can take to avoid becoming embroiled with illegal fishing. By using the freely available Combined IUU Fishing Vessel List, companies such as Hydor can easily identify vessels that have been found to engage in IUU fishing and ensure they are not provided with insurance coverage or other essential services that keep them afloat. They can also help to increase transparency in the fishing sector, for instance by requiring that vessels they provide services to are actively using vessel tracking technology and are registered with a unique vessel identifier such as an International Maritime Organisation number.”
 
Steve Trent, CEO and founder of the Environmental Justice Foundation said: “I would like to commend Hydor for working with us on this case. If it was commonplace for the insurance industry to require transparency, and sever all ties with illegally fishing vessels it would not only help to end the destruction of our ocean ecosystems and human rights abuse at sea, it would reduce the risk for insurers being damaged by such association.”
 
The decision by Hydor to end the coverage could be an effective way of making IUU fishing unworkable for operators, if it becomes commonplace across the insurance industry, say EJF and Oceana. By withholding coverage for vessels engaged in illegal fishing, insurers are reducing operators’ access to essential services that keep them in business. Alongside increasing financial risk for operators, this action could also prevent illicit operators from making fraudulent insurance claims after deliberately and unlawfully sinking their own vessels, an evasive tactic that has been attempted in the past.  
 
In many countries, insurers are legally prohibited from supporting illegal fishing operations. Those who do may be at risk of prosecution, which can end in financial or even custodial penalties. Even in countries without these laws, it puts companies at increased risk of fraudulent claims, financial losses, and reputational damage. IUU fishing can be linked to other criminal activities, including human trafficking, slavery, and the transportation of arms and drugs – an association no insurance company wants.

Learn more about the Environmental Justice Foundation at: https://www.ejfoundation.org

EU scheme to tackle illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing brings positive results and empowers nations, new report finds
 
The EU’s ‘carding scheme’ – which warns and potentially sanctions non-EU countries that fail to cooperate in the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing – has decreased the prevalence of IUU fishing and prompted improved legislation, compliance and enforcement measures in several carded countries, a new report from the EU IUU Fishing Coalition has found. However, without strengthened transparency across global fisheries and greater participation, the ocean remains at continued risk of IUU fishing.
 
Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing imperils the sustainability of the world’s fisheries; depletes fish populations; costs the global economy billions every year; skews scientific assessments; and deprives fishing communities of their livelihoods.
 
The carding scheme is a key component of the EU’s IUU Regulation. It allows the EU to initiate an informal dialogue with a non-EU country for failing to sufficiently act against IUU fishing and it can escalate to a formal warning (‘yellow card’) accompanied by a formal dialogue process. Subsequently, the EU may issue a ‘red card’ should a country fail to take appropriate action to address the shortcomings identified by the EU, or a ‘green card’ if the country successfully addressed the EU’s concerns. ‘Red-carded’ countries are prohibited from exporting fish to the EU and EU vessels cannot operate in their waters until the card is revoked.
 
The EU carding scheme, which has been in force since 2010, has led to real, tangible progress for improving fisheries governance in the four carded countries examined as case studies in a new report by the NGO group EU IUU Fishing Coalition, namely Belize, Guinea, Solomon Islands and Thailand. The scheme has empowered governments to challenge illicit operators that exploit national waters and threaten local economies and livelihoods. It has also helped to bring the issue of IUU fishing into mainstream discourse, generating pressure to act both within the carded countries and internationally.
 
Within a year of carding, large-scale improvements around fisheries governance had been initiated in all four case-study countries, the report shows. This includes widespread increases in resource allocation for monitoring, control and surveillance to ensure more ‘eyes on the sea.’ Such undertakings demonstrate a firm commitment from carded countries to tackle IUU fishing while increasing local employment opportunities. For example, following receiving a yellow card in December 2014, the number of fisheries officers in the Solomon Islands has doubled. In Thailand, there are now more than 4,000 officers working in fisheries monitoring and control following its receival of a yellow card in April 2019.
 
The report highlights that, though trade-based measures can be an effective means of improving fisheries governance, it is the dialogue, capacity building and technical support offered by the EU that is fundamental to the success of the carding scheme. Emphasis on these components has also empowered the countries examined in the report to both implement new and enforce existing national regulations. Some of the countries have become more assertive in sanctioning illegal and unreported fishing. In Belize, for instance, serious violations became subject to a fine of between US$50,000 to US$3 million and in Thailand, more than €3 million of fines were delivered for overseas fleet violations in 2018.
 
Finally, the report emphasises the need for ongoing dialogue and monitoring of both carded countries and those countries that have had cards revoked. The fight against IUU fishing requires long term commitment to legal and measurable change and does not stop when a card is lifted.
 
Ongoing endeavours to combat IUU fishing around the world are crucial. The EU IUU Fishing Coalition is advocating for a number of measures to increase transparency in global fisheries, including through improved publishing of vessels’ identities, activities, catch and ownership data. There is also a crucial need to identify new and additional resources to strengthen the European Commission’s capacity to enforce the carding scheme and maintain the EU’s leadership in fighting IUU fishing globally. Harmonious, impactful, and long-term measures such as the carding scheme, created through collaboration between governments, industry and NGOs, are the key to protecting our ocean and ending IUU fishing worldwide.

Learn more about the work of the Environmental Justice Foundation at: https://ejfoundation.org

The fight to protect marine wildlife and preserve threatened species receives a major boost today; Age of Union Alliance, led by tech leader and environmental activist Dax Dasilva, is proud to announce a $4.5 million donation to Sea Shepherd, the global NGO that partners with governments to patrol their oceans and fight illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing all over the world. 

Overfishing, climate change, ocean acidification, and habitat deterioration threaten our planet’s fragile marine ecosystems which are teetering on the verge of collapse. IUU fishing, in particular, is threatening our world’s oceans and their ability to survive. Fish populations are being decimated, endangered species are nearing elimination, and developing nations’ waters are being emptied. Given that over 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered in water, healthy oceans lead to a healthy planet.

IUU fishing is a global threat, and this transformational donation will fund the operating costs of a 56 metre Sea Shepherd vessel for three years, beginning January 2022, under the name Age of Union. The ship will begin patrolling waters to prevent bycatch of dolphins off the West Coast of France until the end of March. From there, the ship will journey on to the West Coast of Africa to protect marine wildlife for approximately three months.

“I have long admired Sea Shepherd’s unyielding efforts to protect our planet’s most sacred oceanic ecosystems,” said Dax Dasilva, Founder of Age of Union. “With these funds from Age of Union, we hope to help Sea Shepherd save the lives of endangered species, preserve their habitats, and support local communities disrupted by illegal poachers. We must continue to shine a light on the important work organizations like Sea Shepherd do to keep our waters safe for the prosperity of critical marine wildlife.”

“Sea Shepherd is proud to have the support of Age of Union,” said Alex Cornelissen, CEO of Sea Shepherd. “Thanks to their passion and support, we will expand our operations, save more wildlife, and protect critical marine habitats that are crucial to the survival of our oceans. Shoulder to shoulder, we stand in our fight against poachers in the larger effort to save our oceans. To honor the partnership with Age of Union, we will proudly bear their name on one of our flagship vessels.” 

Key Statistics About the Marine Wildlife at Risk

• Every year, between 6,000 and 10,000 dolphins are killed off France’s West Coast. Notably, there are twice as many dolphins killed as bycatch off the West Coast of France compared to all other countries combined. 
• With populations of fish off the coasts of Europe and Asia collapsing drastically, the waters of West Africa are a place where recently there have been significant depletion of fish stocks. That is quickly changing–the Gulf of Guinea is a critical habitat for tuna, humpback whales, whale sharks, and megafauna, and IUU fishing is responsible for up to 40% of the catch in West Africa, requiring immediate action to prevent this.
• Fish is the number one source of protein for local communities in West African countries. For example, at least 33,000 people in Liberia and 200,000 people in The Gambia depend on small-scale artisanal fisheries for their livelihood. To protect their interests, governments have established protected areas reserved for small-scale local fishers where industrial fishing is strictly prohibited. Without the presence of a vessel like Age of Union, industrial ships routinely illegally fish in these areas, stealing from local communities, by robbing them of their food source and livelihoods, leaving little for their families. 

Sea Shepherd’s projects off the coasts of France and Africa mark only the beginning of the Age of Union vessel’s plans for the next three years. Support from Age of Union will continue to keep the vessel operational until the end of 2024, helping to ensure worldwide protection of marine wildlife and threatened species.

This announcement follows Age of Union’s initial launch as a non-profit in October 2021 when Dax Dasilva announced an initial pledge of $40 million toward protecting ecosystems around the world. Sea Shepherd is the sixth global partnership that Age of Union has announced using funds from this initial pledge, which will continue to grow in years to come.

About Age of Union Alliance

Age of Union is a non-profit environmental alliance that supports and makes visible a global community of changemakers working on the ground to protect the planet’s threatened species and ecosystems. Launched in October 2021 by tech leader and environmental activist Dax Dasilva in Montreal, Canada, Age of Union seeks to ignite a flame within every person through conservation efforts that solve critical environmental challenges around the world and inspire high-impact change by showing the positive impact that every individual can make.

For more information, please visit: AgeofUnion.com

On social media: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter    

Reef-World’s annual report reveals that the charity continues to prioritise coral reef health moving forward.

The Reef-World Foundation – international coordinator of the UN Environment Programme’s Green Fins initiative – reveals the highlights and major developments in their latest 2020–2021 annual report today. The report shows how the charity has had to adapt to the pandemic to continue to deliver and is determined to build back better.

While grassroots work was unable to occur throughout most of the year due to the global pandemic, digital innovations have enabled the charity to continue to help the marine tourism industry reduce its direct and local impacts on coral reefs. Through the Green Fins Dive Guide e-Course, the charity continues to educate dive professionals worldwide to protect and preserve coral reefs, no matter their location. The course is now hosted independently on the newly launched Green Fins website. The revamped Green Fins website has a strong focus on increasing tourist demand for members and consolidating the charity’s digital portfolio. It is now easier for tourists to find active Green Fins members to dive with through a live member map and new content structure.

In addition, the charity developed two new guidelines for environmental best practices and four new language translations (Arabic, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish) to expand the reach of its conservation message. The new website loads faster, is more mobile-friendly and is built to scale for visitor traffic peaks. The outcome from the update is the increment in Green Fins tools and resources downloads, a growth of 45.4% from the previous year.

Key highlights include the resignation of the founder of Reef-World, Anne Paranjoti. After 24 years dedicated to helping communities to tackle the many environmental threats facing their livelihoods, she has decided to step down as Chair and Trustee. The Reef-World team will sorely miss her guidance and support. Other highlights and new developments include: expanding the Green Fins online courses to meet the demand for education on sustainable diving from recreational divers with the development of the Green Fins Diver e-Course; selected for the Beyond Tourism Innovation Challenge along with Reef Check Dominican Republic and Misión Tiburón in Costa Rica to foster innovative solutions to transform and revitalise the tourism sector. 

Furthermore, there will be a significant shift for Green Fins as the charity is updating the membership structure for Green Fins members, moving towards a minimum acceptable environmental standard for dive and snorkel operators. The charity is also developing a ‘Green Fins Digital Membership’ to meet the growing demand for the Green Fins initiative and to support the national teams. All that will be accompanied by a new Green Fins logo that incorporates the Green Fins’ ethos, the vast network of country teams and members, and the initiative’s maturity.

“Community conservation is at the heart of Reef-World and Green Fins. Activities and initiatives that link communities around the world and provide open access to resources are a key part of a good future. We all have interesting days ahead. After a pandemic that has impacted all over the world, we know we have to face up to changes together and with the right view in our hearts, no matter what we start with today, we can do anything.” said Anne Paranjoti, Founder of The Reef-World Foundation.

“As we move towards 2022 at a rate of knots, we are a stronger, more dynamic and fluid team ready to take on new challenges. The biggest changes to Green Fins since its inception are about to take place and I have every confidence in our team’s ability to ensure that these changes benefit our stakeholders and prioritise coral reef health moving forwards,” said JJ Harvey, Director at The Reef-World Foundation.

“These are difficult and uncertain times but also exciting and a real chance to maximise our potential and the impact that we can have on a global scale with a stronger and bigger team,” he added.

With 32 national and local government agencies or NGO implementing partners engaged, Green Fins now has 82 active assessors, 32% of whom are female. The Green Fins national teams are looking forward to resuming training and assessments as soon as it is possible and safe to do so. In addition, plans for Green Fins’ expansion into Japan and Colombia are in place when travel opens up again.

Chloe Harvey, Director at The Reef-World Foundation, added: “This year, we were met with challenges we couldn’t have possibly predicted. The best thing about completely being forced to erase an entire year of planned activity is that you can take stock, cut out the background noise, and work out what your stakeholders truly need from you during these difficult times. It was so uplifting to see our core Reef-World team rally together and ride on the support of our partners and network as we redirected our efforts to ensure conservation impact despite the lack of grassroots work. We go into our next operational year stronger than ever, our digital profile specifically so, and we are really excited to start the next chapter of the Reef-World adventure.”

Reef-World would also like to thank its partners whose vital support has resulted in significant tangible benefits for the ocean: PADI; The Matthew Good Foundation; 1% for the Planet; Explorer Ventures; Professional SCUBA Schools International (PSS); ZuBlu; GSTC; Dive O’Clock; WildSocks and Charitable Travel. 

Find the full 2020–2021 Annual Report here: https://reef-world.org/reefworld-annual-reports

New guidelines for underwater photographers

The Reef-World Foundation – the international coordinator of the UN Environment Programme’s Green Fins initiative – has launched the newly updated Green Fins Environmental Best Practice for Underwater Photographers poster with new guidelines. These guidelines help dive and snorkel operators encourage their guests to follow environmental best practices while taking photos underwater in order to protect the marine ecosystems they are photographing. 

Underwater photography is becoming increasingly popular as cameras and underwater housings become more accessible, coupled with the prevalence of sharing these sightings on social media. However, using a camera on a dive can be distracting and can lead to changes in buoyancy and body positioning that may cause damage to the marine environment. Additionally, moving or manipulating marine life and coral in order to get the perfect shot is common – a practice that causes stress to marine life and can erode the ecosystem’s health.

The latest global survey of reef health, The Sixth Status of Corals of the World: 2020 Report,  found the critical need to reduce local pressures on coral reefs in order to maintain their resilience while global threats posed by climate change are addressed. This includes the negative impacts from marine tourism. The Green Fins Environmental Best Practice for Underwater Photographers’ poster aims to help marine tourism professionals promote environmental best practices to underwater photographers and prevent practices that are harmful to the coral reefs and other marine ecosystems.

The guidance includes a wide range of recommendations, from improving buoyancy skills to not fixating over a particular species. These recommendations are consolidated from dive professionals and professional underwater photographers with years of experience working in the industry. 

Samantha Craven, Programmes Manager at Reef-World, said: “Underwater photography is a powerful conservation tool that can bring the delights of the ocean to the surface and foster connection with the marine environment. However, if poorly managed, it can damage the very animals we love to photograph. Our research showed that divers holding a camera (either compact or SLR) accounted for 52.7% of observed diver contacts with the reef*. These guidelines will help everyone – from operators to photographers themselves — reduce their impact and protect future photography subjects! 

The Green Fins Environmental Best Practice for Underwater Photographers poster is available for free on the Green Fins website. Anyone can download the poster here.

For more information, please visit www.reef-world.org or www.greenfins.net. Dive and snorkel operators interested in signing up to Green Fins can find the membership application form at: www.greenfins.net/how-to-join.

OceanHero has funded recovery of more than 21 million ocean-bound plastic bottles

OceanHero search engine users have helped recover 21 million ocean-bound plastic bottles from the comfort of their homes and offices. When web surfers add the ocean-protection search engine to their browser, they recover ocean-bound plastic with every search. “When you consider that 18 billion pounds of plastic waste enter our oceans every year, you realize that each of us has a responsibility to stem the tide,” said OceanHero founder Marvin Burman. “If humans don’t make major changes by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans.”

How OceanHero Works

Internet users add the OceanHero search engine to their browser. When they conduct a search, open a new browser tab or answer ocean-themed trivia questions, OceanHero pays partners to recover ocean-bound plastic.

OceanHero works with organizations that have created a global infrastructure of plastic collection hubs, built micro recycling plants, found innovative ways to repurpose plastic, and provide pollution education. The funds come from unobtrusive ads displayed in the browser and search results, similar to what you see in any search engine. OceanHero does not track users’ search history or sell any personal information to third parties. 

Turning Waste Plastic Into Bricks

OceanHero works with Trash Waste Solutions to reclaim ocean-bound plastic and turn it into bricks in Manado, Indonesia, an area that has suffered massively from plastic dumping. Burman noted, “Many communities have limited waste management systems. Recycling centers are often only available in larger cities. That’s why we started this pilot project in Indonesia. We’re creating micro recycling plants that transform plastic waste into building blocks. So instead of plastic destroying communities, it can rebuild them.” 

Additional Global Ocean Protection Partnerships 

OceanHero also partners with Plastic Bank, which has 32 branches in Haiti and the Philippines. Plastic Bank provides family sustaining plastic collection jobs in under-developed communities then recycles the plastic waste into reusable products. 

The search engine also supports Waste Free Oceans, an organization that improves recycling infrastructure throughout the world. Burman noted, “This work will help more than 700 species that are impacted by plastic entanglement and ingestion.”

A Beautiful and Educational Experience

When you add the OceanHero search engine to your browser, you can select ocean mode to see stunning oceanscape homepage backgrounds with every new tab that you open. You’ll also enjoy fun interactive elements. Burman said, “When people use our browser extension, we continuously engage them with messages and questions that highlight the marine-ecosystem’s importance and what we can do about ocean pollution.”

There’s also a gamified element – digital shell collecting. They provide a concrete way for you to see how many ocean-bound plastic bottles you have helped to recover. Users earn shells when they open new tabs, perform searches, or answer Ocean trivia questions. For every hundred shells you collect, OceanHero can recover one plastic bottle. “By creating fun ways to engage people in the process, we can put a dent in the 10 million metric tons of plastic waste that enters the oceans each year. Every little bit helps,” said Burman.

About OceanHero

OceanHero is a search engine that helps you save the oceans from plastic pollution with every click. The social business partners with and funds nonprofit organizations to recover ocean-bound plastic, create recycling infrastructure, and provide pollution education. Learn more at oceanhero.today.

Learn more at: http://OceanHero.today

Sea Shepherd has entered into a new agreement with Mexico’s Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources, the Secretariat of the Navy, the Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection, the National Commission for Aquaculture and Fisheries, and the National Commission for Natural Protected Areas.

The agreement, signed by Sea Shepherd Conservation Society Chairman and President Pritam Singh on August 6, indicates that the organization will inform Mexico’s Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection and the Secretariat of the Navy about any abandoned gillnets located in the Zero Tolerance Area and the Vaquita Refuge. The nets will be recovered and delivered by Mexico’s National Commission for Aquaculture and Fisheries to protect the critically endangered vaquita porpoise. 

The vaquita is the world’s most endangered marine mammal and is endemic to a small region in Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California. Recent estimates suggest that only 10 of these animals remain. Sea Shepherd has been working alongside Mexican authorities since 2015, removing the illegal gillnets that threaten the survival of this species.

“This breakthrough agreement comes just in time for the 10 individual vaquita porpoises counting on the government and NGOs to come together to save them and their species,” said Pritam Singh. “Over the past six years, Sea Shepherd has proudly supported the conservation efforts of the government of Mexico through the removal of illegal nets. The signing of this new agreement will allow for Sea Shepherd ships to return to the Upper Gulf, giving the vaquita a fighting chance of survival. We are grateful for the government’s continued collaboration with us at this make-or-break moment.”

Gillnets are long, rectangular nets that can span several hundred feet in length and form invisible barriers under the water. Poachers set gillnets to catch totoaba, another critically endangered species whose swim bladders are in high demand on the Chinese black market for their unsubstantiated medicinal qualities. 

Vaquitas are approximately the same size as totoabas and frequently fall victim to these nets, which are also responsible for the deaths of whales, dolphins, sharks, and sea turtles.

Working in partnership with Mexican authorities, Sea Shepherd has removed over 1,000 gillnets from the federally protected and UNESCO-recognized Vaquita Refuge to date, directly saving the lives of over 4,000 animals.

Sea Shepherd will return to the Upper Gulf in the fall of 2021 to resume front-line operations to prevent the extinction of the vaquita.

Learn more about Sea Shepherd at: https://seashepherd.org

At the start of July, several employees took a trip to the seaside to assist with a beach-clean up. The event was based in Llandudno, North Wales and was organised by the Marine Conservation Society, a UK based charity fighting for a cleaner, better-protected, healthier ocean.

Along with 18 other volunteers, our employees were tasked with picking up litter from a small stretch of the beach and making notes of the types of litter found as part of a national survey. By learning what types of litter is dropped, they can better come up with solutions to prevent littering on beaches.

During the clean-up they found a wide variety of different types of litter, such as a packet of fish, fishing net and many, many cigarette butts. Cigarette butts are incredibly harmful to the environment and have been found to be extremely hazardous to marine animals, which can eat them.

They found the trip to be successful and informative of the types of litter found on UK beaches as well as the effect this has on the environment. The company plan to do more volunteering in the future, potentially even setting up our own clean up.

About Contra Vision

Contra Vision® products transform glass into opportunities for advertising, branding, one-way privacy, solar shading and decorative architectural features, while retaining excellent see-through from the other side.

Our invention started a new type of advertising that spread worldwide, making the Contra Vision® brand a byword for one-way vision window graphics. We continue to innovate and have established an unrivalled range of technologies and printable window films, offering unique product benefits to help achieve your vision.

Learn more about Contra Vision at: http://www.contravision.com

One long-held excuse for not getting off oil, gas and coal faster is that energy sources like solar and wind only work when the sun’s shining or the wind’s blowing. Now, rapid advances in energy storage technologies, along with falling prices, have rendered that excuse meaningless. 

That doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges, from the environmental impacts of battery production to the scale of renewable energy and storage needed to move from fossil fuels and keep the world from overheating beyond 1.5 C. Considering the alternative — continuing to burn limited supplies of environmentally destructive, polluting, climate-altering fossil fuels — the sane course is the cleaner path. 

It’s fast becoming less expensive to generate electricity from renewable energy than from fossil fuels and new nuclear plants. “More than half of the renewable capacity added in 2019 achieved lower electricity costs than new coal. New solar and wind projects are undercutting the cheapest of existing coal-fired plants,” a 2020 International Renewable Energy Agency study found, adding the trend will continue.  

The report outlines dramatic price drops in solar and wind, “complementing the more mature bioenergy, geothermal and hydropower technologies.” Solar photovoltaic costs declined 82 per cent from 2010 to 2019, concentrating solar power dropped 47 per cent, onshore wind 40 per cent and offshore wind 29 per cent. 

Costs to store energy are also falling quickly. That means energy produced when there’s an oversupply (during daylight hours with solar, for example) can be stored for use when it drops (at night for solar). 

It shows that government policy and technological innovation can produce results. Many gains in battery storage are a result of clean energy and fuel policies and tax incentives that sparked advances in increasingly smaller, cheaper and more efficient lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. Higher-capacity batteries for power storage were the next step. 

Batteries aren’t the only way to store energy. For example, hydro facilities can pump water from a lower to a higher reservoir during off-peak hours and release it through turbines when demand is high or when solar or wind aren’t available. Compressed air storage offers another method. 

But lithium-ion batteries are currently among the best methods for efficiently storing energy. Because battery installations are made of stacked cells, they can be employed at the scale needed. 

One issue is that obtaining materials for batteries often comes with environmental and human rights abuses, especially for minerals like cobalt, most of which comes from Africa. Lithium and nickel also come with problems, although strong environmental regulations can help fix those. 

Technological advances aim to reduce social and environmental impacts, with better mining methods, improved recycling and more efficient batteries that use fewer or none of the most problematic elements. And because many lithium-ion batteries are mainly useful for storing energy over short periods (up to four hours), other medium- to long-term storage options are also being developed. Along with improvements to lithium-ion technologies, research continues into flow, sodium-ion, zinc, liquid metal and other types of grid-storage batteries. 

It’s important to note, though, that even today’s renewable energy and storage technologies don’t cause nearly as much environmental and social damage as exploiting and burning coal, oil and gas for energy. 

Thanks to good policies and a culture of innovation, California leads the world in deploying high-capacity batteries to balance renewable sources’ intermittency. At Monterey Bay, a massive former gas generator is being converted to the world’s largest battery energy storage system, with capacity to discharge enough electricity to power about 300,000 homes for four hours when energy demand outstrips supply. It’s one of a number of projects in the state. 

Renewable energy and storage are gaining momentum in other parts of the U.S. and worldwide, in countries including the U.K., Lithuania, Australia, Germany, Chile and Saudi Arabia. 

Distributed energy — small-scale power-generation systems operating as an alternative or enhancement to the grid system — can also speed the deployment of renewable energy. At the individual level, a house or workplace could generate power from solar or wind and store excess energy in a lithium-ion car or similar battery, even selling excess back to the grid. 

As a recent International Energy Agency report pointed out, there’s no room for new coal, oil or gas development in a rapidly heating world. It’s time to clean up our act. No more excuses! 

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.            

Learn more at http://www.davidsuzuki.org

It was a record-setting event for The Florida Aquarium when the team of animal care professionals admitted 17 sea turtles to the Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Center at the Center for Conservation campus in Apollo Beach, FL. A large cold-stun event on the east coast of Florida resulted in the single largest admission of sea turtles to The Florida Aquarium.

The patients, a group of green sea turtles, were rescued from the Volusia-Daytona area by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) before being transferred to The Florida Aquarium. All are receiving specialized care to treat the effects of cold stunning as well as debilitation and severe epibiota coverage.

Cold-stunning occurs when cold-blooded animals, like sea turtles, are exposed to unusually cold water and/or air temperatures for an extended period of time; causing a hypothermic reaction that may include a lower heart rate, decreased circulation, lethargy, secondary infections including pneumonia and if left untreated, death.

“Care of these turtles includes close daily monitoring of severe anemia, loss of blood proteins and dehydration.  Vitals such as heart rate, respiratory rate and body temperatures are closely watched to ensure continued improvement of these severely affected individuals,” said Dr. Lindsey Waxman, staff veterinarian for The Florida Aquarium. “Diagnostics, including ultrasounds, radiographs and blood work help diagnose secondary infections, pneumonia, organ disease and allow us to stay ahead of disease progression.”

The turtles were immediately started on antibiotics, IV treatments, fluid resuscitation and wound care treatments by veterinarians to help return them to health as quickly as possible. 

“We pride ourselves on offering the highest quality care to all of our animals, especially our rescue and rehabilitated sea turtles,” said Ashley Riese, Sea Turtle Conservation Program Manager. “We strive to see every individual turtle make the journey back into the ocean.”

With gold standard parameters for exceptional care of three Kemp’s Ridley, five green turtles admitted earlier this month as well as these newest admissions, the team at The Florida Aquarium is ‘changing the game’ to provide specialized care, said The Florida Aquarium’s President and CEO, Roger Germann.

“With oversight from FWC, The Florida Aquarium is taking additional steps to ensure that we can continue to be a major contributor to sea turtle conservation in Florida and beyond,” added Germann.

Adjustments have been made at the Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Center to accommodate the growing number of endangered turtles that require critical care and the higher than normal numbers of cold stunned sea turtles washing up on the Florida coast this year.

“Our deep dive tank, which is generally used for larger turtles as well as those turtles further along in the recovery process, has been fitted with what are called ‘howdy huts’ or individual units; enhancing our ability to care for and monitor these younger and smaller animals in smaller contained spaces,” said Dr. Debi Luke, Senior Vice President of Conservation at The Florida Aquarium.

While large stunning events are happening in other parts of the country, turtles in our own backyard are also affected by cold waters and changing conditions; making the efforts of The Florida Aquarium to not only care for these endangered animals, but also to increase public awareness of the things they can do to protect the natural environment, even more critical.

All sea turtle rehabilitation work conducted by The Florida Aquarium is done with the approval of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) under conditions not harmful to marine turtles and authorized under conservation activities pursuant to FWC MTP-19-179.

#WomensHistoryMonth: The incredible effort of admitting and administering immediate care to this large group of turtles was conducted by an all-female team lead by Ashley Riese and Doctors Waxman and Luke.

Learn more about Florida Aquarium at: http://www.flaquarium.org

As many of us are still home and dreaming about spending sunny days exploring and experiencing Cuba, we want to share an interesting article below about the summer turtle nesting and it’s success in Jardines de la Reina, the most pristine archipelago in the Caribbean.

Sea turtle studies in Jardines de la Reina with partnerships of Blue Sanctuary, Avalon/Marlin, Oceans for Youth, and a conglomerate of international scientists were conducted in 2010-2016 and subsequently in 2019. The first, an ongoing photo survey to ID individuals and their use of JDR as feeding grounds. The latter, a winter survey of nesting sites. The pristine conditions from limited use and minimal human traffic makes it an ideal area for foraging and reproduction for multiple species of marine turtles. Loggerhead, an endangered species, nests in the spring/summer and additional research needs to be conducted to collect more data which are supported by the participation in the recreational programs at the archipelago.

The world’s oceans face a myriad of threats: Worldwide, coral reefs are being irreparably damaged. Species of marine life are disappearing at an unprecedented rate. Conservation of the marine ecosystem is at a delicate point, and there is no group better placed for the advocacy of marine protection than scuba divers.

Why is it our responsibility?

Regardless of our role in the dive industry, whether that be as the operator, the dive professional or the guest – we are lucky to experience the joy and beauty of the underwater world. With this joy comes a responsibility to protect and conserve. However, it is not just our moral responsibility to promote marine conservation – it is a responsibility to the future of our industry and what we love.

What can we do? Start with the basics

Marine conservation starts with YOU:

• Reduce, reuse, and recycle. Have a dedicated recycling station at home/the office/the dive shop.
• Bring refillable water bottles with you. Don’t use straws!
• Consume only sustainably sourced seafood – do your research!
• Protect the reef – embrace responsible diving practices – buoyancy!

What can we do? Learn more & spread the word!

Many people are unaware of the threats facing our oceans. By raising awareness and drawing attention to some of the issues, as well as suggesting solutions, you can inspire others to take action. 

But you may still be thinking, I don’t know enough about the ocean to get started in marine conservation yet.

Eco-Conscious Diver has put together a step-by-step guide to learning and implementing your own marine conservation journey! A Complete Introduction To Marine Conservation is a completely self-paced, online course, which includes two PADI Project AWARE certifications.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Speak Intelligently about our underwater world.
• Have knowledge to begin taking action immediately.
• Be equipped with tools to gain data survey experience.

Enrol Today!

Evolving, innovating, adapting, building, growing and focusing on making our programs the best they can possibly be for your safety and enjoyment! 

It has been our mission since day one to place the welfare and the protection of the environment at the forefront of our actions. These are the pillars that push us further and allow us to maintain a clear vision of the trajectory of Blue Sanctuary in Cuba for the future.

For over 28 years, we have been engaged in the most extensive and directed conservation effort in the Caribbean; thanks to our unwavering partners, conservation participants and friends. We want to sincerely thank you for your loyalty, patience, and support while we navigate the issues arising from the COVID-19 crisis. During this difficult time, the environment, on which we so dearly rely, is at a greater risk of exploitation. Therefore, we are working extensively, in coordination with local authorities, to ensure the marine parks of Cuba are continually patrolled and protected. These safeguards are essential and will ultimately provide an intact and flourishing ecosystem, as we have come to know and enjoy. With your continued involvement as global travelers in support of these sustainable initiatives WE´LL NEVER STOP! We will be here for another 28 years and beyond! Through deep rooted support we can all enjoy the benefits of the efforts in the Blue Sanctuaries of Cuba 

Marine Management Status 

Our research and conservation efforts with Cuban marine biologists are continuing during this time and we are seeing greater fish populations than ever before. The presence of higher densities of juvenile fish signal many successful year classes of reproduction within the marine parks. We never stop in our goals to protect and preserve healthy habitat for the multitude of species relying on the coastal areas to not only survive, but also to thrive. This gives us great hope to know that these initiatives are working; and with your continued support and participation in our programs, we will all be able to enjoy the pristine bounty of Cuba in the future, as our best days are yet to come!

Learn more about Blue Sanctuary at: http://www.bluesanctuary.org

Conversation with Dr. Ashley Byun and Geiza Viani. Edited by Jessica Merten.

Future Frogmen educates and raises awareness about our planet’s aquatic ecosystems by inspiring and supporting their protection and exploration. 

Learn more at: http://www.futurefrogmen.org

Plastic pollution is a growing problem for our environment. One of the worst affected ecosystems, is our oceans.

Oceans Research has recently started a microplastics project, for our field research program. We use a purpose built trawl, called a LADI trawl, to gather debris from the ocean surface, that we later analyse for plastic particles.

Learn more at: https://www.oceans-research.com

Conversation with Dr. Ashley Byun and Geiza Viani. Edited by Jessica Merten.

Future Frogmen educates and raises awareness about our planet’s aquatic ecosystems by inspiring and supporting their protection and exploration.

Learn more at: http://www.futurefrogmen.org

No, this isn’t an article about a 100th dive. The NUDI, in this case, stands for Natural Underwater Discovery Internship. This is an exciting new collaboration between three exceptional companies: Go Dive Mossel Bay, Keep Fin Alive and Marine Action Research.

So what do you get, when you bring scuba diving, conservation and research together?

An amazing opportunity to master diving skills, while protecting and benefiting our vulnerable oceans, and furthering valuable marine research. All alongside award winning NAUI Instructors and passionate marine biologists and conservationists, who are dedicated to preserving the oceans.

Whether dipping their toes in for the first time with scuba diving, or being an accomplished diver, there is an opportunity to learn new underwater skills and add to a diving resume.

Does conservation get you going?

The possibility of being empowered to preserve and conserve our coastline, with newly learned knowledge, skills and resources to keep our ocean healthy and marine life safe, should have you quaking. The partnership with Keep Fin Alive, enables interns to add into existing and ongoing projects, such as the Clean Ocean Divers workshop and NAUI qualification, the Strandloper Project reef cleans, and the community outreach initiatives with an entertaining puppet show. They’ll also get the chance to share their passion for the oceans with locals, and insist on plastic free oceans among local businesses, by encouraging Clean Ocean Companies.

Maybe research is more up your alley?

Imagine spending your days searching for nudies. No, not trawling the internet, looking at dodgy websites, but scrutinising our beautiful reefs, looking for nudibranchs. These gastropods, are one of the most diverse marine invertebrates in the world. Although more than 5,000 specimens currently exist, so many more have yet to be discovered. With Marine Action Research leading this exciting project, there is hope of a few more undescribed nudibranchs being found among our reefs, and added into the international database.

The research opportunities don’t just end with nudies. There are also many other invertebrate and reef species to be surveyed, as well as fish, sharks and cephalopods, to name but a few. Interns learn to brush up on their buoyancy skills, to capture tricky macro shots of the organisms. BRUV (Baited Remote Underwater Video) will also be utilised, capturing the latest techniques in biodiversity and abundance analysis.

On top of all the exhilarating projects the interns get involved in, they’ll also be honing their dive skills through both practical dives, including the research and conservation diving, and theory sessions. Divers can become Dive Master qualified in just weeks, filled with life-changing scuba experiences.

What do the interns think?

Our Go Dive NUDI volunteer, Nick, has experienced all our internship has to offer. It’s left him chomping at the bit to use his newly acquired Dive Master certification, that he achieved in two months with the help of our team, to build advocacy for our oceans, through guided experiences in our wondrous underwater world. He’ll always strive to educate the divers on the importance of conserving our oceans.

“As an intern at Go Dive Mossel Bay, I was exposed to opportunities far beyond my expectations.

With Dive Master training being the main focus, the regular baited, boat and night dives gave me more than enough time and experience exploring Mossel Bay’s unique underwater landscape. The instructors made my learning enjoyable, giving me any help I needed along the way, and ensuring that I was ready to be the best Dive Master possible.

I was lucky enough to be given a number of opportunities to assist with community, recreational and environmental activities. The highlight of this, being the close partnership with Keep Fin Alive and their Clean Oceans initiatives.

A plethora of tools and knowledge became available for me, which empowered me to make an active change and difference through education and community involvement.

I have been inspired and empowered to take the Clean Oceans initiative to my home in Australia, where the fight for marine conservation can become international.

SAPREC was one of the most fun and rewarding experiences of the internship. Weekly visits to the centre equipped me with skills to take care of injured seabirds, as well as raise awareness for their conservation.

The team were organised, friendly and professional, and they were constantly arranging activities and ensuring they did their very best to create a family atmosphere with Go Dive.”

So what’s stopping you?

If you’re not already scuba qualified, we’re here to build you up all the way from beginner. Even if you’ve already experienced the sensational world of scuba, and are an open water or advanced diver, of any kind, we want to help you get the most out of your diving career, developing you into a safe, confident leader and Dive Master.

Our ultimate Go Dive NUDI goal, is to give you a life-changing experience, empowering you with many diving, conservation and research skills, that will open up doors in the underwater world for you.

So really, what is stopping you?

Just remember…

“You cannot discover new oceans, unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

Andre Gide – author, humanist, moralist and Nobel Prize winner.

Learn more at: www.facebook.com/GoDiveInternship and www.keepfinalive.com/contact

If we’re going to tackle the climate crisis, we have to reduce transportation emissions. Good public transit — fast, reliable, affordable — can help by weaning us off of gasoline-burning automobiles.

Especially important to address the climate crisis is transit that runs on electricity, which could be subways, light rail or trolley and battery-powered buses.

Subways are only practical in population-dense cities such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Light rail is great in many settings. Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Kitchener-Waterloo have light rail, and Toronto is building a crosstown system that will massively benefit the city, especially in neighbourhoods not currently well-served by rapid transit. But one vehicle is often overlooked: the all-electric bus.

E-buses have many virtues. They can be built quickly — no small thing during the escalating climate emergency.

Bus electrification is part of an overall move to electrify most of our economy. David Suzuki Foundation policy analyst Tom Green’s 2019 report, “Zeroing in on Emissions,” says we need to “electrify just about everything.” He writes, “Multiple research projects have concluded that electrifying as much as possible will be a pillar of Canada’s decarbonization effort.”

Transportation is the second-largest source of Canadian greenhouse gases, eclipsed only by the oil and gas sector. In 2017 (the year with the most recent data), transportation in Canada accounted for a staggering 174 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent; oil and gas development contributed 195 million tonnes.

Emissions-reduction benefits of e-buses are considerable. Even in provinces like Alberta, where power is generated mostly by burning fossil fuels, electric buses stack up well against diesel. Clean Energy Canada, a think tank at Simon Fraser University, says, “When plugged into Edmonton’s grid, a battery-electric bus is expected to emit 38% to 44% less CO2 than a diesel equivalent — and as the electricity gets cleaner, so will the buses.” A 2019 David Suzuki Foundation report, “Shifting Gears,” states, “Electrification of buses would further reduce the GHG impacts of transit use.”

E-bus production can also strengthen Canada’s clean tech sector and create jobs. Our country has a number of companies that produce vehicles for domestic and international markets. New federal funding could give these businesses — including Quebec-based Nova Bus and Winnipeg’s New Flyer Industries — an additional boost.

There could even be benefits for national unity. The buses could support manufacturers and transit riders throughout the country, demonstrate Ottawa’s commitment to ensuring all regions reach their potential and advertise the message, “This clean-air transit service supported by the Government of Canada.”

It’s something the federal government should consider seriously as it prepares this year’s federal budget.

During the election, the Liberals — who formed a minority government — pledged to make transit funding permanent (as opposed to occasional) and said this money would increase by $3 billion annually. They also said that, starting in a few years, transit investments would be for buses and rail that don’t emit carbon.

The prime minister’s mandate letter to Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna tasked her with fulfilling these promises: “Make the federal commitment to fund public transit permanent and rise with the cost of construction over time. Ensure that new federal investments in public transit are used to support zero-emission buses and rail systems starting in 2023.”

These are good policies, and we need to ensure they’re implemented — even enhanced — quickly. Scientists tell us we must reduce emissions dramatically within the decade.

To capture these opportunities and prevent electric bus manufacturing from going to the U.S., the government needs to act fast. Clean Energy Canada argues, “Canada is home to multiple North-America-leading e-bus manufacturers that, as the world moves to electrify transit, are well-positioned to capitalize — provided transit authorities and policy makers seize the opportunity.”

Some cities have already purchased e-buses, but the numbers are relatively small. Toronto just bought 60 (out of a total fleet of some 2,000 buses) and Edmonton recently ordered 25 (out of about 1,000). These are good steps, but new federal money could turbocharge them.

Ottawa plans to fund zero-emission vehicles beginning in 2023. This means the feds could pay for diesel-burning buses for another three years. In a climate crisis, that doesn’t make sense.

Canadian technology can produce high-quality electric buses (and good jobs) now. In the upcoming federal budget, let’s make cleaner, healthier public transportation a priority.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Climate Change and Transportation Policy Analyst Gideon Forman.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org

Millennials and Gen Zs want a career that makes an impact. This was the finding of sustainable development organization GVI.

Of those surveyed, 72% reported that they hoped to advance a cause through their career. 

They will be equipped to do just that through a new joint venture between GVI and three major US universities.

In partnership with GVI’s “Impact Academy” division, UCR Extension, UNC Charlotte and the University of Richmond are each offering a portfolio of career-accelerating programs.

The Impact Academy is a global first: a one-stop-shop designed to give participants the practical skills, theoretical understanding, on-the-ground experience, career guidance and support needed to launch a career in international development. 

Impact Academy is now open for registration. Programs combine rigorous online coursework with 2 or 4 weeks of international fieldwork. This fieldwork immerses participants in the local realities that make or break development programs. This gives participants a unique, nuanced grasp of context, in countries such as South Africa, Thailand, Costa Rica, Peru, Fiji, Ghana and the United States. 

Understanding context in sustainable development is vital. With better-trained graduates who are equipped to analyze and adapt to context, development projects are more successful, and more sustainable. 

Over 80% of employers in NPOs, development-focused corporations, and social enterprises say that candidates’ lack of practical experience on how to deliver change is the biggest blockage to them achieving their career goals. 

Impact Academy was developed with this need in mind, to be applied to projects across all 17 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. And to close this gap even further, participants will also have unique access to industry opportunities and updates through a dedicated careers portal.

Learn more at: https://www.theimpactacademy.org

We’re excited to share that Corridor Resources’ license for oil and gas exploration for the Old Harry prospect in the Gulf of St. Lawrence has expired. This important victory removes one threat to the Gulf of St. Lawrence’s sensitive environment, and the species and communities that depend upon it.

While we continue to celebrate what this update means for the Gulf, we can’t let it overshadow that we are still waiting for a decision from the court on our case.

As you might recall, last February, we argued that the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board broke the law when it renewed Corridor Resources’ exploration licence well past the maximum nine-year lifespan permitted under federal and provincial laws.

Term limits are there for a reason. They protect the environment from rights-holders who lack the capacity or technology to drill safely. That’s why a decision from the court on the legality of the Board’s extension remains just as important as ever.

In the last year alone, the federal government has proposed similar dodgy licence extensions for companies looking to drill in the Beaufort Sea. And the government of Newfoundland and Labrador wants companies to drill 100 more exploration wells in the next 10 years.

We need to know whether the regulators will be able to indefinitely extend exploration licences — and the threat they pose to our sensitive ocean ecosystems.

As we wait for the court to hand down its decision, you can rest assured that Ecojustice remains committed to using the power of the law to protect nature, the climate and communities from coast to coast to coast. This includes preparing to go before the Supreme Court of Canada later this spring to ensure that governments, including reticent governments in Ontario and Alberta, take steps to address the climate emergency.

Please give a gift today to ensure we have the resources we need to stand ready to head into the courtroom.

DONATE

Learn more at: https://www.ecojustice.ca/bye-bye-offshore-drilling-licence-in-the-gulf-of-st-lawrence-expires/

We are a group dedicated to preserving our oceans’ reefs and native fish populations, which are threatened in the western Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico by the invasive lionfish . We formed this non-profit to share information and resources relating to the infestation of this invasive species. Our goal is to raise awareness of the importance of maintaining these fragile ecosystems in the global community, and to fund efforts to mitigate the devastating effects of this invasive species.

Please share your lionfish stories, photos, videos, and resources with us here, and if you have any suggestions for things you would like included on our website or Facebook page, please contact us at http://www.lionfishuniversity.org

Lionfish are one of the most invasive aquatic species in history. They have been decimating reefs and weakening ecosystems across the Western Atlantic for over 30 years, unchecked and unchallenged. Now is the time to fight.

In the 1980s, two visually identical species of lionfish (Pterois miles and P. volitans) were introduced to the Atlantic off the coast of Florida, most likely from the aquarium trade. Since then, lionfish populations have exploded, spreading throughout the Caribbean Sea, into the Gulf of Mexico, as far north as North Carolina and as far south as Venezuela.

The impact of the lionfish invasion has been devastating. In heavily invaded areas lionfish can reach densities of 200 adults per acre. They consume almost everything in their path, reducing some native fish species by up to 90%.

Some of their prey species include snapper and grouper, and the reduction of these commercially-important fish has hurt local fisheries. They also eat herbivorous fish species, which are vital to coral reef health because they keep algae in check.

As lionfish populations grow, the invaded reefs become more susceptible to the effects of disease, overfishing, pollution and climate change. Invasive lionfish have now contributed to the listing of seven coral species as “threatened”.

Why is the lionfish so destructive?

Every year thousands of species are introduced to new places all over the world. So how has the lionfish been so successful, and why is it so destructive? It’s because lionfish are evolved for invasion success.

• They mature quickly, produce millions of offspring per year, and reproduce every four days regardless of the season.
• They are generalist predators, capable of eating anything up to half their body length, and they don’t provoke the usual avoidance response in prey.
• They have venomous spines that will repel almost any predator.
• They are resistant to most diseases and parasites in their invasive range.

How You Can Help

Fighting the lionfish invasion has to be a team effort. You can help right now by donating to Lionfish University for its ongoing trap research, or by shopping at one of our partner stores. We need your help.

Learn more at: https://lionfishuniversity.org/

Latest article on Climate Change and Conservation from David Suzuki.

We live on a changing planet. Unnaturally rapid global warming is altering everything, including lands and waters. Evidence shows we’ve already emitted enough greenhouse gases to alter the structure of ecosystems and interactions within them. Because many gases, such as carbon dioxide, remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, impacts to the planet will continue even if we stop all atmospheric emissions tomorrow.

Approaches to conservation are also changing in response to climate disruption. Protected areas were initially established primarily for the benefit of people — to preserve breeding grounds for game that hunters prefer or to optimize areas for human recreation. Over several decades, efforts have shifted toward prioritizing ecological integrity for Canada’s parks and recognizing the role of Indigenous leadership in conservation and stewardship.

Protected areas can be excellent climate mitigation tools. Mature forests, peatlands, oceans and marshes house significant carbon stores, while disturbing these ecosystems releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Evidence shows Earth is heating at an accelerating rate, outpacing the capacity of numerous plant and animal species to adapt. To safeguard biodiversity, protected area planning has had to evolve to address the habitat changes brought by climate disruption.

This planning isn’t new. Twenty years ago, the World Wildlife Fund produced “Buying Time: A User’s Manual for Building Resistance and Resilience to Climate Change in Natural Systems,” based on the premise that strategic conservation measures could give nature breathing room until the transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy was complete.

“Climate change is happening now and nature is experiencing its impacts first,” the report says. “Whether one looks at coral reefs, mangroves, arctic areas or montane regions, climate change poses a complex and bewildering array of problems for ecosystems. The key question is, what can be done — in addition to the rapid reduction of CO2 emissions now — to increase the resiliency of these ecosystems to climate change?”

The WWF team developed three broad approaches: protect adequate and appropriate space, limit all non-climate stresses and practise adaptive management and strategy-testing. Maintaining functional ecosystems and keystone species must be taken into consideration. Other stresses like chemical pollutants, fragmentation by roads and industrial activities must be reduced. Conservation method outcomes must be regularly assessed and recalibrated.

More recently, an article in the journal Environmental Research Letters explored “climate-wise connectivity,” natural area connection “that specifically facilitates animal and plant movement in response to climate change.”

Climate-wise connectivity looks at a number of strategies for conservation planning amid the climate crisis, as emergent ecosystems appear. These include increasing the amount of habitat conserved throughout the landscape, adding corridors between protected areas, creating small “stepping stones” of habitat, taking into account the pace of habitat change in different areas so that rapidly changing areas can be buffered by those changing at a slower velocity, and maintaining biologically rich hot spots.

Connectivity corridors that link conservation areas are, at heart, efforts to provide wildlife with pathways on their journeys to continued survival. The article notes that “geophysical features that create a diversity of microclimates are important to focus on as they can buffer the effects of climate change, giving species more opportunities and time to track the changing climate.”

As landscapes and our approaches to conserving them shift, so too must our social systems. Climate justice and social justice are intricately linked. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has noted climate change is and will continue to disproportionately affect the poor and most vulnerable — internationally and within Canada.

Humans are part of nature. We form what some social scientists call a “social-ecological system.” We must also build resilience in our own lives and support others less fortunate than ourselves, as human resilience is shaped by many factors: where we live, our relationships with the land, at-hand government support systems and our personal economic and social resources.

Activism is one way to foster resilience. It can help overcome despair. As people living in Canada, we must help shift social and economic structures to advance climate and ecological resilience. This includes advocating for the establishment of protected areas as tools to maintain carbon, supporting Indigenous-led conservation initiatives and demanding justice for those displaced and impoverished by climate change, within our borders and without.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Boreal Project Manager Rachel Plotkin.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

Just as we were celebrating the birth of the fourth North Atlantic right whale calf seen this season, that calf has been struck by a vessel. The gruesome injuries are consistent with the propeller of a vessel and the cuts are so severe that experts believe it could have trouble feeding. The calf – seen above with its mother – is currently in critical condition.

This is a devastating tragedy for a species already on the edge of extinction. We’ve seen time and time again as ships collide with North Atlantic right whales, blunt force trauma and cuts from propellers can lead to excruciating deaths.

That’s why Oceana is calling on governments in Canada and the U.S. to take immediate action to stop the killing and save these whales from extinction. But, we can’t win this fight for whales without you. If you won’t speak up for North Atlantic right whales, who will?

Tell the Canadian and U.S. governments to take immediate action to save North Atlantic right whales from extinction and prevent another tragedy like this one .

In the past three years, 30 North Atlantic right whales have died in Canadian and U.S. waters – that’s nearly seven per cent of their population. Only around 400 remain. If we continue losing whales at this rate, extinction is inevitable.

Oceana is calling on the Canadian and U.S. governments to take immediate actions to save these whales from ship strikes and other stressors, including:

1. Require ships to slow down where North Atlantic right whales are known to frequent.
    
2. Reduce the amount of vertical lines from fishing gear in Canadian and U.S. Atlantic waters.
    
3. Modify fishing gear and practices to reduce the likelihood and severity of entanglements.

Their survival depends on all of us standing together and making our voices heard. We can’t make a difference for these whales without your help.

We can’t afford to lose another whale, much less a precious newborn. If we don’t act fast, we could see a large whale species go extinct in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time in centuries.

Learn more at: https://act.oceana.org/page/48248/action/1

Let’s hope 2020 marks the start of a year and decade when we finally take climate disruption as seriously as the evidence shows we must. We understand the problem and know how to deal with it. Many solutions exist and more are being developed daily. Consuming less of everything, including energy, rapidly shifting to renewable energy, and protecting and restoring green spaces and wetlands that store carbon are all things we’ve been doing and can do more.

We’d have healthier children, less risk of extreme weather­–related events like floods and fires, fewer refugees, cleaner cities and more sustainably managed resources. It’s astounding that anyone would oppose that. Yes, people working in coal, oil and gas have legitimate fears about their futures, which is why they need support and training as the industry automates and transitions.

But we make it more difficult with every year we fail to act decisively. The talk is often of a “gradual” transition, the cliché being, “We can’t get off fossil fuels overnight.” That’s true, but it’s used as an excuse to avoid getting off fossil fuels at all. Through decades of increasingly urgent warnings from the scientific community about the dangers of pumping massive amounts of long-lasting greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, many governments, including ours, have facilitated rapid expansion of the industry, especially for dirtier, less-efficient, harder-to-obtain products like oilsands bitumen.

Despite promises to stop, our government and others continue to massively subsidize the most profitable industry in history with tax breaks, reduced royalties and incentives. Governments develop climate strategies — many of them good — and then turn around and buy a pipeline or frack the hell out of the landscape.

It doesn’t make sense.

Looking south of the border and elsewhere in the world is even more bewildering. The U.S. president rambles incoherently about wind energy while rolling back decades of practical environmental laws and regulations. Australian politicians reject climate solutions and promote the dying coal industry while evacuating their people from record-breaking heat and a country on fire.

What’s going on? Is it simply profit and greed? Fear of change? A lack of empathy and caring for the future? Ignorance? All the above?

Some people who oppose environmental protection believe it’s their religious duty to help speed the “end times.” Politicians on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border are known to follow these beliefs. It’s absurd that people who believe God created the heavens and Earth would be so hell-bent on destroying all they’ve been given. It’s like burning down your house so you can speed your move to a new one that you have not yet seen!

Declining education standards, especially around critical thinking, have made many people more susceptible to the barrage of conspiratorial and other false information flowing through social and conventional media. That information — from climate science denial to outlandish conspiracy theories — is intentionally produced by people determined to maintain their mostly unearned privilege no matter what the cost to the rest of society.

If we had politicians willing to act with the urgency the evidence shows is necessary, curbing climate catastrophe would still be a challenge this late in the game, but we could do it. We could at least start to ensure things don’t get worse than they already are.

We can and must do better. But it’s going to take more than changing our diets, buying e-vehicles and conserving energy — as important as those are. We must adapt our economic systems to current conditions and work on solutions that may not fit within the profit-and-growth paradigm, including massive reforestation projects, better environmental regulation, and education, strengthened women’s rights and family planning to stabilize population growth.

We can’t afford to squander limited resources for the sake of a seemingly endless cycle of working and consuming. And we can’t just keep polluting air, water and land and not expect consequences. Some people may accept the idea of an apocalypse, even to the extent of praying for it and wanting to speed its coming. But most of us just want to live healthy, happy lives, where friends, family and experience mean more than money and “stuff.” We’re the majority and so must continue to speak out and speak loudly.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor and Writer Ian Hanington.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org

The Journey Begins: A Promising Partnership to Protect and Restore Keys’ Reefs

Coral Scientists at The Florida Aquarium continue to work tirelessly since successfully spawning threatened Atlantic pillar coral in August. These scientists were the first to reproduce Atlantic corals through lab-induced techniques. Their efforts have ignited hope for a new path to help vulnerable coral reefs.

The Florida Aquarium is taking another step towards a brighter future to save our dying reefs by joining the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and local partners to announce the first high-level bold strategy to protect and restore seven coral reef sites in the Florida Keys, part of an unprecedented, decades-long effort to revitalize the region’s highly diverse and economically valuable marine ecosystem. 

Since the 1970s, hurricanes, heat-induced coral bleaching, cold snaps, and disease events, as well as acute impacts such as ship groundings, prop scarring, and misused boat anchors, have reduced coral cover in the Florida Keys by more than 90 percent. Coral cover is a measure of the proportion of reef surface covered by live stony coral instead of sponges, algae, or other organisms. In general, 25 percent of coral cover is considered necessary to support a healthy ecosystem and protect the reef structure. 

The NOAA-led “Mission: Iconic Reefs” coral reef restoration initiative announcement was made today during a press event in Key Largo, Florida. The project, “Mission: Iconic Reefs,” calls for restoration of nearly three million square feet of the Florida Reef Tract — about the size of 52 football fields — and is estimated to cost $100 million over the first decade, one of the largest investments ever undertaken in coral restoration. Over the next year, NOAA will focus on available funding to support this effort and work with outside partners to secure additional public and private funds.

“This restoration strategy is essential to the survival of our Florida Reef Tract and could not be accomplished without the collaboration of the state’s coral partners,” said Dr. Amber Whittle, The Florida Aquarium Director of Conservation. “The Florida Aquarium is in a unique position to produce genetically diverse, adaptable corals and long-spined sea urchins to aid in this vital restoration.”

The team of coral scientists at The Florida Aquarium will continue to pinpoint the optimal environmental cues to trigger spawning in our Project Coral program to induce the corals to reproduce more than once a year. These corals will be used in the “Mission: Iconic Reefs” project, a multi-partner coral reef restoration initiative.

 Also, in partnership with the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS), are spawning and breeding long-spined urchins for coral reef herbivore restoration, which will also be used in the “Mission: Iconic Reefs” project. 

Also, in partnership with the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS), are spawning and breeding long-spined urchins for coral reef herbivore restoration, which will also be used in the “Mission: Iconic Reefs” project. 

Collaboration among federal and state agencies, leading coral reef experts, local restoration practitioners, and the Florida Keys community will be vital to the success of this ambitious effort. Partners include the State of Florida, Coral Restoration Foundation, Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium, Florida Aquarium, The Nature Conservancy, Reef Renewal, and the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.

Learn more at https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/iconic-reefs

Through the National “Coral to Action” Student Challenge, the world’s largest coral restoration organization, Coral Restoration Foundation, is searching for the best short film of a minute or less that tells the world about the crisis facing our coral reefs and how they can help. The challenge is open to all students in the United States in grades K through 12. 

Coral Restoration Foundation Communications Director, Alice Grainger explains, “It’s not too late for us to make sure that coral reefs are a feature of life on Earth in the future. This is a chance for students throughout the country to lend their voices and their creativity to the fight to save this important ecosystem. We are looking for a film that is creative, inspiring, and unexpected- something that will stop people in their tracks and get them motivated to join the mission!”

Putting it to the Vote

Submitted videos will be narrowed to three finalists by an expert panel of judges that includes Emmy Award-winner Angie Lassman from NBC 6, and Richard Vevers, Founder and CEO of The Ocean Agency and the mind behind the critically-acclaimed Netflix hit “Chasing Coral”. Finalist videos will be put to a public vote to find the winner. 

Asked why this challenge matters, Vevers responded, “Raising awareness about the coral reef crisis has never been more important. Our actions over the next few years will determine whether we become the first generation to lose a planetary ecosystem… or be the first to save one.”

Incredible Prizes

The winning students will receive a state-of-the-art educational aquarium for their school, donated by Titan Aquatic Exhibits. Their video will be hosted on the Coral Restoration Foundation website and shared across every one of the organization’s social media accounts with a combined reach of just under half a million people a month. 

Amplifying the Message

The “Coral to Action” Broadcast Sponsor, NBC 6, is giving America’s students an opportunity to amplify their message. They are joining the mission to save our planet’s coral reefs from extinction and will be airing the winning film on their network and digital platforms.

NBC 6’s Angie Lassman explains why spreading this message is so important, “Through my reporting,  I’ve seen that the ocean’s coral is a mirror into the overall health of our planet. When the coral is struggling, many other aspects of the environment are struggling and when the corals are thriving, our environment can thrive. That’s why it’s necessary to put up a good fight against the decimation of our coral reefs before they’re gone forever.”

A Wave of Change

This campaign gives all students a chance to empower their communities to create positive change for life in the oceans.

For more information and to enter the “Coral to Action” Student Challenge, visit www.coralrestoration.org/coral-to-action

It’s been over a decade since award-winning filmmaker Rob Stewart first debuted Sharkwater (2007) to international audiences, bringing the issue of shark finning to the world stage and galvanizing a global movement to protect sharks. Today, with the historic passing of Bill C-68 banning the import and export of shark fins in Canada, Stewart’s powerful and substantial impact is being celebrated across the country.

Early on, Stewart worked closely with Senator Michael MacDonald and MP Fin Donnelly, to bring awareness to the shark fin trade and lobbied for necessary legislative action. Since Sharkwater first hit theatres in 2007, laws and public policies around the world have changed; many countries have banned shark finning; 19 Canadian municipalities have passed laws prohibiting the sale of shark products and many more municipalities have asked for federal legislation; since 2011, five federal bills and one provincial bill have been introduced to ban trade in shark fins. None have passed until now; and since that time, more than a billion sharks have been killed.

Canada will be the first G8 nation to pass federal legislation fully banning the import and export of shark fins. It is estimated that 100-150 million sharks are killed annually, largely for their fins and Canada has been a significant importer – the largest outside of Asia bringing in approximately 150,000 kg of shark fins in 2018 alone.

Senator Michael MacDonald who first championed a shark protection bill in the Senate, recently praised Stewart’s impact. “The government’s amendments to the Fisheries Act in C-68, is a huge win for the movement to protect sharks; full credit goes to all the organization and individuals across Canada who have been working tirelessly for the protection of sharks, and in particular to the late Canadian filmmaker and conservationist Rob Stewart and his family. Rob pioneered this movement – C-68 is in honour of him.”

In January 2017, while shooting his third and final film, Sharkwater Extinction, Stewart tragically died in a dive accident off the Florida Keys. His parents Brian and Sandy Stewart have dedicated themselves to continuing Rob’s mission, completing his film and establishing the Rob Stewart Sharkwater Foundation committed to raising awareness and inspiring the world to save sharks and protect the oceans.

On the passing of Bill C-68, the Stewarts said, “we are absolutely thrilled and grateful to the Canadian Government, Senator Michael MacDonald, MP Finn Donnelly and Minister Jonathan Wilkinson for their leadership and commitment to this historic legislation. Rob spent his life crusading for sharks; it took some time to get this done but he would be ecstatic today. We wish he was here to celebrate this victory but there is an army of shark defenders he inspired around the world rejoicing loudly for him. We spent the past year bringing Sharkwater Extinction to theatres around the world continuing Rob’s tireless pursuit to inspire and educate; he always believed that if people knew the truth, they would make better choices. This bill is an example of the kind of change Rob fought for every day and proof that we can and will continue to make a difference.”

Sharkwater Extinction (2018) is Stewart’s third film, following his multi award-winning Sharkwater (2007) and Revolution (2012). After a World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, it went on to rave reviews, screening at over 48 International Film Festivals and garnering 28 awards to date including:

• Byron Bay Film Festival – Winner Best Environmental Film Award
• FICMA, Barcelona – Winner Golden Sun Award for Best Feature Documentary
• Napa Valley Film Festival – Special Recognition for Courageous Filmmaking
• Fort Lauderdale Film Festival – Winner Best Documentary
• Unstad Arctic Surf Film Festival – Winner Best Film
• DC Environmental Film Festival – Winner Shared Earth Foundation Award for Advocacy
• San Francisco International Ocean Film Festival –Winner Conservation Award

Sharkwater Extinction is available on Crave in Canada and on Amazon Prime throughout most of the world.

Learn more about The Rob Stewart Sharkwater Foundation www.robstewartsharkwaterfoundation.org