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1 week ago | 
news.mongabay.com | Edward Carver
The United Nations Ocean Conference, held June 9-13 in Nice, France, saw some progress on better protecting the hundreds of thousands of species that live in marine waters and the communities that depend on the sea for work or sustenance. New countries committed to the high seas treaty, a moratorium on deep-sea mining and the World Trade Organization Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, while a huge group of nations pushed for a strong global plastics treaty.
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1 week ago | 
news.mongabay.com | Edward Carver
This month marks the 50th anniversary of the release of Jaws, a Hollywood blockbuster that depicts a series of attacks by a massive great white shark — a “man-eater” — in a fictional New England beach town. Shark populations have plummeted since the film was released, and experts agree that Jaws misrepresented the nature of sharks and likely had a net negative impact, however small, on their population sizes and conservation status.
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1 week ago | 
news.mongabay.com | Edward Carver
An increasingly common way to keep tabs on coral reef health is by measuring microorganisms in the local seawater. Microbial-based coral reef monitoring is excellent at detecting nutrient and health changes on a reef and can draw attention to environmental disturbances; microbes are particularly good at sending such signals because they react quickly to pollution.
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3 weeks ago | 
news.mongabay.com | Edward Carver
Environmental DNA (eDNA) coral research involves analyzing water samples to identify corals based on the DNA that they secrete into the water, largely via their mucus. eDNA research on corals can help scientists understand the changes wrought by global warming and marine pollution by providing coral identification data faster and in some cases more accurately than visual surveys by scientists.
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4 weeks ago | 
news.mongabay.com | Edward Carver
Just 0.001% of the deep seafloor has ever been captured by photo or video images, a new study finds. That which has been captured is “biased” and potentially unrepresentative: 65% of observations have been in the waters of the United States, Japan or New Zealand, according to the study.
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1 month ago | 
eco-business.com | Edward Carver
Most of the world’s coral reefs, and the communities that directly depend on them, are in the tropics, so one might imagine the research on them being led by scientists and institutions based in tropical countries. The reality, however, is far different, a new study shows. Coral reef science is actually dominated by researchers from afar, the study found.
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1 month ago | 
news.mongabay.com | Edward Carver
A new study finds that coral reef researchers come mainly from institutions in high-income countries, and that the contributions of researchers from tropical, lower-income nations aren’t adequately recognized. “Parachute” research that leaves out local input is common, and when more local researchers are included, they report that it’s often done in a tokenistic way, the study finds.
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1 month ago | 
news.mongabay.com | Edward Carver
In April, scientists published the first-ever open-source map of fishmeal and fish oil factories around the world. The scientists found 506 factories across some 60 countries, and in most cases were able to identify the companies that own them. Fishmeal and fish oil production is controversial because it can incentivize the overexploitation of ocean ecosystems, depleting marine food webs, and negatively impact coastal communities that rely on fish for nutrition and livelihoods.
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1 month ago | 
news.mongabay.com | Edward Carver
The world’s most influential seafood companies and industry associations mostly lobby against environmental protections, a report by the U.K.-based NGO InfluenceMap found. The report assesses the biodiversity-related lobbying efforts of a list of the 30 most influential seafood companies in the world and 12 of the main industry associations they’re members of.
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1 month ago | 
news.mongabay.com | Edward Carver |Rebecca Kessler
The United States has long been an international leader in fisheries and oceans science, with influence at international fora that it has sometimes wielded to support conservation measures and crackdowns on illegal fishing. However, U.S. influence at fisheries and oceans fora appear to be waning during the second Trump administration, which could compromise fisheries health and marine conservation, experts say. The administration, which took office Jan.
