Marine

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has welcomed the establishment by US President Barack Obama of the largest nature reserve in the world, done through expanding a marine reserve in the state of Hawaii. “This decision is a powerful symbol of determination to protect the environment. It is a way to strengthen the resilience of societies threatened ...

Around 1830, just decades after the start of the Industrial Revolution, something happened around the world: As factories fueled by coal power spread across much of Great Britain, humans began to change the chemistry of the atmosphere, adding carbon dioxide to the air in small but increasing amounts. Not long after, the planet’s oceans started to warm up, kicking off ...

Plastic pollution seems to be everywhere, from Atlantic beaches to Arctic sea ice to huge swirling vortexes of trash in the Pacific Ocean. Plastics can be found in every shape and size, from microscopic particles to whole refrigerators full of plastic parts. But plastic itself isn’t the enemy, experts insist, saying rather that it’s the way people handle it that ...

New research has revealed some alarming insights about the effects of climate change on one of the world’s oldest and largest lakes. A study published on Monday in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” suggests rising temperatures have been responsible for significant declines in the fish that populate Africa’s Lake Tanganyika and feed the surrounding communities – ...

More than 30 countries have formally deposited their instruments of adherence with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) to enforce the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA), the world’s first international treaty designed specifically to tackle illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, globally. Adopted by FAO members in 2009, the treaty marks a big step beyond self-regulation ...

A group of civil society leaders from India to the USA on Wednesday 29 June, 2016 called in an open letter to the Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to visit areas of the Great Barrier Reef damaged by climate change, and are demanding him to commit to actions that can save this natural wonder. As Australia winds up for a Federal Election on July 2nd, ...

A reduction in the amount of oxygen dissolved in the oceans due to climate change is already discernible in some parts of the world and should be evident across large regions of the oceans between 2030 and 2040, according to a new study led by the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Scientists know that a warming climate can be ...

Secretary-general of the United Nations (UN), Ban Ki-moon, has told the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) it has an important role to play in translating landmark agreements such as the Paris climate agreement into tangible improvements in people’s lives. The UN secretary-general on Wednesday met with the newly appointed IMO secretary-general Kitack Lim, as well as other IMO secretariat staff, at the ...

Plastic litter in the world’s oceans is projected to outweigh fish by 2050, according to new documents released by the World Economic Forum. Because global use of plastic has increased twentyfold in the past 50 years – and that number will likely double again in the next 20 years – the current pace will put the tonnage of litter in ...

President of the Lagos-based Pan African Vision for the Environment (PAVE), Anthony Akpan, at the instance of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) recently attended a three-day meeting of the Advisory Group for the UNEA-2 Marine Litter Study, of which he is a member representing the Gender and Water Alliance (GWA) in the Netherlands. The meeting was held from 8 ...