According a National Science Foundation (NSF), scientific literature and fisheries management and conservation efforts have for years assumed that the survival of adult fish is relatively constant through time. They further held that most fluctuations in the numbers of adults come from variation in the number of young fish that are produced and survive to maturity. Those assumptions have been challenged by new research by the National Science Foundation's Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network.
On October 28, 2015, Tommy E. Remengesua, Jr., President of the Republic of Palau signed into law the “Palau National Marine Sanctuary Act,” creating “the sixth largest marine protected area in the world, while setting aside a zone for domestic fishing.” According to Nature Conservancy Palau supports more than 400 species of coral species and nearly 1,300 varieties of reef fish.
U.K. government establishes world’s largest fully protected marine reserve and sets a new standard for monitoring. The 834,334-square-kilometre reserve (322,138 square miles) is home to at least 1,249 species of marine mammals, seabirds and fish, the new reserve protects some of the most near-pristine ocean habitat on Earth.
Expanded protections near the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument in the south-central Pacific Ocean will add to the Pacific Marine Protected Areas, Marine National Monuments, designated by President George W. Bush, and the declaration of the Phoenix Islands a protected area to ensure its biological diversity and sustainability by small Pacific Island nation of Kiribati.
On October 22, 2013, news coming from the 3rd International Marine Protected Areas Congress (IMPAC 3) reported that Dr. Sylvia Earle, Mission Blue and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), have launched 31 new Mission Blue Hope Spots -- places of special significance in the ocean where Mission Blue will focus its efforts. There are now 50 Hope Spots globally. Mission Blue calls this “a path forward for protecting our Blue Heart.”
The footage was captured on April 23 this year, and shows Oyster 800 in waves over eight metres high at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney. "The big challenge in designing and building a wave machine is ensuring it can survive in massive waves. The video gives a good example of what we need to design for," says Aquamarine Power Chief Executive Officer Martin McAdam.
Kerstin Forsberg, a 28-year-old marine conservation biologist and campaigner based in Peru, has been awarded the WWF International President’s Award 2013 at a special ceremony during global conservation organization WWF’s Annual Conference on June 11, 2013.
SeaWeb, an international non-profit ocean conservation organization, announced the six finalists of the Marine Photobank’s fifth annual “Ocean In Focus” photography contest on 12 March 2013. The contest aims to illuminate the human-ocean connection and advance ocean conservation through photography.
Venezuela set forth a series of measures this week to protect sharks within its waters. Most significantly, commercial shark fishing is now prohibited throughout the 3,730 square kilometers (1,440 square miles) of the Caribbean Sea that make up the popular Los Roques and Las Aves archipelagos, whose pristine beaches and coral reefs make it a diving and fishing attraction.
The oceans may be acidifying faster today than they did in the last 300 million years, according to scientists who published a paper in the March 2, 2012 issue of the journal Science. "These scientists have synthesized and evaluated evidence far back in Earth's history," said Candace Major, program officer in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research. "The ocean acidification we're seeing today is unprecedented…a result of the very fast rates at which we're changing the chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans."