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Stand up for California’s seafloor

16 November, 2016

Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune
Author: ALEXANDRA COUSTEAU & TED DANSON

The Pacific Ocean off California is unlike any other place in the world. Its fluorescent sunsets and powerful waves have been the inspiration for pop culture, art, education and conservation. Visitors and locals alike flock to California’s 840 miles of breathtaking coastline. However, just beyond the limits of the naked eye lies an important part of the ocean that many people don’t know about, the seafloor. Remarkably, we know more about the moon orbiting the Earth about 230,000 miles away than we do about the seafloor. 

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Sites Targeted For Deep-Sea Mining Teeming With New Species

9 August, 2016

Source: Mongabay

  • Using a Remotely Operated Vehicle, researchers identified more than 6,000 individuals belonging to over 170 tentative species in a small part of their study site in the eastern portion of the CCZ.
  • Many of these species are rare or new to science, the team found.
  • The study’s preliminary results also found that the polymetallic nodules have the highest diversity of megafuana, suggesting that mining could be disastrous for the deep-sea marine species in the CCZ.

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Review of United Nations Landmark Resolutions To Protect the Deep Sea Reveals That There Is Still Work To Do

5 August, 2016

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) wrapped up a two-day workshop today in New York to review the implementation of a set of landmark resolutions adopted by the General Assembly over the past ten year calling for action by States to prevent damage to deep-sea ecosystems from destructive fishing practices.        

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Why We Must Act Now To Protect The Deep Sea From Destructive Bottom Trawling

1 August, 2016

Source: Virgin Unite
Author: Susanna Fuller

I’m planning a trip to St. John’s, Newfoundland this week and while I’ve been there several times, this visit seems more important than others. It was in that city, a little over a decade ago, that I attended a meeting with a number of scientists and began to get substantively involved in efforts to protect areas of the high seas from the impacts of bottom trawling.

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Seamounts ARE vulnerable marine ecosystems

29 July, 2016

Source: Marine Conservation Institute

Author: Les Watling

The concept of a vulnerable marine ecosystem, commonly referred to by its acronym VME, in high seas marine conservation management is about a decade old. United Nations General Assembly resolution 61/105 called “upon States to take action immediately, individually and through regional fisheries management organizations and arrangements, and consistent with the precautionary approach and ecosystem approaches, to sustainably manage fish stocks and protect vulnerable marine ecosystems [VMEs], including seamounts, hydrothermal vents and cold water corals, from destructive fishing practices, recognizing the immense importance and value of deep-sea ecosystems and the biodiversity they contain.”

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Uncharted Arctic waters: A new opportunity for exploitation, or conservation?

14 April, 2016

Source: National Gepgraphic

Authors: Carl Safina & Erica Cirino

When thick sheets of sea ice began melting in the Arctic waters around Svalbard, Norway, a few years ago, a new expanse of sparkling blue sea opened up. As climate change continues to drive ice melt here on the previously untouched waters of the North Barents Sea, what many ocean conservationists consider to be unwelcome guests are starting to arrive in droves: trawling vessels.

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