Rebecca Kessler

In Cabo Verde, as in many low-income countries in Africa, the historical record of fish catch is incomplete, making it hard to know what’s been lost and what’s required to fully rebuild. In a new study, researchers used an old-fashioned workaround to understand how fish catches have changed over time: They tapped local knowledge, speaking to Cabo Verdeans up to 77 years old. The study, recently published in the journal Marine Policy, indicates there’s been a “staggering decline” in fish stocks around Maio, one of the archipelagic nation’s 10 islands, since the 1970s, in terms of both volume of catch and maximum size of key species. The study also shows that young fishers and fishmongers don’t fully realize the scale of the loss — a case of what scientists call “shifting baselines.” Younger people on Maio tend not to perceive the decline “because they don’t know what is the normal state of the environment, of the fishing and of the catch,” study lead author Thais Peixoto Macedo, a Ph.D. student at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology in Barcelona, told Mongabay. Cabo Verde is an archipelagic nation in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean some 570 kilometers (350 miles) west of Senegal. Its exclusive access zone covers an area larger than Texas. Cabo Verde lies in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean, some 570 kilometers (350 miles) west of Senegal on the African mainland. It’s considered part of West Africa, a region rich in marine resources but also threatened by intense fishing pressure.…This article was originally published on Mongabay

On Dec. 6, Iceland’s caretaker government announced it had issued five-year licenses to hunt fin and minke whales in Icelandic waters. It granted the fin whale hunting license to Hvalur hf., the country’s only remaining fin-whaling company, run by billionaire Kristján Loftsson, and the minke-hunting permit to a ship owned by Tjaldtangi ehf., a whaling […]

ALIAĞA, Türkiye — Every day, as dusk settles over the Aegean Sea, small vans ferrying workers homeward bustle in and out of Aliağa, a town nestled against lush, forested hills in the western İzmir province of Türkiye, formerly known as Turkey. Stepping out in oil-streaked overalls after a long day, the workers’ scent blends with […]

The ongoing expansion of the port of Toamasina in eastern Madagascar is set to destroy 25 hectares (62 acres) of coral reefs.

Toamasina, a coastal city in eastern Madagascar, is surrounded by an extensive network of coral reefs that are home to near-threatened species.

As the long summer days of August turn into nights, a few dozen volunteers gather in the small community of Witless Bay, a tiny town on the Atlantic coast about a half-hour’s drive south of St. John’s, capital of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. After a briefing by a coordinator from conservation NGO […]

Marine scientists and policy experts from nine international research and conservation institutions share their list of the top ocean news stories from 2024.

1. Long-awaited plastics treaty flops, for now Despite around-the-clock efforts from delegates, negotiators and numerous advocacy groups, the fifth session of the U.N. Environment Programme’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) on plastic pollution failed to pass the Global Plastics Treaty as a legally binding instrument by the end of negotiations Dec. 1. Recommended by a 2022 U.N. Environment Assembly resolution, the proposed treaty would end global plastic pollution by 2040. Although marine plastic pollution is one of the greatest environmental problems facing planet Earth today, the treaty did not pass at least in part because of very strong lobbying by the petrochemical and plastic industries and some member states. Because INC-5 was unable to produce a treaty that would reduce global primary plastic polymer production, lower the amount of chemicals of concern and help eliminate plastic pollution in our oceans, an additional meeting, dubbed INC-5.2, is expected to officially conclude the negotiations in July or August 2025. This follow-up, and hopefully last, meeting will be of paramount importance to reiterate the need to limit global plastics production and eliminate pollution for marine life and the most vulnerable coastal communities who rely on the ocean for their livelihoods. Among those present at INC-5 was the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastic Treaty, an international nonprofit of which one of us is a member. The coalition made the case for using science-based evidence to better target both sources of and solutions to plastic pollution, and it will continue to do so at INC-5.2,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

A new study indicates that right whales have extremely long lifespans of 130 years or more, adding to growing evidence of extreme whale longevity.

Average temperatures across the world's oceans reached an all-time high in 2024, according to a multi-team study published Jan. 10.