To better understand how people influence the overall health of dolphins, Oklahoma State University's Unmanned Systems Research Institute is developing a drone to collect samples from the spray that comes from their blowholes. Ken Y. / CC by 2.0
By Jason Bruck
Human actions have taken a steep toll on whales and dolphins. Some studies estimate that small whale abundance, which includes dolphins, has fallen 87% since 1980 and thousands of whales die from rope entanglement annually. But humans also cause less obvious harm. Researchers have found changes in the stress levels, reproductive health and respiratory health of these animals, but this valuable data is extremely hard to collect.
<p>To better understand how people influence the overall health of dolphins, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Z9Z9u2EAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra" target="_blank">my colleagues and I</a> at Oklahoma State University's <a href="https://ceat.okstate.edu/usri/index.html" target="_blank">Unmanned Systems Research Institute</a> are developing a drone to collect samples from the spray that comes from their blowholes. Using these samples, we will learn more about these animals' health, which can aid in their conservation.</p><h2>The Old Ways Vs. the New Way</h2><p>Today, researchers wanting to measure wild dolphins' health primarily use remote biopsy darting – where researchers use a small dart to collect a sample of tissue – or handle the animals in order to collect samples. These methods don't physically harm the animals, but despite precautions, they can be disruptive and stressful for dolphins. Additionally, this process is challenging, time-consuming and expensive.</p><p>My current research focus is on <a href="https://integrativebiology.okstate.edu/8-people/faculty/449-jason-n-bruck" target="_blank">dolphin perception</a> – how they see, hear and sense the world. Using my experience, I am part of a team building a drone specifically designed to be an improvement over current sampling methods, both for dolphins and the researchers. Our goal is to develop a quiet drone that can fly into a dolphin's blind spot and collect samples from the mucus that is mixed with water and air sprayed out of a dolphin's blowhole when they exhale a breath. This is called the blow. Dolphins would experience less stress and teams could collect more samples at less expense.</p><p>Some researchers already use <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2017.00425" target="_blank">drones to sample blows from large and small whales</a>. But those animals are not easily startled and have huge blow fields that throw droplets far into the air and linger for a long time. Dolphin blows spray seawater, air and hormone-containing mucus from their blowholes at <a href="https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.126870" target="_blank">nearly 200 mph and last for about 0.3 seconds</a>. Additionally, dolphins may have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.053397" target="_blank">better hearing than humans</a> and have eyes on both sides of their head that can see in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0077-7579(72)90008-7" target="_blank">both air and water</a>. Good luck sneaking up on a dolphin.</p><p>Other teams have attempted to collect samples from dolphins using commercial drones, but it seems the animals' movements <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2901" target="_blank">limit the success of these attempts with these devices</a>.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQzNDQ3Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NTExMzk0M30.q8ILIQEQ6WjIbiEL8GU5QdFo4OghqUZd65rWK0Y3svo/img.jpg?width=980" id="9cf25" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="455d3ece733c985bf44be661e61ac3b7" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Researchers work with trained dolphins to learn more about their sensory abilities, seen here testing a dolphin's hearing. Jason Bruck / CC BY-ND
A Lot to Learn From Hormones
<p>When sampling the blow, we are looking for hormones in mucus as these can be used to gauge psychological and physiological health. We are specifically interested in <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0114062" target="_blank">hormones like cortisol</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ygcen.2018.04.003" target="_blank">progesterone</a>, which indicate stress levels and reproductive ability respectively, but can also help determine overall health.</p><p>Additionally, blow samples can detect <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1128%2FmSystems.00119-17" target="_blank">respiratory pathogens</a> in the lungs or nasal passages - blowholes evolved from noses after all.</p><p>This health analysis is especially important in areas with oil spills as the chemicals can cause hormonal problems that harm <a href="https://www.carmmha.org/investigating-how-oil-spills-affect-dolphins-and-whales/" target="_blank">development, metabolism and reproduction</a> in dolphins.</p><p>Hormone samples can provide scientists with valuable data, but collecting them from intelligent and unpredictable animals is challenging.</p>Cetacean Collaborators
<p>To build a drone that can stealthily collect spray from moving dolphins, we needed more data on their eyesight and hearing, and this is data that couldn't be collected in the wild nor simulated in a lab.</p><p>We worked with dolphins at facilities like Dolphin Quest in Bermuda, which provides guests opportunities to learn about dolphins while allowing <a href="https://dolphinquest.com/about-us/our-story/" target="_blank">scientists access to animals for noninvasive research</a>. Here the dolphins can swim away if they choose not to work with us, so we had to design the study like a game; the way a kindergarten teacher entertains a class. If the dolphins aren't interested, we don't get to do the science.</p><p>Over the course of hundreds of sessions, we sought to answer two questions: What can dolphins hear and what can they see around their heads?</p><p>To test dolphin hearing, we set up microphones and cameras to record dolphin behavior as we played drone noise in the air. We analyzed the responses to each noise – such as how many dolphins looked at the speaker – and used these as a proxy for their ability to hear the sounds.</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5f31daf07a652b8d64a093b993ee4e96"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UjmQeH3vXHI?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<p>To test vision, we mounted lights inside a Hobermann sphere – the expandable rainbow plastic sphere you can see in the video above – that we can turn on and off. The dolphins were trained to whistle when they saw a light around their head. By turning on one light on at a time – which you can watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FAaV2Mc0uc" target="_blank">in this video</a> – we created a map of the dolphin's field of view.</p><p>Next, we needed to understand the blow and a means to practice drone flights without a dolphin. To do this, graduate students built robodolphin, which includes a mechanical dolphin lung and replica of the blowhole.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQzNDQ4MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMjYwNTI5M30.WWrIKvwHJlnbYw5VTYq7XAsW6eFHwbqAT5pB4W_sJw8/img.jpg?width=980" id="b189f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="235613c7e6de0dc00245273f341b5450" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Robodolphin doesn't look like a real dolphin, but it doesn't need to in order to train our drone pilots. C.J. Barton / Oklahoma State University / CC BY-ND
<p>To build robodolphin, we worked with dolphins trained to "chuff" or sneeze on command to measure spray characteristics. We used high-speed photography to see the dolphins' breath as it moved through the air. Then we conducted high resolution CT scans of a dolphin head and 3D-printed a replica of a nasal passage.</p><p>Now, we have a complete robodolphin and are tweaking its sprays to be nearly identical to the real thing. This will allow us to determine how close we need to get to collect the samples, and therefore, how quiet our drone needs to be.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQzNDQ4Mi9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMTYyNzQwM30.0GTCRzwomkJVp3A-L0Hi-bQElv-Y6dzkqDhOo1gKfYc/img.png?width=980" id="a16c8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8d4147a8a36627c51459a3a6d2c29888" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The replica dolphin blowhole was designed from a scan of a real blowhole passage, and the spray it produces closely matches the real thing. Alvin Ngo, Mitch Ford and CJ Barton / Oklahoma State University / CC BY-ND
A Bit of Practice, Then Into the Wild
<p>In the next few months, we will test flights over robodolphin with existing drones to determine the timing and strategy for collection. From there, we will fabricate a low-noise drone that can fly fast enough and with sufficient maneuverability to capture samples from wild dolphins. Like a video game, we will use the visual field data to develop approach trajectories to stay in the visual blindspots.</p><p>We plan to test our drones on a truck-mounted robodolphin moving down a runway, then using a boat to simulate realistic conditions. The next steps will involve ocean testing with dolphins trained for open ocean swimming. These tests will determine if our devices can catch and hold the hormones as the drone flies back to a researcher's boat.</p><p>Finally, we will deploy the system to collect data on wild dolphins. Our first goal is to test resident dolphins – animals that live on the coasts and deal directly with boat and oil industry noise – which will allow us to learn more about stress resulting from human impacts.</p><p>Those samples are a way off, but if all goes well we will have a specially built drone capable of flying long distances and capturing samples undetected in a few years. The samples collected will allow researchers to do better science with impact on the animals they study.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Florida Gov. DeSantis Prohibits Cities From Banning Sunscreens, Even Ones That Harm Coral
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Politics
Sunscreen pollution is accelerating the demise of coral reefs globally by causing permanent DNA damage to coral. gonzalo martinez / iStock / Getty Images Plus
On July 29, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a controversial bill prohibiting local governments from banning certain types of sunscreens.
<p><a href="https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2020/172" target="_blank">SB 172</a> responds to and reverses the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/sunscreens-oxybenzone-ban-2628295489.html" target="_self">City of Key West's 2019 ban on the sale of sunscreens containing oxybenzone and octinoxate</a> to protect its <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coral-reefs" target="_self">coral reef</a>. The ban was set to take effect Jan. 1, 2021, but the new law strikes down that ban and prohibits similar ones.</p><p>According to the <a href="https://www.coris.noaa.gov/portals/florida.html" target="_blank">National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)</a>, Key West sits on Florida's Reef Tract, the only barrier reef in the continental U.S. </p><p>Florida's multi-billion coastal economy "is highly tied to the coral reefs and dependent on their health," the <a href="https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/floridas-dying-reefs-could-kill-the-florida-keys-economy" target="_blank">Environmental and Energy Study Institute</a> found.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/reef-friendly-sunscreens-2634686426.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" target="_self">Sunscreen pollution is accelerating the demise of coral reefs</a> globally by causing permanent DNA damage to coral, according to experts, reported <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/sunscreens-oxybenzone-ban-2628295489.html" target="_self">ABC News</a>.</p><p>"(Coral reefs) provide billions of dollars in economic and environmental services, such as food, coastal protection, and tourism," said a <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/sunscreen-corals.html#:~:text=In%20a%202016%20study%2C%20a,against%20the%20sun's%20harmful%20effects." target="_blank">NOAA infographic article</a> about the harms of sunscreens. The infographic focuses on how sunscreen chemicals enter the ocean environment, the harm they cause to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/marine-life">marine life</a> including corals, fish, algae, etc. and alternative, reef-safe ways to stay protected from the sun.</p><p>Common <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/chemicals">chemicals</a> in sunscreens and cosmetics are "highly toxic" to marine life and "even very low concentrations" of oxybenzone and octinoxate accumulate in coral tissue, inducing bleaching, damaging coral DNA and deforming and killing young coral larvae, according to NOAA.</p>
<p>This harm to the next generation of reefs threatens the survival of corals generally <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coral-reefs-climate-crisis-predictions-2645201373.html" target="_self">at a time when reefs are already heavily imperiled</a>. <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/sunscreen-corals.html#:~:text=In%20a%202016%20study%2C%20a,against%20the%20sun's%20harmful%20effects." target="_blank">NOAA </a>called nontoxic sunscreen alternatives "critical" to protect reefs against "exacerbating effects posted by climate change and bleaching."</p><p>Oxybenzone and octinoxate also <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/sunscreen-chemicals-bloodstream-2636509218.html" target="_self">disrupt the human endocrine system</a>.<br></p><p>Even while the new Florida bill was moving towards DeSantis' desk, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration removed most chemical sunscreens from its list of "safe and effective" products pending health studies, instead designating mineral-based sunscreens containing zinc oxide or titanium dioxide as "safe and effective, reported <a href="https://www.floridaphoenix.com/2020/06/30/desantis-signs-bill-prohibiting-florida-cities-from-banning-any-sunscreens-even-those-that-threaten-corals/" target="_blank">Florida Phoenix</a>.</p><p>Proponents of the bill, including many business interests, claim sunscreen is necessary to protect the residents and visitors to the sunshine state from skin cancer.</p>
<p>Senate Appropriations Chairman Rob Bradley spearheaded the bill, disputing the science claiming that sunscreens harm reefs. He argued that protecting tourists and residents from cancer trumps protecting coral reefs, reported Florida Phoenix and <a href="https://miami.cbslocal.com/2020/06/30/sunscreen-ban-in-florida/" target="_blank">CBS Miami</a>.</p><p>Those criticizing the bill call it the latest attack on local government home-rule authority as well as on coral reefs, reported <a href="https://www.startribune.com/florida-gov-chooses-side-in-sunscreen-debate-slather-away/571569782/?refresh=true" target="_blank">Star Tribune</a>.</p><p>Some have called the bill a "gross overreaction" to Key West's "measured and reasonable limitation" meant to protect their lucrative, important natural resource, reported <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ne-nsf-desantis-signs-sunscreen-ban-into-law-20200630-vjbksvzx5zh23kevo4d2nibvg4-story.html" target="_blank">Sun-Sentinel</a>.</p><p>"When it comes to protecting Florida's coral reefs, the Governor is standing with corporate interests, despite millions of taxpayer dollars spent on reef preservation and restoration," environmental groups said Tuesday in a joint press release, reported <a href="https://www.floridaphoenix.com/2020/06/30/desantis-signs-bill-prohibiting-florida-cities-from-banning-any-sunscreens-even-those-that-threaten-corals/" target="_blank">Florida Phoenix</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/sunscreen-corals.html#:~:text=In%20a%202016%20study%2C%20a,against%20the%20sun's%20harmful%20effects." target="_blank">NOAA</a> said that "although pollution is a major cause of coral reef degradation," it is also "the easiest factor to mitigate" because manufacturers and consumers can choose to create and purchase less harmful products. The only issue, NOAA found, was that regulation of the toxic chemicals in sunscreens "has largely been ignored."</p><p>DeSantis did not issue statements as his office Monday night released the new bill, reported <a href="https://miami.cbslocal.com/2020/06/30/sunscreen-ban-in-florida/" target="_blank">CBS Miami</a>.</p>
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EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
A diver swims with sharpfin barracuda, one of the many ocean species under threat from global warming, in Australia, Queensland, Great Barrier Reef. Pete Atkinson / The Image Bank / Getty Images Plus
The oceans could look much emptier by 2100, according to a new study that found that most fish species would not be able to survive in their current habitat if average global temperatures rise 4.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, as The Guardian reported.
<p>The researchers of the new paper said that 60 percent of fish species face a grave threat from global heating if temperatures approach that worst-case scenario level. The species under threat include many <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/seafood" target="_self">common fish found in grocery stores</a>, including staples like Atlantic cod, Alaska pollock and sockeye <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/salmon" target="_self">salmon</a>, and sport fishing favorites like swordfish, barracuda and brown trout, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/weather/fish-vulnerable-ocean-warming-climate-change-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>The new study, published in the journal <em><a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6499/65" target="_blank">Science</a></em>, looked at how nearly 700 fresh and saltwater fish species respond to warming ocean temperatures. The problem for most fish is that as ocean temperatures rise, the oxygen level goes down, which makes it extremely challenging for embryos to survive.</p>
<p>"A 1.5C increase is already a challenge to some, and if we let global warming persist, it can get much worse," said Hans-Otto Pörtner, a co-author on the paper and a climatologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/02/fish-species-survival-climate-warming-study" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported.</p><p>That 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold would result in 10 percent of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/marine-life" target="_self">marine species</a> suffering over the next 80 years, including the aforementioned grocery staples.</p><p>However, even a 10 percent decline in fish species has a large ripple effect on ecosystems as one species being pushed out effects the food supply and the habits of many other species that have evolved to be interdependent.</p>
<p>Since we are already 1 degree warmer than the pre-industrial level and emissions are starting to rise around the world as countries reopen, it seems highly unlikely that the world will not blow past that lowest benchmark. In fact, we are currently on pace for a 3 degree increase over the pre-industrial level, as The Guardian noted.</p><p>"More than half of the species potentially at risk is quite astonishing, so we really emphasize that it's important to take action and follow the political commitments to reduce climate change and protect marine habitats," said Dr. Flemming Dahlke, a marine biologist at Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute and one of the authors of the study, as CNN reported.</p>
<p>The declining oxygen levels threaten fish because adult fish preparing to mate fill up their bodies with either eggs or sperm, which strains their hearts as they pump more blood to supply their reproductive organs with enough oxygen, according to the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8484103/Rising-water-temperatures-endanger-matings-fish.html" target="_blank">Daily Mail</a>.</p><p>Also, fish embryos inside eggs could also die since they don't have gills — meaning they will be unable to get enough oxygen to survive.</p><p>"There's a difference in the tolerable temperature range of almost 20 degrees on average between embryos and adults," Dahlke said, as CNN reported. "This of course makes a big difference when you want to look at the sensitivity of species to global warming."</p>
<p>The rapid increase in temperatures could force fish to adapt in an unprecedented way or to move toward cooler water closer to the poles. Freshwater fish living in lakes and ponds have a bleak outlook since they cannot move towards cooler waters.</p><p>"Some species might successfully manage this change," said Dahlke, as the Daily Mail reported. "But if you consider the fact that fish have adapted their mating patterns to specific habitats over extremely long time frames, and have tailored their mating cycles to specific ocean currents and available food sources, it has to be assumed that being forced to abandon their normal spawning areas will mean major problems for them."</p><p>A lot of this is a conservative estimate since the study did not take into account pollution or the increased acidity of the ocean, which could present additional challenges to sensitive species, as The Guardian noted.</p><p>"Some tropical fish are already living in zones at their uppermost tolerance, their areas are already 40C," Pörtner said. "Humankind is pushing the planet outside of a comfortable temperature range and we are starting to lose suitable habitat. It's worth investing in the 1.5C goal."</p>
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The ROV Deep Discoverer grabs a manganese-crusted rock sample near a brisingid sea star at about 7,900 feet during a 2017 expedition at Te Tukunga o Fakahotu dive site near the Cook Islands. NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Mountains in the Deep: Exploring the Central Pacific Basin
By Monica Evans
This article has been updated to reflect corrected information in the original version.
The Cook Islands government plans to license seabed mining operators to prospect its exclusive economic zone for manganese and cobalt nodules within the coming financial year, Deputy Prime Minister Mark Brown told the Cook Islands News.
<p><br/></p>
<p>Brown's comments, reported in a May 23 <a href="https://www.cookislandsnews.com/national/environment/item/77127-govt-pushing-forward-with-deep-sea-prospecting-plan" target="_blank">article</a>, came in response to a new <a href="https://miningwatch.ca/publications/2020/5/19/predicting-impacts-mining-deep-sea-polymetallic-nodules-pacific-ocean-review?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=4f8321adf50db3207820dedbc6443662c3bf9171-1591583823-0-ATot-BHRboGFqf1BuXO_n6osvK1smUhDAAqB5O9zmRXfQW3B5wwEFjNvdw_nFg2z-Y-7VRhvyL17W9R-UA_VHH-mLp3-swKclZHTkCkizxR-zP5_5Iequau-DY3PFqzuXDYh6P8mf8SUx3sBp1nMwAg4WhlHHHg1ct7MwgKhNR5Ow6SjYeK3zPPRT9OwUAYuY28_Fv-zMyB7IFckEbtkiXGQ1vNAKPXy6IJJhcC2b5Sx1Gpoe6kDSqNeFpsXP5DCZH3mDzgZWmcohaef1C0vVxYqCs_3TOtg_UaTu9TyyISZ4hCxOrpuKDJXT7q2q8rHs0LX92QoOcxJeqUCrKlHa8sFOIJkYcy_qmQrqmei3uShdYVq7ddTmOj1AKCv4IjWJLvrLBS05wR0CuHr2vZySA4" target="_blank">report </a>commissioned by environmental advocacy groups The Ocean Foundation and MiningWatch Canada. The report warns of <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/deep-sea-mining-an-environmental-solution-or-impending-catastrophe/" target="_blank">serious environmental impacts</a><a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/deep-sea-mining-an-environmental-solution-or-impending-catastrophe/" target="_blank"> if mining takes place in the Pacific Ocean's seabed</a>, and says that even working out what those impacts might be will take considerable time and resources.</p><p>"We're talking about activities at depths of up to four kilometers," or about 2.5 miles, the report's lead researcher, Andrew Chin, a marine scientist at James Cook University in Australia, told Mongabay. "And trying to figure out how an ecosystem works takes a long time. I mean, people are still arguing about how mangroves work, and you can walk through them!"</p><p>Cook Islands seabed minerals commissioner Alex Herman said in an email to Mongabay that "commercial nodule recovery will have impacts on affected species and habitats in the deep sea," and added that baseline studies, mitigation strategies and monitoring would all be required if mining were to go ahead. "The Government has to look at issues from a broader perspective," she added. "This sometimes involves balancing conservation interests with sustainable development aspirations."</p><p>Herman said those aspirations include creating new income streams, as well as jobs and training, environmental protection and contributing to renewable energy development. The country's economy is dominated by the tourism sector, and has suffered greatly from coronavirus-related travel restrictions, despite itself not recording a single case of COVID-19. "The seabed minerals sector will provide economic diversity that is critical for the Cook Islands' future as a nation and lessens its reliance on tourism," Herman said. "The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted our vulnerability, and the need to diversify."</p>
Mining a Marine Protected Area?
<p>The Cook Islands made international news in 2017 when it turned its entire exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which spans nearly 2 million square kilometers (772,000 square miles), into the <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/09/will-a-massive-marine-protected-area-safeguard-cook-islands-ocean/" target="_blank">largest mixed-use marine protected area in the world</a>. Dubbed "Marae Moana," which means "sacred ocean" in Cook Islands Maori, the park was designed to ensure all activities within it complied with its overarching purpose: to protect and conserve the ecological, biodiversity, and heritage values of the country's marine environment.</p><p>A decision-making council and a technical advisory group, both comprising government officials, traditional leaders and civil society organizations (CSOs), were established to help develop a new marine spatial plan that fit the objectives of Marae Moana, and to ensure that any new ocean-related initiatives comply with the park's overarching purpose. The plan is still being developed.</p><p>Meanwhile, the government passed a new act, the Seabed Minerals Act 2019, which sets up new institutions and processes for planning and designating areas for seabed minerals activities. The act is legally subservient to the provisions of the act that established Marae Moana, called the Marae Moana Act 2017. "No license may be granted that…would likely lead to a contravention of a declaration of a marine protected area, the Marae Moana Act 2017, or other zoning rules," it reads.</p><p>But Kelvin Passfield, director of the local conservation group Te Ipukarea Society, told Mongabay he is concerned that without having completed the research and consultation to create the marine spatial plan, there's a risk that "they're going to give out mining exploration permits for areas which may in fact be places that should be protected under Marae Moana." He also expressed concern about the effectiveness of Marae Moana's checks and balances in practice: Te Ipukarea Society sits on its technical advisory group, but Passfield said the government has ignored its advice and that of other CSOs with marine conservation expertise, and that the advisory group had only met once in the past 12 months.</p><p>"Civil society have a role to play in advocating and raising awareness on issues," Herman said when asked about the CSOs' concerns. "But at the end of the day, Government needs to make often-hard decisions based on the best interests of our country and people."</p>Known Unknowns
<p>Te Ipukarea Society advocates that the Cook Islands endorse a 10-year moratorium on seabed mining that civil society leaders put forward at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu in August 2019 and that the governments of Fiji, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea support. The idea is to allow sufficient time to conduct in-depth research on the ecosystems in question and potential mining impacts.</p><p>But the Cook Islands government has vocally opposed the moratorium. Marine scientist Jacqueline Evans, who directed the Marae Moana coordination office from 2017 to 2019, was <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/cook-islands-mpa-leader-fired-after-supporting-seabed-mining-freeze/" target="_blank">fired</a> last year after expressing support for the freeze in an internal email.</p><p>In a <a href="http://www.cookislandsnews.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/item/77261-mark-brown-seabeds-law-safeguards-our-oceans" target="_blank">letter</a> to the Cook Islands News on June 4, Deputy PM Brown said the government simply wants to gain the knowledge to determine whether or not mining could be conducted sustainably, and issuing exploration licenses is the only way to fund such research. "Without exploration (which I stress, is not 'mining'), we have no realistic way of gaining a better understanding of the deep-sea environment, and indeed to know whether we may or may not be able to harness the resources which exist at these depths in the longer term," he wrote.</p><p>Passfield said while the government claims all parties want the same thing — more information — "they have not demonstrated this in their actions." Last year, it approved two short research cruises by different companies and "there was no requirement placed by Government on these cruises to collect any biological samples," he said. "Only nodule and sediment samples were taken, and this was just for analysis for mineral content, nothing biological."</p><p>Herman acknowledged the dearth of knowledge on the deep-sea environment, but said that one of the cruises did collect "targeted fauna associated with sediments and nodule surfaces" and that companies granted exploration licenses would be required "to demonstrate how they will collect and analyse environmental baseline data." Should mining go ahead, she said, the government would take a precautionary approach and adopt environmental management and mitigation strategies until further best practices can be determined. "The effectiveness of mitigation strategies to protect the environment will become known over time," she said.</p><p>But Chin said it's difficult to envisage how any mining could be carried out in Cook Islands' waters without irreversible ecosystem impacts. "These are quite diverse habitats, and so many new species are still being discovered," he said. "And we know that, generally speaking, because of the environment of high pressure, low light, low energy and low temperature, deep-sea animals grow slowly, and anything that grows slowly is quite vulnerable to an acute impact like mining."</p><p>As the report outlines, lots of species, including corals, sponges, sea urchins, sea stars and jellyfish, live on the manganese nodules themselves, and many others rely on them. Deep-sea octopuses, for example, lay their eggs on dead sponges attached there. "So if you're mining the nodules, you are removing everything that's associated with them," Chin said.</p><p>Beyond the seafloor, mining would likely also impact the whole water column right up to the surface, Chin added, both directly through plumes of sediment and tailings, and indirectly through ecological linkages. "So those impacts could be felt in things like tuna fisheries, which are extremely important for the Pacific," he said.</p>
<p class=""><em>Correction 6/25/20: A previous version of this story contained several inaccuracies that Cook Islands seabed minerals commissioner Alex Herman alerted Mongabay to: It incorrectly attributed the assertion that "the country now earns almost 70% of its revenue from tourism" to Herman; it incorrectly stated the government aims to begin mining within five years; and it incorrectly stated that the Seabed Minerals Act 2019 allows the Seabed Minerals Authority to bypass the Marae Moana council and technical advisory group. After conducting additional research we have corrected the story. We regret the errors. This story has been updated to include the Cook Islands' non-economic sustainable development aspirations that Herman listed in her interview with Mongabay: jobs and training; environmental protection; and contributing to renewable energy development. It also includes new statements by her about the collection of biological data by companies interested in mining Cook Islands' seabed.</em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/cook-islands-to-grant-seabed-mining-exploration-licenses-within-a-year/" target="_blank">Mongabay.</a></em></p>
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An armored sea robin seen during the NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, 2016 Deepwater Exploration of the Marianas, Leg 1. NOAA Photo Library
Plastic isn't the only human pollutant infiltrating the deepest corners of the ocean.
<p>Two separate studies presented at the <a href="https://goldschmidt.info/2020/" target="_blank">Goldschmidt geochemistry conference</a> this week found <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/mercury" target="_self">mercury</a> in fish and crustaceans living 11,000 meters (approximately 36,000 feet) under the sea in the Mariana Trench.</p><p>"This is a surprise," Dr. Ruoyu Sun, a scientist from Tianjin University in China who led one of the research teams, said in a Goldschmidt Conference press release published by <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-06-human-derived-mercury-shown-pollute-world.html" target="_blank">Phys.org</a>.</p>
<p>Scientists have long known that mercury, which is poisonous to both humans and animals, enters the ocean and the animals within it, concentrating in higher amounts as it works its way up the food web through a process called bioaccumulation. Swordfish, for example, contain 40 times the amount of mercury that salmon do. This means that humans who eat lots of fish are at risk from mercury poisoning, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/mercury-pollution-humans-bottom-worlds-deepest-trench-1512549" target="_blank">Newsweek pointed out</a>. This can cause neurological and heart damage, and is especially dangerous for developing fetuses.</p><p>However, scientists previously thought that this process was mostly taking place in the upper ocean. Then Sun's team found methylmercury, a toxic form of the metal that easily accumulates in animals, in the ocean's deepest trench.</p>
<p>"Previous research had concluded that methlymercury was mostly produced in the top few hundred metres of the ocean. This would have limited mercury bioaccumulation by ensuring that fish which forage deeper than this would have had limited opportunity to ingest the methylmercury. With this work, we now believe that isn't true," Sun said in the press release.</p><p>Sun's team uncovered their results by sending deep-sea lander vehicles in 2016 and 2017 to the Mariana and Yap trenches — "amongst the most remote and inaccessible locations on Earth," Sun said in the press release."</p>
<p>They collected deep-sea animals like amphiopods and snailfish at 7,000 to 11,000 meters (approximately 23,000 to 36,000 feet) and sediments at 5,500 to 9,200 meters (approximately 18,000 to 30,000 feet), according to an <a href="https://goldschmidt.info/2020/abstracts/abstractView?id=2020003211" target="_blank">abstract</a>. They found mercury in all the animals and could tell it came from the upper ocean because of its "isotopic fingerprint," or chemical signature. The results showed human mercury emissions are "much more pervasive across deep oceans than was previously thought," the abstract concluded.</p><p>A separate study led by Dr. Joel Blum of the University of Michigan found similar results in the Mariana Trench and in the Kermadec trench near New Zealand.</p>
<p>"The key finding is that mercury released by humans and deposited from the atmosphere to the surface of the oceans is being transported to the most remote and deepest environments in the ocean," Blum told Newsweek.</p><p>While some mercury could have come from natural sources like volcanic eruptions, humans emit almost three times more mercury than nature does through processes like burning fossil fuels or mining metals.</p><p>"We know that mercury is introduced into the environment from a variety of natural sources such as volcanic eruptions and forest fires. However, human activities, such as coal and petroleum burning, mining, and manufacturing, are mainly responsible for mercury deposition to marine environments," University of Hawaii professor Ken Rubin, who was not involved in the research, said in the press release. "We are now learning from these two studies that the effects of this deposition have spread throughout the ocean into the deep sea and the animals that live there, which is yet another indicator of the profound impact of modern human activities on the planet."</p>
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Non-profit organization Global Coralition draws on art, science and local communities for its coral reef restoration work. youtu.be
By David Elliott
Dive beneath the brilliant blue waters surrounding Thailand's Koh Tao island and you might come face to face with a giant sculpture of the sea goddess Mazu.
But a closer look reveals an even bigger surprise – Mazu is alive.
<p>That's because, as the 1,800kg (almost 40,000-pound) centerpiece of a large artificial coral reef, she is teeming with sea life.</p><p>Built in 2018 by non-profit organization Global Coralition with the <a href="https://oceanic.global/the-art-rising/" target="_blank">help of conservation group Eco Koh Tao</a>, the sculpture and the 36 smaller pyramid structures that surround it hold <a href="https://www.globalcoralition.org/projects/koh-tao" target="_blank">5,000 coral transplants</a>. It attracts hundreds of divers a week and helps raise funds for local restoration groups, and is maintained by these divers and the local community.</p><p>Global Coralition now plans to return to the island to work with local conservation groups and scientists from Thailand's marine resources department to build the island's first land-based coral farm. The group is currently raising funds.</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8f055bac39f517e94abf83f7fe746959"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/J1b1SPUOnyA?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
Small Pieces, Big Impact
<p>Angeline Chen, Executive Director of Global Coralition – who spoke recently at the World Economic Forum's <a href="https://www.weforum.org/events/virtual-ocean-dialogues-2020/sessions/uplink-ocean-solutions-sprint" target="_blank">Virtual Ocean Dialogues</a> event – is effusive about the benefits of growing coral on land and the role it could play in rebuilding damaged ocean habitats.</p><p>Coral can be grown up to 50 times faster this way, she says, using a technique called <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925857418303094" target="_blank">microfragmentation</a>. This involves dividing a piece of coral into much smaller fragments, which<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287204400_The_cultivation_of_massive_corals_using_micro-fragmentation_for_the_reskinning_of_degraded_coral_reefs" target="_blank"> stimulates the tissue</a> to grow. The pieces are grown a short distance apart and – because<a href="https://www.bbcearth.com/blog/?article=saving-coral" target="_blank"> corals are clonal animals</a> – they fuse together when their edges meet, forming a single mass.</p><p>Combined with other scientific methods, like<a href="https://www.globalcoralition.org/our-approach" target="_blank"> larval propagation and assisted evolution</a> to increase the resilience and reproductive rate of corals, Chen believes the impact of such projects, practiced all around the world, could be massive.</p><p>"With these farms, we could be growing a diverse array of resilient coral on a huge scale," she says.</p><p>Many organizations are practicing these methods, including <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925857418303094" target="_blank">Mote Marine Laboratory</a> in Florida, US, and the government of Hawaii, which is out-planting 1 meter by 1 meter (3.2 foot) corals grown in one year – the <a href="https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/blog/2020/05/28/nr20-072/" target="_blank">largest to be grown in a land-based</a> nursery.</p><div id="507c8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e2c57fd8c727e7692e37866d6fc81164"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1266170721882890240" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">In the world of nursery raised corals, a one-meter coral is considered big. Yesterday, a team of biologists and te… https://t.co/wNWMyaARVf</div> — DLNR (@DLNR)<a href="https://twitter.com/dlnr/statuses/1266170721882890240">1590713599.0</a></blockquote></div>
Empowering Communities
<p>Driving the work of Global Coralition and organizations like it is a simple fact: coral is vital to the planet.</p><p>Coral reefs are among the <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_corals/welcome.html" target="_blank">most diverse ecosystems</a> on Earth, and they support nearly<a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Coral" target="_blank"> 1 million species of fish</a>, invertebrates and algae. They're crucial to humans, too. They<a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_protect.html#:~:text=Coral%20reefs%20provide%20a%20buffer,%2C%20property%20damage%2C%20and%20erosion." target="_blank"> protect our coasts from storms</a> and floods, and<a href="https://scripps.ucsd.edu/projects/coralreefsystems/about-coral-reefs/value-of-corals/" target="_blank"> provide work, medicine and food</a> to more than 1 billion people. In fact, coral <a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/coral-reefs-we-continue-take-more-we-give#:~:text=Coral%20reef%20ecosystems%20provide%20society,the%20tourism%20and%20fisheries%20industries." target="_blank">reef ecosystems give society resources</a> and services worth $375 billion per year, according to the United Nations.</p><p>But coral faces myriad threats, including overfishing, pollution and climate change. Almost <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/17126/reef-building-corals-under-threat/" target="_blank">half of reef-building coral species are under threat</a>, according to UN figures. And scientists predict we'll lose up to <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-02-acidic-oceans-coral-reef-habitats.html" target="_blank">90% of all reefs</a> in the next 20 years if something isn't done soon.</p><p>For Chen and the Global Coralition, the answer lies in engaging and empowering local communities with the knowledge, tools and resources to reduce the local impacts of reef degradation while increasing key habitats and species.</p><p>The organization uses art, like the sculpture of Mazu, to bring people together around cultural themes that are <a href="https://www.globalcoralition.org/our-approach" target="_blank">meaningful to their communities</a>.</p><p>It then works with parties including local officials, marine ecologists, fisherman, students and dive centers to foster the unique skills to rehabilitate their local ecology. This work in turn improves quality of life, water quality, food security, income and employment opportunities and education in the region.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQwNzg0My9vcmlnaW4uZ2lmIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NTAxNTU4MX0.qvqASgEfINGbVu5_go4_Si0Co-M0EpPYnGX86s1VpJQ/img.gif?width=980" id="cb0f0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f63e56eecee01b4b439631e10261f3cf" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The world's reef-building corals. Statista
Global Effort
<p>Global Coralition is currently building a marine farm in a fishing village in the Dominican Republic. It consists of an expansive underwater sculpture garden inspired by Taino wisdom, a land-based coral farm, mangrove and oyster restoration and a community education center.</p><p>As part of this project, Chen says, it used the World Economic Forum's <a href="https://uplink.weforum.org/uplink/s/uplink-contribution/a012o00001G7i5TAAR/global-coralition" target="_blank">UpLink</a> platform to connect the community with a recycling facility that pays locals to collect trash, which can be turned into material to be sold back into the economy.</p><p>The organization wants to create <a href="https://www.weforum.org/events/virtual-ocean-dialogues-2020/sessions/uplink-ocean-solutions-sprint" target="_blank">200 of these marine hubs</a> across the globe in collaboration with local communities and governments, fishing villages, dive communities, restoration groups, hotels and local officials.</p><p>"Based on recovery rates, scientists predict we can rebuild marine life by 2050 if we can mitigate climate change, reduce local pressures and increase the abundance of our keystone habitats and species," Chen says.</p><p>"If these methods were applied all over the world, we could scale our collective rates of restoration."</p>
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The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is the only marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
President Donald Trump sparked the ire of conservationists earlier this month when he opened the country's only marine national monument in the Atlantic to commercial fishing.
<p>Now, some of them are suing to stop him and preserve the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which protects 5,000 square miles of unique <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans" target="_self">ocean</a> habitat off Cape Cod.</p><p>"Trump has once again eliminated critical natural resource protections on a whim, and with no legal authority," Brad Campbell, president of the Boston-based <a href="https://www.clf.org/" target="_blank">Conservation Law Foundation</a> (CLF), said in a <a href="https://www.clf.org/newsroom/clf-taking-trump-administration-to-court-for-decimating-monument-protections/" target="_blank">press release</a> announcing his organization's decision to sue. "This lawless act upends over a century of practice by presidents of both parties, and puts all national monuments on the block for the highest political bidder."</p>
<div id="00ad0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1f599999b403493ff99aeef310278552"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1273713391367073795" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">President Trump illegally gutted protections for New England’s marine monument. We’ll see him in court.… https://t.co/UWgRF6P7q8</div> — Conservation Law Foundation (@Conservation Law Foundation)<a href="https://twitter.com/CLF/statuses/1273713391367073795">1592511911.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The monument was created by President Barack Obama in 2016 using the Antiquities Act, <a href="https://www.clf.org/blog/snowball/trump-atlantic-marine-monument/" target="_blank">CLF said</a>. It protects an estimated 54 species of deep sea coral and hundreds of other marine animals, including <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species" target="_self">endangered species</a> like North Atlantic right <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/whales" target="_self">whales</a> and Kemp's ridley <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-turtles" target="_self">sea turtles</a>, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/17/metro/environmental-group-sues-trump-administration-allowing-commercial-fishing-protected-waters/" target="_blank">The Boston Globe reported</a>. It is also home to four underwater mountains and three underwater canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon.</p><p>The commercial fishing industry had argued that the creation of the monument was an overreach of federal authority that hurt livelihoods. Before its formation, fisherman said as many as 80 boats fished the area.</p>
<p>"President Obama swept aside our public, science-based fishery management process with the stroke of a pen," Bob Vanasse, executive director of fishermen lobby group Saving Seafood, told The Boston Globe. "That was a mistake, and whatever anyone thinks about President Trump is irrelevant."</p><p>But, in a <a href="https://www.clf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2020.06.16-NE-Canyons-complaint-final.pdf" target="_blank">lawsuit</a> filed in Washington, DC Wednesday, CLF, the <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/" target="_blank">Center for Biological Diversity</a> (CBD), and the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/" target="_blank">Natural Resources Defense Council</a> argued that Trump's reversal was the overreach: A president may use the Antiquities Act to designate a monument, but only Congress can undo protections.</p><p>"Trump's order was illegal because he can't just declare commercial fishing is allowed in a protected marine monument," CBD attorney Kristen Monsell said in a <a href="https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/lawsuit-challenges-trump-ok-commercial-fishing-atlantic-marine-monument-2020-06-17/" target="_blank">press release</a>. "The Seamounts monument was created to permanently safeguard this amazing ecosystem and vulnerable species like the endangered sperm whale. Presidents can't be allowed to gut protections by decree as a favor to commercial fishermen."</p>
<div id="f9e3c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f5c6d6868df7e73680e28f750fa9ffa9"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1273342928304422920" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The Center and allies just filed a lawsuit challenging President Trump's executive order allowing commercial fishin… https://t.co/6vr6gIG7v4</div> — Center for Bio Div (@Center for Bio Div)<a href="https://twitter.com/CenterForBioDiv/statuses/1273342928304422920">1592423586.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>CBD pointed out that, before Trump reversed the commercial fishing ban, courts had twice rejected the industry's attempt to challenge it.</p><p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">Conservation</a> groups also argue that the monument ultimately protects commercial fisheries by preserving the species that support them, according to The Boston Globe.</p><p>Further, not all business interests oppose the monument. <a href="http://blueplanetstrategy.com/" target="_blank">Zack Klyver</a>, a Maine marine scientist who has led more than 600,000 people on whale watching tours with the Bar Harbor Whale Watch Company, has also joined the suit.</p><p>"I spend lots of time on the water so I know how important it is to protect this marine monument. My business depends on a healthy ocean," Klyver, who has also co-founded ocean conservation company Blue Planet Strategies, said in the CBD release. "Trump's attack on New England's prized marine monument is one I take personally. We need to protect our oceans and their abundance of marine life for future generations to experience."</p>
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The ROV Deep Discoverer grabs a manganese-crusted rock sample near a brisingid sea star at about 7,900 feet during a 2017 expedition at Te Tukunga o Fakahotu dive site near the Cook Islands. NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Mountains in the Deep: Exploring the Central Pacific Basin
By Monica Evans
The Cook Islands government plans to license seabed mining operators to prospect its exclusive economic zone for manganese and cobalt nodules within the coming financial year, Deputy Prime Minister Mark Brown told the Cook Islands News.
<p><br/></p>
<p>Brown's comments, reported in a May 23 <a href="https://www.cookislandsnews.com/national/environment/item/77127-govt-pushing-forward-with-deep-sea-prospecting-plan" target="_blank">article</a>, came in response to a new <a href="https://miningwatch.ca/publications/2020/5/19/predicting-impacts-mining-deep-sea-polymetallic-nodules-pacific-ocean-review?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=4f8321adf50db3207820dedbc6443662c3bf9171-1591583823-0-ATot-BHRboGFqf1BuXO_n6osvK1smUhDAAqB5O9zmRXfQW3B5wwEFjNvdw_nFg2z-Y-7VRhvyL17W9R-UA_VHH-mLp3-swKclZHTkCkizxR-zP5_5Iequau-DY3PFqzuXDYh6P8mf8SUx3sBp1nMwAg4WhlHHHg1ct7MwgKhNR5Ow6SjYeK3zPPRT9OwUAYuY28_Fv-zMyB7IFckEbtkiXGQ1vNAKPXy6IJJhcC2b5Sx1Gpoe6kDSqNeFpsXP5DCZH3mDzgZWmcohaef1C0vVxYqCs_3TOtg_UaTu9TyyISZ4hCxOrpuKDJXT7q2q8rHs0LX92QoOcxJeqUCrKlHa8sFOIJkYcy_qmQrqmei3uShdYVq7ddTmOj1AKCv4IjWJLvrLBS05wR0CuHr2vZySA4" target="_blank">report </a>commissioned by environmental advocacy groups The Ocean Foundation and MiningWatch Canada. The report <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/deep-sea-mining-an-environmental-solution-or-impending-catastrophe/" target="_blank">warns of serious environmental impacts if mining takes place in the Pacific Ocean's seabed</a>, and says that even working out what those impacts might be will take a lot longer than the government's projected timescale of <a href="http://cookislandsnews.com/national/economy/item/74447-seabed-mining-i-see-us-a-taking-the-lead" target="_blank">commencing mining in less than five years</a>.</p><p>"We're talking about activities at depths of up to four kilometers," or about 2.5 miles, the report's lead researcher, Andrew Chin, a marine scientist at James Cook University in Australia, told Mongabay. "And trying to figure out how an ecosystem works takes a long time. I mean, people are still arguing about how mangroves work, and you can walk through them! So within five years, I just can't see us being in a position to really understand what the impacts are going to be."</p><p>Cook Islands seabed minerals commissioner Alex Herman said in an email to Mongabay that "commercial nodule recovery will have impacts on affected species and habitats in the deep sea," and added that baseline studies, mitigation strategies and monitoring would all be important if mining were to go ahead. "The Government has to look at issues from a broader perspective," she added. "This sometimes involves balancing conservation interests with sustainable development aspirations."</p><p>Herman said those aspirations include creating new income streams because the country now earns almost 70% of its revenue from tourism. It has suffered greatly from coronavirus-related travel restrictions, despite itself not recording a single case of COVID-19. "The seabed minerals sector will provide economic diversity that is critical for the Cook Islands' future as a nation and lessens its reliance on tourism," Herman said. "The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted our vulnerability, and the need to diversify."</p>
Mining a Marine Protected Area?
<p>The Cook Islands made international news in 2017 when it turned its entire exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which spans nearly 2 million square kilometers (772,000 square miles), into the <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/09/will-a-massive-marine-protected-area-safeguard-cook-islands-ocean/" target="_blank">largest mixed-use marine protected area in the world</a>. Dubbed "Marae Moana," which means "sacred ocean" in Cook Islands Maori, the park was designed to ensure all activities within it complied with its overarching purpose: to protect and conserve the ecological, biodiversity, and heritage values of the country's marine environment.</p><p>A decision-making council and a technical advisory group, both comprising government officials, traditional leaders and civil society organizations (CSOs), were established to help develop a new marine spatial plan that fit the objectives of Marae Moana, and to ensure that any new ocean-related initiatives comply with the park's overarching purpose. The plan is still being developed.</p><p>But late last year, the government passed the Seabed Minerals Act 2019, which specifically allows the country's Seabed Minerals Authority to bypass the Marae Moana Council and technical advisory group when designating areas for seabed minerals activities, and for this to occur before the marine spatial plan is in place.</p><p>"So they're going to give out mining exploration permits for areas which may in fact be places that should be protected under Marae Moana," Kelvin Passfield, director of the local conservation group Te Ipukarea Society, told Mongabay. The organization sits on the technical advisory group, but Passfield said the government has ignored its advice and that of other CSOs with marine conservation expertise, and that the advisory group had only met once in the past 12 months.</p><p>"Civil society have a role to play in advocating and raising awareness on issues," Herman said when asked about the CSOs' concerns. "But at the end of the day, Government needs to make often-hard decisions based on the best interests of our country and people."</p>Known Unknowns
<p>Te Ipukarea Society advocates that the Cook Islands endorse a 10-year moratorium on seabed mining that civil society leaders put forward at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu in August 2019 and that the governments of Fiji, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea support. The idea is to allow sufficient time to conduct in-depth research on the ecosystems in question and potential mining impacts.</p><p>But the Cook Islands government has vocally opposed the moratorium. Marine scientist Jacqueline Evans, who directed the Marae Moana coordination office from 2017 to 2019, was <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/cook-islands-mpa-leader-fired-after-supporting-seabed-mining-freeze/" target="_blank">fired</a> last year after expressing support for the freeze in an internal email.</p><p>In a <a href="http://www.cookislandsnews.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/item/77261-mark-brown-seabeds-law-safeguards-our-oceans" target="_blank">letter</a> to the Cook Islands News on June 4, Deputy PM Brown said the government simply wants to gain the knowledge to determine whether or not mining could be conducted sustainably, and issuing exploration licenses is the only way to fund such research. "Without exploration (which I stress, is not 'mining'), we have no realistic way of gaining a better understanding of the deep-sea environment, and indeed to know whether we may or may not be able to harness the resources which exist at these depths in the longer term," he wrote.</p><p>Passfield said while the government claims all parties want the same thing — more information — "they have not demonstrated this in their actions." Last year, it approved two short research cruises by different companies and "there was no requirement placed by Government on these cruises to collect any biological samples," he said. "Only nodule and sediment samples were taken, and this was just for analysis for mineral content, nothing biological."</p><p>Herman acknowledged the dearth of knowledge on the deep-sea environment, and said that should mining go ahead, the government would take a precautionary approach and adopt environmental management and mitigation strategies until further best practices can be determined. "The effectiveness of mitigation strategies to protect the environment will become known over time," she said.</p><p>But Chin said it's difficult to envisage how any mining could be carried out in Cook Islands' waters without irreversible ecosystem impacts. "These are quite diverse habitats, and so many new species are still being discovered," he said. "And we know that, generally speaking, because of the environment of high pressure, low light, low energy and low temperature, deep-sea animals grow slowly, and anything that grows slowly is quite vulnerable to an acute impact like mining."</p><p>As the report outlines, lots of species, including corals, sponges, sea urchins, sea stars and jellyfish, live on the manganese nodules themselves, and many others rely on them. Deep-sea octopuses, for example, lay their eggs on dead sponges attached there. "So if you're mining the nodules, you are removing everything that's associated with them," Chin said.</p><p>Beyond the seafloor, mining would likely also impact the whole water column right up to the surface, Chin added, both directly through plumes of sediment and tailings, and indirectly through ecological linkages. "So those impacts could be felt in things like tuna fisheries, which are extremely important for the Pacific," he said.</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/cook-islands-to-grant-seabed-mining-exploration-licenses-within-a-year/" target="_blank">Mongabay.</a></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Trending
The deep-sea frogfish floats near the ocean floor. Mikael Kvist / Getty Images
By Tim Radford
Scientists have taken the temperature of the deep seas and found alarming signs of change: ocean warming is prompting many creatures to migrate fast.
<h3></h3><h3></h3>
<p>The species that live in the deep and the dark are <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-05/uoq-tdo051820.php" target="_blank">moving towards the poles</a> at twice to almost four times the speed of surface creatures.</p><p>The implication is that – even though conditions in the abyssal plain are far more stable than surface currents – <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-05/hu-tin052220.php" target="_blank">the creatures of the abyss are feeling the heat</a>.</p><p>The oceans of the world cover almost three-fourths of the globe and, from surface to seafloor, provide at least 90% of the planet's living space.</p><p>And although there has been <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/deep-ocean-danger-temperatures/" target="_blank">repeated attention to the health of the waters</a> that define the Blue Planet, it remains immensely difficult to arrive at <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/ocean-warming-speeds-vary-with-depth/" target="_blank">a consistent, global figure for rates of change in temperature</a> of the planet's largest habitat.</p>
<p>Oceanographers are fond of complaining that humankind knows more about the surface of Mars and Venus than it does about the bedrock and marine sediments at depth.</p><p>This may still be true, but repeated studies have confirmed that the ocean floor ecosystem is surprisingly rich, varied and potentially at risk.</p><p>Now researchers from Australia, Europe, Japan, South Africa and the Philippines report in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0773-5" target="_blank">Nature Climate Change</a> that although they could not deliver thermometer readings, they had found an indirect measure: the rate at which marine creatures move on because they don't care for their local temperature shifts.</p><p>They call this "climate velocity." They had data for 20,000 marine species. And they found that overall, at depths greater than 1000 meters, marine creatures have been on the move much faster than their fellow citizens near the surface, over the second half of the 20th century.</p><p>Computer simulations tell an even more alarming story: by the end of this century, creatures in the mesopelagic layer – from 200 meters down to 1000 meters – will be moving away between four and 11 times faster than those at the surface do now.</p>
Faster Migrants
<p>The finding is indirectly supported by a second and unrelated study on the same day in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1198-2" target="_blank">Nature Ecology & Evolution</a>. French scientists looked at studies of more than 12,000 kinds of the migrations of bacteria, plant, fungus and animal to find that sea creatures are already floating, swimming or crawling towards the poles six times faster than those on land, as a response to global heating driven by profligate human use of fossil fuels.</p><p>So shifts in range can be interpreted as an indicator of the stress on the ocean habitats. This creates complications for conservationists arguing for internationally protected zones – protected from fishing trawl nets, and from submarine mining operations – because, if for no other reason, not only are ocean creatures moving at different speeds at different depths; some of the shifts are in different directions.</p><p>"Significantly reducing carbon emissions is vital to control warming and help take control of climate velocities in the surface layers of the ocean by 2100," said <a href="https://researchers.uq.edu.au/researcher/1567" target="_blank">Anthony Richardson of the University of Queensland</a> in Australia, one of the authors.</p><p>"But because of the immense size and depth of the ocean, warming already observed at the ocean surface will mix into deeper waters. This means that marine life in the deep ocean will face escalating threats from ocean warming until the end of the century, no matter what we do now.</p><p>"This leaves only one option – act urgently to alleviate other human-generated threats to deep sea life, including seabed mining and deep-sea bottom-fishing."</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from<a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/ocean-warming-spurs-marine-life-to-rapid-migration/" target="_blank"> Climate News Network</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Amazing Drone Footage Captures Thousands of Turtles Migrating Near Great Barrier Reef
12 June
Animals
Australian researchers captured a stunning scene that looks like something out of Finding Nemo. The drone the scientists used recorded approximately 64,000 green turtles migrating near Australia's Great Barrier Reef for nesting season, as CNN reported.
<p>The footage from the Queensland Government's Department of Environment and Science (DES) spotted the turtles congregating at the world's largest green turtle rookery at Raine Island, a vegetated coral cay approximately 385 miles northwest of Cairns in Queensland, according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/world/green-turtle-drone-nesting-intl-scli-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>.</p><p>The sheer number of turtles surprised the scientists who realized they had underestimated the number of green turtles in the area by 50 percent, according to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAVk4jvWzDw" target="_blank">Voice of America's YouTube</a> post showing the footage.</p>
<p>"We were underestimating that a lot. We're finding 1.73 times as many turtles with the drone ... when we directly compare with the observer counts," Dr. Andrew Dunstan, from the DES, told <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/world/green-turtle-drone-nesting-intl-scli-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> Tuesday, adding that the team can now go back and adjust historic population estimates.</p><p>Prior to using drones, researchers would count turtles as they landed on the beach to lay eggs. They would then mark the turtles with a non-toxic paint to track them in the ocean. However, accurately counting thousands of painted and unpainted turtles from a boat in the water proved difficult and unreliable, according to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAVk4jvWzDw" target="_blank">Voice of America</a> post.</p>
<p>Using a drone is easier, safer, much more accurate, and the data can be immediately and permanently stored," Dunstan, senior research scientist and lead author of a paper about the turtles published in PLOS ONE on Thursday, said in a <a href="https://www.des.qld.gov.au/our-department/news-media/mediareleases/drone-technology-helps-count-turtles-gbr" target="_blank">statement</a>, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/world/green-turtle-drone-nesting-intl-scli-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>"What previously took a number of researchers a long time can now be by one drone operator in under an hour," said researcher Richard Fitzpatrick from the Biopixel Oceans Foundation, as <a href="https://www.prevention.com/life/a32839141/sea-turtles-australia-raine-island-drone-video/" target="_blank">Prevention</a> reported.</p><p>Green sea turtles are a <a href="https://environment.des.qld.gov.au/wildlife/threatened-species/vulnerable/green-turtle" target="_blank">vulnerable species</a> in Queensland since they are hunted for their flesh and eggs, are often trapped in trawler fishing nets, and choke on discarded plastic bags, according to the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/environment/sustainability/drone-footage-shows-twice-the-number-of-green-turtles-at-rookery-than-previously-thought-20200610-p5516p.html" target="_blank">Sydney Morning Herald</a>. Eleven species of green turtles <a href="https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/green-turtle#:~:text=Green%20turtles%20are%20protected%20under,significant%20portion%20of%20its%20range." target="_blank">are listed as either endangered or threatened</a> in the Endangered Species Act in the U.S.</p>
<p>"We sort of became aware that although there's these massive aggregations, the actual reproduction isn't working so well," said Dunstan to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/world/green-turtle-drone-nesting-intl-scli-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>, explaining that his team noticed turtles were falling off cliffs, becoming trapped in the heat and suffering flooding in their nests.</p><p>In their <a href="https://www.des.qld.gov.au/our-department/news-media/mediareleases/drone-technology-helps-count-turtles-gbr" target="_blank">statement</a>, as <a href="https://www.prevention.com/life/a32839141/sea-turtles-australia-raine-island-drone-video/" target="_blank">Prevention</a> noted, the DES said they're "taking action to improve and rebuild the island's nesting beaches and building fences to prevent turtle deaths, all working to strengthen the island's resilience and ensure the survival of our northern green turtles and many other species."</p>
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Two Indo-Pacific finless porpoises captured by a drone camera. Gary Stokes / OceansAsia
By Elizabeth Claire Alberts
Two silvery-white porpoises glide through the ocean, captured in the lens of a drone camera. The pair swim side by side, occasionally surfacing for a quick breath of air. After a few minutes, they're joined by several other porpoises, and the group travels together before disappearing into deeper waters.
This is the first drone video ever recorded of the rare and very elusive Indo-Pacific finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides) in Hong Kong, says Gary Stokes, director of Oceans Asia, a Hong Kong-based marine conservation group.
Rare footage of the finless porpoise of Hong Kong released
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="cb52b62c48cd4f011a2a6ab79a037eb5"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OgpOoQmbYsk?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>"I made it my personal holy grail to get footage of these porpoise as they are so hard to document and no one has anything decent," Stokes told Mongabay. "Everyone I spoke with working on them in Hong Kong has little to no images. The best pictures resemble a 'floating tire,' which is as best as you can really get if you are really lucky."</p><p>But Stokes said he got extremely lucky when he went out on his boat to search for them off the coast of South Lantau Island on May 2. "At one point I had 9 to 10 animals, which is said to be about as large a pod as they get, and very uncommon in Hong Kong," he said.</p><p>The finless porpoise is a small, bathtub-sized creature with a distinctive attribute: unlike many other cetaceans, it only has a small dorsal ridge on its back, rather than a proper dorsal fin. This trait gives the finless porpoise its name, and makes it very difficult to detect in the water.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzM4Mjk2Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMzI0MzIzNH0.cZU-uh8k2pHO4hoTqjZz2e6PZR95u4Iaf9V8N92xRt4/img.jpg?width=980" id="79b89" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9fa5ec2c446028b05b764c960c6a7f46" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A pair of finless porpoises off the coast of Hong Kong. Gary Stokes / OceansAsia
<p>But there aren't many finless porpoises left in Hong Kong waters. In 2002, a group of researchers published a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286500030_Distribution_and_abundance_of_finless_porpoises_in_Hong_Kong_and_adjacent_waters_of_China" target="_blank">report</a> that estimated there to be about 152 finless porpoises in the springtime, Hong Kong's peak season, and a total of 220 porpoises year round. A more recent <a href="https://www.afcd.gov.hk/english/conservation/con_mar/con_mar_chi/con_mar_chi_chi/files/Final_Report_2018_19.pdf" target="_blank">report</a>, published by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) in Hong Kong, said there was a total of 269 finless porpoises in Hong Kong waters between 2018 and 2019, a slightly higher number. Thomas Jefferson, an author of the 2002 report, told Mongabay that he and a team of researchers would also be publishing a new report in a scientific journal later this year, estimating there to be 176 porpoises during the spring of 2019, which was "a very slight increase" from previous estimates.</p><p>The population may have risen moderately, but Teale Phelps Bondaroff, director of research at OceansAsia, says there are still serious concerns about the finless porpoise in Hong Kong based on the number of strandings, which seem to be increasing each year. In the last 14 years, at least 319 finless porpoises were stranded, according to data collected by the AFCD and Ocean Park Conservation Foundation Hong Kong (OPCFHK), which was published in a new <a href="http://oceansasia.org/finless-porpoise-hongkong/" target="_blank">report</a> by OceansAsia. Last year is thought to be the deadliest year for the species, with 42 officially recorded strandings, although the report notes that at least one or two additional strandings weren't officially recorded. In 2020, there have already been 15 strandings as of May 16, according to OceansAsia.</p><p>"It's really alarming," Phelps Bondaroff, author of the new report, told Mongabay. "Biologists will say that if the annual mortality for a species is between 4 to 5%, that's unsustainable. Well, 42 or 43 porpoise is definitely much more than four to five percent of 220."</p><p>But these strandings are just the ones that are reported. Finless porpoises are frequently trapped and killed in fishing nets as bycatch, and fishermen may not disclose these casualties to the authorities, Phelps Bondaroff said.</p><p>"The law basically says that it's illegal to be in possession of a protected animal … and these porpoises are protected animals in Hong Kong," he said. "But the problem is that if you accidentally get one entangled in your net, you have the burden to prove that you didn't intentionally catch it. And that's very difficult for fishers to do. It's a lot of paperwork, there's bureaucracy involved, and it's sometimes, much easier to simply dump the porpoise over and continue on."</p>
<p>Besides fishing net entanglement, finless porpoises are also threatened by ship strikes, noise pollution, and plastic pollution. However, when a porpoise is found stranded, the cause of death isn't always clear based on the necropsies conducted by the OPCFHK, Phelps Bondaroff said.</p><p>"Not all necropsies are as detailed as they could be," he said. "Some of them are comprehensive with a CT scan … but others are cursory and done in the field, and the problem is that you don't have consistent data."</p><p>OceansAsia makes several recommendations in its report to help conserve the species. First, it suggests that another comprehensive finless porpoise survey be conducted, which will help determine how vulnerable the population is. Second, it proposes making the southwest coast of Lamma Island in Hong Kong, which is prime habitat for finless porpoises, a marine park. Third, it recommends a better system for stranding reporting and comprehensive analysis, a fisheries observation program, and a revision of the Wild Animals Protection Ordinance so fishermen are more likely to report accidental strandings.</p>
<p>The finless porpoise doesn't just live in the coastal waters of Hong Kong, but ranges across Southeast Asia, India, and even the Middle East. Like Hong Kong, some local populations are evaluated to be quite low. For instance, one <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268632435_Population_estimates_and_distribution_patterns_of_Irrawaddy_dolphins_Orcaella_brevirostris_and_finless_porpoise_Neophoceana_phoceanoides_in_the_Kuching_Bay_Sarawak" target="_blank">study</a> estimates that about 135 finless porpoises live off the coast of Sarawak, Malaysia. However, John Wang, co-author of the Red List assessments for the IUCN, says that other areas may boast "pretty decent densities [of the finless purpose] relative to other species."</p><p>"Most of the time, the 'rareness' is a misconception because most people won't see finless porpoises even if they swim right by them," Wang told Mongabay in an email. "So, no doubt they are dying in probably high numbers wherever gillnet fishing also occur, they are also probably reproducing quite quickly (being a porpoise) but we have no idea how many there are out there."</p><p>The finless porpoise is currently listed as vulnerable by the IUCN, which means the species faces a high threat of extinction but is not considered endangered. Yet, there would be variances across the species' distribution, according to Randall Reeves, who also acts as chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission's Cetacean Specialist Group.</p><p>"[I]t's important to bear in mind that an assessment of the species, and especially when the species' distribution is as extensive (and under-surveyed) as is the case for <em>Neophocaena phocaenoides</em>, must not be interpreted to mean that some, even many, local populations are not Endangered, Critically Endangered, or even Extirpated," Reeves told Mongabay in an email. "In fact, we tried to make this point explicitly in the Justification portion of the assessment."</p><p><em><strong>CORRECTION (06/09/2020)</strong>: A previous version of this article stated that John Wang was a co-chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission's Cetacean Specialist Group, but this was corrected to say that he is a co-author of the Red List assessments for the IUCN. </em></p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/caught-on-camera-rare-finless-porpoises-sighted-in-hong-kong-waters/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>
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