By Amy McDermott Jason McElwain isn’t afraid of a pinch. He reached calmly into a basket of live crabs one Friday this June, and kept his cool even when a claw clamped down hard on his finger. “You get used to it after a while,” he said, then yanked the crab off and tossed it […]
A fishing town on the southwest tip of India is showing what a community can achieve when it decides to face an environmental problem and turn it into a solution, using ocean plastics to empower women and literally build roads to a better future. In an inspiring profile on the town of Kollam in the […]
In an ambitious effort to stop ocean pollution, the European Commission on Monday proposed banning the 10 most common single-use plastic products as well as lost and abandoned fishing gear. The European Union’s executive arm targeted the products that are most often found on the continent’s beaches and seas, which together account for 70 percent […]
By Nathan Johnson The deep sea might be cold and dark, but it’s not barren. Down here, an incredible diversity of corals shelters young fish like grouper, snapper and rockfish. Sharks, rays and other species live and feed here their whole lives. Brightly colored coral gardens, far beyond the reach of the sun’s rays, don’t […]
By Amy McDermott The Inuvialuit and Gwich’in peoples spend their summers fishing off the coast of Canada’s Yukon Territory. For generations, they’ve trekked from towns around the Western Arctic to a spit called Shingle Point, where the Mackenzie River’s braided flows spill off North America into the Beaufort Sea. The nutrient-rich waters at the mouth […]
By Amy McDermott Local, wild seafood is essential for global health. Around the world, more than 3 billion people rely on fish as a substantial part of their diet. Nearby fisheries offer vitamins and minerals otherwise unavailable in poor coastal areas. But local seafood, and the nutrients it provides, is at risk. More than half […]
By Shreya Dasgupta Industrial fishing takes place across more than 55 percent of the world’s oceans, according to a new study published in Science. Fishing is vital for food security and livelihoods across the globe, yet the extent of industrial fishing has remained largely unknown. Now, a team of researchers has tried to solve this […]
By Amy McDermott Food is expensive. Not just for pocketbooks, but for the planet. Worldwide, more than 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from food production. That’s methane belched from cows and nitrous oxide escaping from soils, as well as fossil fuels burned by tractors, fishing boats and rumbling transport vehicles. Some foods cost […]
By Andy Sharpless In the last several weeks, Oceana and its allies won five important victories that will help protect biodiversity and increase abundance in our seas: 1. Belize bans offshore oil drilling in country’s marine waters, home to the largest barrier reef in the Americas. Belize made history in late December when it signed […]