Not only does the ghost fishing gear account for about 46 percent of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a new study has found that the amount of commercial fishing line left in Earth’s oceans each year is enough to stretch to the moon and back, reported The Guardian.
Last week, on World Oceans Day, the U.S. Senate took two major legislative steps to support our oceans for the future: banning the commercial shark fin trade in the U.S. and addressing forced labor and Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. The Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act (S. 1106) — a bill that targets the […]
By Ian Urbina About 100 miles off the coast of Thailand, three dozen Cambodian boys and men worked barefoot all day and into the night on the deck of a purse seiner fishing ship. Fifteen-foot swells climbed the sides of the vessel, clipping the crew below the knees. Ocean spray and fish innards made the […]
By Reynard Loki There is one main U.S. law that governs the management of marine fisheries in federal waters: The Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA). Originally intended to address the concern over foreign fisheries operating near U.S. waters, the MSA, which was passed in 1976, extended the nation’s exclusive fisheries zone from 12 […]
By Tara Lohan It’s not too hard to find salmon on a menu in the United States, but that seeming abundance — much of it fueled by overseas fish farms — overshadows a grim reality on the ground. Many of our wild salmon, outside Alaska, are on the ropes — and have been for decades. […]
A first-of-its-kind study has examined the benefits of protecting the world’s oceans. The study, published in Nature on Wednesday, endorsed protecting 30 percent of the world’s land and ocean by 2030 in order to protect biodiversity, restore fisheries and combat the climate crisis. “Ocean life has been declining worldwide because of overfishing, habitat destruction and […]
Aiming to preserve 30 percent of the world’s land and water by 2030, dozens of countries will take part in a UN biodiversity conference later this year – but Indigenous people won’t have a seat at the table. Indigenous communities have repeatedly mobilized to block logging, mining and overfishing, with great success. More than a […]
An alarming new study reports that the global population of sharks and rays has declined 71 percent since 1970. The crash, due to overfishing, underscores the need for international policymakers to reverse the species’ impending collapse. Published in Nature, the study is one of the first global assessments of its kind, The New York Times […]
For the first time, researchers have identified 100 transnational corporations that take home the majority of profits from the ocean’s economy. Referred to as the “Ocean 100,” the corporations accounted for 60 percent of .9 trillion generated from core industries in the ocean economy in 2018 alone, according to an article by the Duke Nicholas […]
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