Blog Archives

This morning, WWF congratulated the Federal Government of Australia on finalising the boundaries and basic layout of the world

The world’s ocean are absorbing carbon dioxide at an unprecedented rate and the resulting acidification is already altering marine ecosystems. We look at how ocean acidification is affecting shellfish and coral reefs.

Slip beneath the water’s surface and you’ll find a world teeming with life. Schools of yellowtail fish dart through colorful coral reefs. Spiny lobsters emerge from the crevices of ocean rocks searching for a tasty meal. And sea anemones nestle in the nooks of oyster beds.

But there is troubles in the world’s ocean.

Scientists are learning more about how carbon dioxide is dramatically changing the makeup of the oceans and the communities that depend on them.

A network to help protect Scotland’s seas could provide economic benefits worth

The federal government on Friday proposed protecting 66 kinds of corals under the Endangered Species Act, an acknowledgment that these reef-building animals are suffering so many insults they are threatened with extinction.

The proposal, which covers corals in the Pacific and the Caribbean, lists 19 ways that corals are under assault. They include overfishing, pollution, heat-stroke, disease and dissolving in seawater that is turning more acidic.

A team of scientists from the National Marine Fisheries Service spent more than three years reviewing the health of these reef-building corals before proposing their protection.

Seven of the coral species can be found in U.S. waters off Florida and Caribbean islands...

The Scottish Government has announced plans to create Europe

Melting of polar ice sheets has added 11mm to global sea levels over the past two decades, according to the most definitive assessment so far.

More than 20 polar research teams have combined forces to produce estimates of the state of the ice in Greenland and Antarctica in a paper in Science.

Until now different measurement means have produced a wide range of estimates with large uncertainties.

But sea-level rise is now among the most pressing questions of our time.

Polar ice has a tremendous capacity to cause massive rises – with huge potential impacts on coastal cities and communities around the world.

But the remoteness and sheer size of the ice sheets mean accurate measurements are a serious challenge even for satellites which have to distinguish snow from ice, and the rise of the land...

The crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) is a cross that coral reefs must bear.

Crown-of-thorns starfish feed on the polyps or living tissue of corals. Unlike most starfish, one would not think of using them as house d

MEPs have voted to close loopholes that allowed some EU fishing vessels to continue “shark finning”.

Although the EU banned removing shark fins at sea and discarding the body, special permits allowed finning to continue legally.

Conservation groups, which said finning was threatening shark numbers, welcomed the European Parliament’s decision.

The decision to back the European Commission’s plans means the details will now be considered by EU ministers.

The resolution was adopted with 566 votes in favour, 47 against and 16 abstentions.

“Parliament’s vote represents a major milestone in the global effort to end the wasteful practice,” said Sandrine Polti, EU shark policy adviser for the Pew Environmental Group and the Shark Alliance.

“[We have] been working towards this and other fundamental...

The Galapagos Islands have been famous for a century and a half, but even Charles Darwin did not suspect that the archipelago

A pristine tropical reef that has weathered several natural disasters is now part of America’s largest marine sanctuary.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) finalized a huge expansion of the Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuary in American Samoa last month, from 0.25 square miles (0.65 square kilometers) to 13,523 square miles (33,024 square km).

The boost takes the sanctuary from a single protected coral reef to a marine area larger than the state of Maryland. The agency also renamed the protected region, now calling it the National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa.

Five new marine units joined Fagatale Bay’s reef: Fogama’a/ Fagalua (Larsen Bay), waters around Swains Island and Muliva, also known as Rose Atoll, and some of the waters around Aunu’u Island and Ta’...