Category News

On the occasion of,  World Environment Day (June 5th, 2021), the Ministers of Tourism and Antiquities and Environment launched a marine conservation campaign in the Egyptian Red Sea; the first of its kind in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region as part of the ECO EGYPT campaign. 

This campaign is launched in partnership between the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (MoTA) and the Ministry of Environment (MoE), with UNDP Egypt, GEF, the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), the Egyptian Hotel Association (EHA), and Chamber of Diving and Watersports (CDWS) our goal is to raise awareness about marine conservation in the Red Sea and highlight the importance of ecosystem protection and restoration. 

This campaign sheds light on the the most common touristic practices that wou...

New research shows that fully protected areas had 30% more fish species and 2.5 times more fish biomass compared with open areas. It is becoming increasingly clear that humankind must do more to protect our ocean. It generates about half of the planet’s oxygen, regulates our climate, and is home to 80% of all life on Earth. Yet, ocean health is critically threatened by human activities that are driving the collapse of fisheries, the loss of biodiversity, and the acidification of seawater.

There is a growing recognition among political leaders, Indigenous groups, communities, and scientists that governments and other regulatory bodies need to protect and conserve at least 30% of Earth’s coastal and marine areas by 2030 to secure and maintain a healthy ocean...

A new study from the University of Agder shows that animals are part of the natural carbon cycle process that absorbs greenhouse gas emissions.

“It is a good thing that carbon is trapped in the ocean, but less greenhouse gas emissions from humans is overall best for the climate,” says Angela Helen Martin. She is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Natural Sciences at University of Agder (UiA).

Martin recently published a review article on how fishes and other animals affect greenhouse gases in the ocean. One of her conclusions is that there is a need to consider how animals affect carbon in order to design effective management of carbon in ocean habitats and of marine vertebrate populations.

“For example, if we only protect the plants that convert greenhouse gases to organic ...

It’s becoming more likely that a key global temperature limit will be reached in one of the next five years. A major study says by 2025 there’s a 40% chance of at least one year being 1.5C hotter than the pre-industrial level. That’s the lower of two temperature limits set by the Paris Agreement on climate change. The conclusion comes in a report published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The analysis is based on modelling by the UK Met Office and climate researchers in 10 countries including the US and China.

In the last decade, it was estimated that the chance of any one year reaching the 1.5C threshold was only 20%.

This new assessment puts that risk at 40%.

Leon Hermanson, a senior Met Office scientist, told BBC News that comparing projected temperatures with ...

Marine conservation charity Surfers Against Sewage believe the world only had 10 years to reverse the damage humans have inflicted on our planet. The organisation, based in St Agnes, has called on the UK government to ensure the ocean is at the centre of climate conversations at the 26th UN Climate Conference (COP26) which Britain will host in November in Glasgow.

The desperate call for the ocean and the environment to be the heart of the everything we do as a global human society comes as SAS’s latest Ocean and Climate Report highlights how the extent of the ocean and climate crisis has not gone largely unnoticed by the British public.

The survey revealed that people do not think enough is being done to tackle the climate crisis, as 99% of respondents agreed more action needs to...

In the field of marine conservation, a marine protected area (MPA) is an expanse of sea, ocean, estuaries, coastal waters, and in the United States, the U.S. Great Lakes, where fishing, mining, drilling, and other extractive human activity is restricted in an effort to protect the waters’ natural resources and marine life.

Deep-sea corals, for example, which can be up to 4,000 years old, can be damaged by fishing trawls that drag along the ocean floor, scooping up bottom-dwelling fish and crustaceans. By not allowing humans to deplete, disturb, or pollute waterways at will, MPAs discourage such damage to and disregard for sea life...

Sharks are as fascinating as they are endangered, and scientists have been sounding the alarm on the rate at which shark populations are declining. Sixteen out of 31 oceanic shark species are now critically endangered or endangered, a study published in the journal Nature found earlier this year. The number of oceanic sharks and rays in the world has declined by 71% from 1970 to 2018, the researchers observed.

Now, scientists have been able to use artificial insemination to bring 97 baby sharks to life, a new study published in Scientific Reports revealed, in what a release describes as the “largest-ever effort to artificially inseminate sharks.”

Artificial insemination of sharks could foster healthier populations in aquariums by encouraging genetic diversity, removing the need to t...

The world’s coral reefs could face mass bleaching and erosion within the next few decades, according to an international team of scientists including those from Australia. Their findings, published this week in the scientific journal PNAS, have particular significance for Australia, which oversees the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem and an enormously important drawcard for the nation’s tourism industry.

The scientists, including marine plant ecologist Guillermo Diaz-Pulido from the Griffith University in the Australian state of Queensland, noted in a related article in the Conversation that the GBR contributes about 6.4 billion Australian dollars (about 5 billion U.S. dollars) to the national economy.

Their study, based on the findings from 183 ree...

Numbers of two Mediterranean turtle species have risen in the last three decades – but in Cyprus the recoveries are happening at different rates, new research shows. Nest counts at 28 beaches show green turtle nests increased by 162% from 1993 to 2019, while loggerhead nests rose by 46%. The research team – from the University of Exeter, the Society for the Protection of Turtles (SPOT) and Eastern Mediterranean University – say the difference is probably due to higher death rates among loggerhead turtles of all ages.

Turtles in this region used to be hunted for meat and shells, but this is now banned throughout the Mediterranean. Coupled with conservation of nesting beaches, this has allowed populations to recover – but the scientists say better protection at sea is still required.

Reef sharks do not stick to the same area throughout their lifetime, but use different habitats when they mature. This is shown by research by Wageningen University & Research (WUR) in the Caribbean Netherlands on 2 species of reef sharks, that has been published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series. These findings have potential implications for effectively managing and protecting these endangered species.

Scientists have used cameras at 376 locations on reefs in the waters of Saba and St. Eustatius. It turns out that mainly juvenile nurse sharks and Caribbean reef sharks swim around there: young sharks that are not yet sexually mature. ‘We have hardly observed any adult sharks,’ says researcher Twan Stoffers...