Category News

UNEP ‘Caribbean Could Lose Coral Reefs By End Of Century’

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has warned that the Caribbean, among other places, could lose its coral reefs by the end of the century unless there are drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. 

“In the face of inaction, coral reefs will soon disappear,” said Leticia Carvalho, head of UNEP’s Marine and Freshwater Branch. 

“Humanity must act with evidence-based urgency, ambition, and innovation to change the trajectory for this ecosystem, which is the canary in the coal mine for climate’s impact on oceans before it’s too late,” she added. 

UNEP said coral reefs are “incredibly important and sustain a wide variety of marine life.”

They also protect coastlines from erosions from waves and storms, sink carbon and nitrogen, and help recycle...

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Atlantic discovery: 12 new species ‘hiding in the deep’

Epizoanthus martinsae lives on black corals at depths of almost 400m

Almost five years of studying the deep Atlantic in unprecedented detail has revealed 12 species new to science. The sea mosses, molluscs and corals had eluded discovery because the sea floor is so unexplored, scientists say. Researchers warn that the newly discovered animals could already be under threat from climate change. 

Carbon dioxide absorbed by the ocean is making it more acidic, causing coral skeletons in particular to corrode.

The scientists involved stressed it was “not too late to protect these special species” and the important habitats they occupied. 

Some key Atlantic discoveries from the mission:

  • New species: “At least” 12 new deep-sea species. The team also found approximately 35 new records of species in areas where they were previously unknown
  • Climate chang...
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For world’s oceans, a year of distress, discovery

Dolphin looking at camera

Nature saw its ups and downs in 2020, and Conservation News was there for it all. This month, we are revisiting some of the most interesting and significant stories and issues we covered in the past year. 

To read headlines about the ocean is to be subjected to a litany of bad news, with research showing that large swaths of the ocean are becoming increasingly hotlifeless and acidic as climate change accelerates. Avoiding the worst climate impacts, scientists say, means protecting the ocean — and the people who depend on it — on a massive scale. 

From groundbreaking research into mysterious deep-water coral reefs, to helping fishers to (sustainably) weather a pandemic, Conservation International was at the leading edge of marine science and policy in 2020...

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Covid drives record emissions drop in 2020

Close up on Baltic Sea

The global response to the Covid-19 pandemic has driven the biggest annual fall in CO2 emissions since World War Two, say researchers. Their study indicates that emissions have declined by around 7% this year. France and the UK saw the greatest falls, mainly due to severe shutdowns in response to a second wave of infections. 

China, by contrast, has seen such a large rebound from coronavirus that overall emissions may grow this year. 

The decline in carbon in 2020 has dwarfed all the previous big falls. 

According to the Global Carbon Project team, this year saw carbon emissions decline by 2.4 billion tonnes.

In contrast, the fall recorded in 2009 during the global economic recession was just half a billion tonnes, while the ending of World War Two saw emissions fall b...

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‘Dog kennel’ satellite returns first ocean observations

Sentinel-6 carries an altimeter to measure the elevation of water surfaces

The new satellite that will become the primary orbital tool for tracking sea-level rise is in excellent shape. Sentinel-6 “Michael Freilich” was only launched three weeks ago, but already it is mapping ocean features in exquisite detail. The dog kennel-shaped spacecraft is a joint endeavour between Europe and the US.

It is the latest iteration in a series of missions that have been measuring sea-surface height going back to 1992.

These earlier satellites have shown unequivocally that the oceans globally are rising at a rate in excess of 3mm per year over the 28-year period, with an acceleration apparent in the last decade.

Space agency officials released sample data on Thursday to illustrate the progress in commissioning Sentinel-6 and its main observation payload, an altimeter.

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Coral Reefs are Changing Their Smells in a Warmer World

The aromas of a beach strewn with seaweed or a garden full of blooming flowers are more than just momentary sensory experiences. They also act as entryways into the world of ecosystem health and interspecies communication. Plants, for example, emit gases known as “biogenic volatile organic compounds” to adapt to heat stress, attract pollinators, defend against pathogens, deter predators, and more. 

Scientists have been cataloguing these gases on land for decades, but relatively little work has been done for marine ecosystems. To address this knowledge gap, a group of researchers led by marine biologist Caitlin Lawson at the University of Technology Sydney set to out to measure the full spectrum of gases that two common coral reef-building species emit...

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The Mighty Pacific Ocean Is In Serious Peril

Discarded fishing nets, or ‘ghost nets’ can entangle animals like turtles.

The Pacific Ocean is the deepest, largest ocean on Earth, covering about a third of the globe’s surface. An ocean that vast may seem invincible. Yet across its reach – from Antarctica in the south to the Arctic in the north, and from Asia to Australia to the Americas – the Pacific Ocean’s delicate ecology is under threat.

In most cases, human activity is to blame. We have systematically pillaged the Pacific of fish. We have used it as a rubbish tip – garbage has been found even in the deepest point on Earth, in the Mariana Trench 11,000 meters below sea level.

And as we pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the Pacific, like other oceans, is becoming more acidic...

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Seaweed-Munching Crabs Could Help Save Coral Reefs

Coral reefs are facing a steep decline today for many reasons, including climate change, overfishing, pollution, disease, and more. What’s taking their place is lots and lots of seaweed. But researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology now have some encouraging news: native crabs can help to combat the seaweed and restore the reef.

“Experimentally increasing the abundance of large native, herbivorous crabs on coral reefs in the Florida Keys led to rapid declines in seaweed cover and, over the course of a year or so, resulted in the return of small corals and fishes to those reefs,” says Mark Butler of Florida International University. “This opens up a whole new avenue for coral reef restoration.”

Butler and colleagues, including study first author Angelo “Jason” Sp...

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Climate change: Have countries kept their promises?

Agreed by 196 parties in the French capital in December 2015, the Paris climate deal aims to keep the rise in global temperatures this century “well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C.” We look at five key countries and how well they have kept their promises.

Every one of the signatories to the Paris climate agreement has had to lodge a climate action plan with the UN to spell out what steps they are taking to curb carbon. 

Overall, according to a new assessment from global consultancy Systemiq, low-carbon solutions have been more successful in this period than many people realise. 

The growth in coal for energy outside of China has declined significantly. 

“We have to translate what we can do into what we will d...

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Great Barrier Reef has deteriorated to ‘critical’ level due to climate change

A coral reef impacted by a severe bleaching event

The conservation status for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has declined from “significant concern” to “critical” due to increasing impacts associated with climate change, a new report has found.

The damage to the reef is a result of ocean warming, acidification and extreme weather, which has resulted in coral bleaching, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) 2020 World Heritage Outlook report, which tracks whether the conservation of the world’s 252 natural World Heritage sites is sufficient to protect them in the long term. The process of coral bleaching occurs when water is too warm and the algae the corals expel from their tissues cause them to turn completely white.

The decline of the coral has also resulted in decreasing populations of cert...

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