Category News

Coral bleaching was detected in a usually healthy reef off Australia’s north-western coast earlier this year.

But due to Covid lockdown rules, the discovery presented scientists with a challenge.

How could they survey the reef without being able to travel there?

Video by Isabelle Rodd

A UBC Okanagan researcher has developed a way to predict the future health of the planet’s coral reefs. Working with scientists from Australia’s Flinders’ University and privately-owned research firm Nova Blue Environment, biology doctoral student Bruno Carturan has been studying the ecosystems of the world’s endangered reefs.

The disappearance of Great White Sharks off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, a city known as the ‘great white capital of the world’ is being investigated by Earth.Org.  Many theories attempt to explain the dwindling populations, from orcas driving the sharks away to unregulated fisheries, but the fact remains that the disappearance of great white sharks has ramifications beyond biodiversity loss: it threatens the ecotourism industry in the country, putting hundreds of jobs and billions of dollars at risk.

In 2017, cage-diving operators started reporting a sudden decline in sightings of great white sharks around False Bay and Gansbaai...

Endangered green sea turtles will have some of their nesting beaches in Florida protected by federal agencies under a new legal agreement with conservation groups. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service must designate protected critical habitats for green sea turtles by June 30, 2023, the Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement this week.

The agencies will likely consider proposing protections for beaches where green turtles nest in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, as well as offshore oceanic habitat in the Southeast and on the West Coast, according to the agreement...

The amount of oil spilled from the Japanese-owned ship nearby the lagoons and coastal areas of south-east Mauritius is relatively low compared to the big oil spills the world has seen in the past, but the damage it will do is going to be huge and long-lasting, experts say. Unlike most previous offshore spills, this has taken place near two environmentally protected marine ecosystems and the Blue Bay Marine Park reserve, which is a wetland of international importance. So, it’s the location rather than the size of the spill which is causing greatest concern about its potentially serious environmental impact.

The stunning turquoise waters of the blue lagoon outside the coastal village of Mahébourg in Mauritius, the backdrop for numerous Bollywood movies, are now stained black and brown.

Th...

Scientists say the loss of ice in Greenland lurched forward again last year, breaking the previous record by 15%. A new analysis says that the scale of the melt was “unprecedented” in records dating back to 1948. High pressure systems that became blocked over Greenland last Summer were the immediate cause of the huge losses.

But the authors say ongoing emissions of carbon are pushing Greenland into an era of more extreme melting.

Over the past 30 years, Greenland’s contribution to global sea levels has grown significantly as ice losses have increased.

A major international report on Greenland released last December concluded that it was losing ice seven times faster than it was during the 1990s.

Today’s new study shows that trend is continuing.

Using data from the Grace and Grace-FO sate...

There are 12-21 million tonnes of tiny plastic fragments floating in the Atlantic Ocean, scientists have found. A study, led by the UK’s National Oceanography Centre, scooped through layers of the upper 200m (650ft) of the ocean during a research expedition through the middle of the Atlantic. Such an amount of plastic – 21 million tonnes – would be enough to fully load almost 1,000 container ships.

The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.

Dr Katsia Pabortsava, from the National Oceanography Centre, who led the study, said by measuring the mass of very small plastic particles in the top 5% of the ocean, she and her colleagues could estimate “the load of plastic in the entire Atlantic” which is “much larger” than the previous figure.

“Previously, we haven’t been abl...

A Japanese vessel that hit a reef in Mauritius last month, threatening ecological havoc on the island’s unique biodiversity, has broken apart. Japan’s Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said his country will send a team of ministry officials and other specialists to Mauritius to assess the environmental damage.

Mauritian officials reported the condition of the MV Wakashio had seriously degraded early Saturday. By the afternoon, it had split in two.

“At around 4.30pm, a major detachment of the vessel’s forward section was observed,” said the Mauritius National Crisis Committee in a statement. “On the basis of the experts’ advice, the towing plan is being implemented.”

The 203,000 tonne Japanese-registered bulk carrier struck a coral reef off Mauritius on 25 July spilling...

The most successful and cost-effective ways to restore coral reefs have been identified by an international group of scientists, after analysing restoration projects in Latin America. The University of Queensland’s Dr Elisa Bayraktarov led the team that investigated 12 coral reef restoration case studies in five countries.

The amount of oil spilled from the Japanese-owned ship nearby the lagoons and coastal areas of south-east Mauritius is relatively low compared to the big oil spills the world has seen in the past, but the damage it will do is going to be huge and long-lasting, experts say.

Unlike most previous offshore spills, this has taken place near two environmentally protected marine ecosystems and the Blue Bay Marine Park reserve, which is a wetland of international importance.

So, it’s the location rather than the size of the spill which is causing greatest concern about its potentially serious environmental impact.

The stunning turquoise waters of the blue lagoon outside the coastal village of Mahébourg in Mauritius, the backdrop for numerous Bollywood movies, are now stained black and brown.

The ...