Climate change makes its presence felt in the Amazon’s shrinking fish
“Everything is happening at the wrong time,” says Myrian Pereira Vasques. “The trees are blossoming at the wrong time, the soil isn’t the same, the weather is too hot and…
Sustainable fish farming & agroecology buoy Kenyan communities
GATUNGA, Kenya — The dry spell that troubled Kenya for the past few years has shaken the country’s rural food systems. But Japheth Nthiga, a farmer from Karethani village in…
Study: Paying fishers to ease off sharks and rays is cost-effective conservation
More than a third of all elasmobranch (shark and ray) species are at risk of extinction due to overfishing. Indonesia is both a hotspot of elasmobranch biodiversity and one of…
Good fisheries management, if enforced, can help sharks and rays recover
New research has found that carefully managed fisheries can help dwindling shark and ray populations recover, illustrating a pathway for protecting species from fishing pressure. Published in the Proceedings of…
An El Niño is forecast for 2023. How much coral will bleach this time?
Scientists remember the years between 2014 and 2017 as a particularly bad time for coral reefs. Elevated temperatures fueled by an El Niño climate pattern harmed about three-quarters of the…
Thai government turns its sights on illegal coral trade
BANGKOK – A few dawns into 2022, authorities raided a shophouse in the heart of Thailand's capital city. Officers from the Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Division of the Royal Thai…
Mongabay Explains: What’s the difference between artisanal and industrial fishing?
What comes to mind when you hear the word “fishing”? A supertrawler unloading a massive net bursting with fish onto its deck, attended by a dozen crewmembers? Or a pair…
Indonesia opens its ‘ocean account’ for sustainable marine management
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is designing a new scheme to measure the long-term benefits provided by the country’s marine and coastal ecosystems. The mechanism, known as ocean accounting and…
Indigenous Kawésqar take on salmon farms in Chile’s southernmost fjords
PUERTO NATALES/PUNTA ARENAS, Chile — Pristine waters, partially covered in sea ice, reflect the early morning light while a flock of flamingos basks in the warmth of the sun near…
Banned but abundant, gillnets pose main threat to Bangladesh’s river dolphins
The indiscriminate use of gillnets by fishers in Bangladesh has become a major threat to the two freshwater dolphin species found there: the Ganga River dolphin (Platanista gangetica) and the…
Re-carbonizing the sea: Scientists to start testing a big ocean carbon idea
Imagine showers of little green sand grains drifting through the ocean: collecting on coral reefs, rolling off the backs of whales, sprinkling schools of tuna — and helping to save…
Plastic works its way up the food chain to hit fishing cats, study shows
During a dietary study on fishing cats living near Colombo, Sri Lanka, researchers made an unexpected finding: Some scat samples collected contained plastics. Varying in size from tiny microplastics to…
As sea lice feast away on dwindling salmon, First Nations decide the fate of salmon farms
VANCOUVER, Canada — Alongside the millions of Atlantic Salmon clustered in the open net pens that dot the waterways around Broughton Archipelago’s over 200 islands, sea lice, a tadpole-shaped parasite,…
Study aims to unmask fishing vessels, and owners, obscured by loopholes
New research has generated a comprehensive system for tracking and monitoring fishing vessels — from the moment they disembark from the shipyard to their eventual dismantlement at a ship graveyard —…
Invasive rats topple ecological domino that affects reef fish behavior
Damselfish can be fastidious farmers. They prune and cultivate small patches of algae, often no more than half a square meter (5 square feet) in area, ensuring they have a…
More marine protected areas planned for Indonesia’s Maluku after 2022 spree
AMBON, Indonesia — Authorities in Indonesia’s Maluku province say they will establish new marine protected areas this year, following from five created last year alone, as part of wider efforts…
Island conservation should focus on land-sea links for most impact, paper says
Stuart Sandin’s first impression of Palmyra Atoll, a remote island in the central Pacific Ocean, during a visit in 2004, was troubled. There were seabirds, but their presence was fragmented,…
Sharks received landmark protection to combat fin trade, but the culling must stop (commentary)
At CITES CoP19, also known as the World Wildlife Conference, 54 requiem shark species, including tiger and bull sharks, six hammerhead shark species and 37 species of guitarfish were added…
Indonesian ‘island auction’ to go ahead despite concerns over permits
JAKARTA — Shares of a private company with the rights to develop tourism facilities inside a marine reserve in Indonesia have reappeared for auction later this month despite the government's…
Series of small dams pose big cumulative risk to Amazon’s fish and people
Large hydropower dams that obstruct the Amazon basin have long come under fire for their environmental and cultural impact — Belo Monte being the most prominent example. Yet a bigger…
Top mangrove news of 2022
Not quite aquatic but not fully terrestrial, mangrove forests are uniquely adapted to inhabit the interface between land and sea in the warmer parts of the world. Compared to the…
Restoring Hong Kong’s oyster reefs, one abandoned oyster farm at a time
HONG KONG — Thousands of grayish, oval-shaped oysters pepper the mudflats of far northern Hong Kong, clustering together on fragments of rock lining the shoreline or clamping onto abandoned concrete…
Mongabay’s top 10 stories of 2022
By the time 2022 comes to a close, Mongabay will have published around 4,900 articles this year, including original reporting in English, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Portuguese and Spanish, as well…
2022’s top ocean news stories (commentary)
1. Negotiations for historic global plastics treaty break ground Global leaders cheered to the strike of a recycled-plastic gavel in March, signifying a landmark decision by the United Nations Environment…
Mongabay Explains: What’s all the brouhaha over bottom trawling?
When it comes to news about fishing, bottom trawling sparks some of the most dramatic stories. In September, for instance, Greenpeace activists took it upon themselves to drop 18 boulders…
Guatemala landfill feeds ‘trash islands’ hundreds of miles away in Honduras
GUATEMALA CITY — After heavy rains, hotel workers and other residents in Honduras walk up and down beaches picking up everything from plastic bottles to toys to medical waste. They’ve…
Strong marine protected areas credited with manta ray surge in Indonesia
Ocean-dwelling sharks and rays, including the majestic reef manta ray (Mobula alfredi), have declined globally by an estimated 71% since 1970 due to fishing. But a new study of reef…
Landmark bill will ban the shark fin trade in the US
The United States Senate recently passed legislation that will ban the shark fin trade, a largely unregulated industry impacting millions of sharks, within the U.S. On Dec. 15, policymakers approved…
From bombs to seasonal closure, Indonesian fishers move toward sustainability
KAHU-KAHU, Indonesia — Fishers in this village on the northwestern tip of Selayar Island, in eastern Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province, are a fortnight into a community experiment. For three months,…
Black Sea dolphin deaths prompt ecocide allegations against Russia
READER ADVISORY: This story contains images of dead cetaceans that some viewers may find disturbing. On May 9, Bogdan Bulete, regional head ranger at the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve in…
