Ghana has adopted a new fisheries act that introduces a series of regulations aimed at restoring severely depleted pelagic fish stocks and tackling illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. “The…
NAIVASHA, Kenya — It was still dark when the call came. Grace Nyambura, known to her neighbors in Karagita as Mama Chuma, was asleep when she got a call from…
For nearly two decades, Alejandro González has stood on the front lines of marine conservation in Mexico, from the coral-fringed reefs of Cabo Pulmo to the remote volcanic outposts of…
In the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, local communities are leading the charge against environmental crime — and they’re succeeding. Our new peer-reviewed study published in Conservation Biology has found…
ASTURIAS, Spain, and YUCATÁN, Mexico — On a mild February morning, Isaac Blanco quickly places half a sardine into each cage as his brother, Julio, steers their boat along the…
They live in the ocean’s coldest, darkest depths, far from sight — but cold-water corals are far from safe. In a first-of-its-kind study published in Marine Biodiversity in June, a…
“I lost my sons, nephews, and grandson in this tragedy. I lost my older brother’s son. I can say that I lost almost ten relatives in this shipwreck. It is…
Among the many spectacular reef fishes swimming the Indo-Pacific corals, from Africa to Oceania, is the big-eyed, bulge-faced, thick-lipped, blue-green humphead wrasse, also known as the Napoleon wrasse. It’s among…
Tiny, translucent and no longer than a finger, juvenile European eels, also known as glass eels, might not look like much. But demand for these slippery creatures, particularly in East…
Vietnam’s first marine protected area, Nha Trang Bay, has lost nearly 200 hectares (494 acres) of coral reef since its creation in 2002, a new study shows. The alarming decline…
Overfishing in Southeast Asia’s coastal waters has been reported since the 1970s, driven by overcapacity, high demand and population growth. While most studies point to the depletion of nearshore fisheries,…
COLOMBO — The Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar have long served as rich fishing grounds, providing bountiful harvests to Sri Lanka’s northern coastal communities. However, fishing activity in…
Over the past few decades, the harvesting of the Cortez oyster in western Mexico’s Marismas Nacionales — or the Marshes Biosphere Reserve — in Nayarit state has shifted from suffering…
Fewer than 150 Malayan tigers remain in their home range of Peninsular Malaysia. Poaching to supply an illegal trade in their body parts is a major threat to the survival…
Panamanian authorities seized six longliner vessels on Jan. 20 for fishing illegally in protected waters. They also opened an investigation into an additional 10 vessels that surveillance data showed had…
Martín Maceda can still rattle off the exact date of his most memorable fishing encounter. On March 1, 2014, he was 8 kilometers (5 miles) off the north coast of…
Fisheries observers hold a job little known by the general public but essential to the health of the oceans: monitoring the work on industrial fishing vessels. The sector has its…
ROBERTSPORT, Liberia — The sun was scorching hot in the town of Robertsport as James Dayougar shook debris from his nets, which he’d just returned from fishing with moments earlier.…
MEXICO CITY — Fewer than 10 vaquitas, the world’s smallest porpoise, survive in the wild today, experts say. Illegal fishing has decimated their population in the Gulf of California, the…
Bottom trawling, a fishing technique in which vessels drag weighted nets along the seafloor, has long been condemned by conservationists for disrupting seabed habitat and capturing species indiscriminately. Yet it…
TANJUNG LEIDONG, Indonesia — At around 5:30 a.m., after the tide starts to recede, Zulkifli Dalimunthe rushes to the shore a stone’s throw from his house, where he anchors his…
Evolution has perfected the world’s sharks and rays for more than 420 million years. Unlike the ammonites or pterosaurs that they once shared the oceans with, sharks and rays persevered…
In Cabo Verde, as in many low-income countries in Africa, the historical record of fish catch is incomplete, making it hard to know what’s been lost and what’s required to…
It’s 4 a.m., and a group of fishers in the city of Chimbote, 422 kilometers (262 miles) north of Lima, have arrived at the rocks of Campamento Atahualpa and Vesique…
In the late 1990s, swordfish had been so overfished in the North Atlantic Ocean that its population faced the possibility of collapse. The dire situation sparked boycotts and conservation campaigns…
Mackerel and herring in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, near Europe, have been dramatically overfished for many years, endangering the stocks and creating potential knock-on effects for marine mammals and seabirds…
Lack of transparency is a constant in the Chinese fleet dedicated to squid fishing in South American waters. Turning off their satellite-tracking systems, duplicating their identities within satellite-based monitoring systems,…
SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia — Cambodia has a marine mammal problem. Dolphins, dugongs and other species are caught and killed in fishers’ nets or wash up dead on beaches regularly, but no one…
A decade ago, the overfishing of sea cucumber (Isostichopus badionotus) was the center of controversy in Celestún, a small community in the state of Yucatán, Mexico. Extraction of the coveted…
ROBERTSPORT, Liberia — “We depend only on the sea for our survival. How will we manage when the sea is closed?” Mamie Freeman was seated atop a beached canoe in…
LAMONGAN, Indonesia — Sulaiman is so practiced at stripping a zebra shark that he can skin the animal in just a few minutes. He sticks a knife into the meter-long…
A law that would protect a massive stretch of Argentina’s seafloor is running out of time for a parliamentary vote, and conservationists are racing to raise awareness before they run…
