Saturday, June 30, 2018

Will NOAA Change Mission Statement?, Plastic Ban In Mumbai and Chile, Arctic and Atlantic Oceans Joining ...

1. More Business, Less Protection? Will NOAA Mission Statement Morph? Conflicting Reports: Yes? No?

change, profits, climate
The United States' top weather, climate, and ocean science agency – NOAA – will not drop "climate" from its mission statement nor will it de-emphasize research into climate change and resource conservation, the agency said Monday. The first line of NOAA's mission statement is "to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts." According to the Union, Gallaudet proposed last week that it be changed to "observe, understand and predict atmospheric and ocean conditions."

Yes: Read more...
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No: Read More...                                
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2. Judge Dismisses Suit Against Oil Companies Over Climate Change Costs




A federal judge on Monday threw out a closely watched lawsuit brought by two California cities against fossil fuel companies over the costs of dealing with climate change. The decision is a stinging defeat for the plaintiffs, San Francisco and Oakland, and raises warning flags for other local governments around the United States that have filed similar suits, including New York City.

 Read more...

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3. All disposable plastic banned in Mumbai and surrounding state


All disposable plastic has been banned in Mumbai - a city of 21 million people - and the Indian state it is part of. State authorities in Maharashtra - which has nearly twice the population of the UK - say they are responding to a major pollution problem.
The legislation kicked in at the weekend, and also includes a ban on plastic bags and products made out of polystyrene.

Read more...
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4. Super Rare Giant Sponge Discovered in Seahorse Hotspot


seahorse, hotspotA seahorse survey conducted by Fauna & Flora International (FFI) and its partners in Cambodia's first dedicated marine protected area has served up a spectacular surprise in the shape of a super-sized – and incredibly rare – sponge, the first official record for the country. Resembling a giant wine goblet, Neptune's cup sponge has acquired almost legendary status among marine biologists, not least because it went missing for over a century. Until its rediscovery in Singapore waters in 2011, the species had not been seen alive since 1908 and was widely considered to be extinct.


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5. Plastic Pollution has Spread Everywhere on Earth

spread, global, experts, warn
Experts have warned plastic pollution is "slowly killing the human race" as it has spread to every part of the Earth. Shocking data revealed traces of microplastics were found even in remote parts of the Southern Ocean, hundreds of miles away from land. Turn The Tide on Plastic, a vessel currently competing in Volvo's Ocean Race, collected the seawater samples during its 45,000-mile journey across the world. High readings of plastic were detected close to largely populated areas, with the Western Mediterranean showing 307 particles per cubic meter of seawater, Sky News reported.


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6. Part of the Arctic Sea is Transitioning into the Atlantic Ocean 
Scientists studying one of the fastest-warming regions of the global ocean say changes in this region are so sudden and vast that in effect, it will soon be another limb of the Atlantic, rather than a characteristically icy Arctic sea. The northern Barents Sea, to the north of Scandinavia and east of the remote archipelago of Svalbard, has warmed extremely rapidly – by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit just since the year 2000 – standing out even in the fastest warming part of the globe, the Arctic.

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7. India among eight nations gets funds for marine conservation
Eight nations, including India, around the Bay of Bengal, were brought together on Monday to develop and agree on a programme for ocean governance with a tranche of multi-million dollars through financial institution Global Environment Facility (GEF) to tackle unsustainable fisheries. This will help in conserving a region rich in marine resources on which some 450 million people depend.

                      
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8. Chile Joins Other Latin Countries and Bids Good-Bye to Plastic Bags
On 30 May, Chile became the first South American country to approve a nationwide ban on single-use plastic bags, garnering congratulations from around the world for its efforts to beat plastic pollution ahead of World Environment Day on 5 June. In 2017, under the presidency of Michelle Bachelet, the country banned the use of plastic bags in 100 coastal communities. But the government of current President Sebastián Piñera decided to take things one step further, proposing to the Congress to extend the measure nationwide.


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Sea Save Foundation is committed to raising awareness of marine conservation. The Week in Review is a team effort produced by the Sea Save staff to provide a weekly summary of the latest in marine research, policy, and news.

Friday, June 22, 2018

Week in Review June 22, 2018: White House Repeals Policy Protecting Oceans, Dynamite Fishing Decimates, McDonald's to Switch to Paper Straws, Microbead Ban In Full Effect and more

Week in Review June 22, 2018:





1. Trump Rescinds Obama Policy Protecting Oceans

President Trump is repealing a controversial executive order drafted by former President Obama that was meant to protect the Great Lakes and the oceans bordering the United States. In his own executive order signed late Tuesday, Trump put a new emphasis on industries that use the oceans, particularly oil and natural gas drilling, while also mentioning environmental stewardship. “Ocean industries employ millions of Americans and support a strong national economy,” the new order states, mentioning energy production, the military, freight transportation and other industries.


Read More... and Original Whitehouse Release


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2. In the Philippines, Dynamite Fishing Decimates Entire Ocean Food Chains


Nothing beats dynamite fishing for sheer efficiency. A fisherman in this scattering of islands in the central Philippines balanced on a narrow outrigger boat and launched a bottle bomb into the sea with the ease of a quarterback.
It exploded in a violent burst, rocking the bottom of our boat and filling the air with an acrid smell. Fish bobbed onto the surface, dead or gasping their last breaths.
Under the water, coral shattered into rubble.

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3. McDonald’s to Switch to Paper Straws in Britain as Country Turns Against Plastic 

Plastic, BritainLONDON — The queen has backed efforts to curb the use of plastics. The Church of England has encouraged a similar push. The British government plans to legislate to require it. Increasingly, companies here in Britain and elsewhere are joining that campaign, too. On Friday, McDonald’s became the latest to do so. The fast-food chain outlined plans to phase out plastic straws across its 1,361 restaurants in Britain, which currently use 1.8 million plastic straws a day, by the end of next year.

Read More...
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4. Marine Protected Areas Are Important. But Are They Working?

Ocean, ConservancyThe world won't meet international ocean conservation targets by 2020, so a team of scientists is looking at what's next for saving our seas.
You can think of a marine protected area like a boost of vitamin C taken at the onset of a cold. It may not cure you, but it can help you bounce back. These protected ocean spaces, when defended well, won't solve all the problems in the world's oceans, but they might give us a fighting chance against afflictions like climate change or overfishing.

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5. Turning Ocean Plastic into Art and Fuel in British Columbia

How a Canadian organization is setting an example on how to tackle plastic pollution and turn it into an opportunity. There are approximately 268,000 tonnes of plastic floating in our oceans, which equates to an average of five trillion individual pieces. It is now believed that plastic waste can be found on every beach in the world, from the busiest beaches to the most isolated and uninhabited islands. The plastic debris not only harms ocean ecosystems but also find its way to the world's coasts and into the food chain. More than one million seabirds and over 100,000 marine mammals die every year from ingesting plastic - and these numbers are set to increase.

Read More...
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6. IFOP and Conservation Organization Join Forces to Promote Sustainable Fisheries

Chile, NGO, TNC
The Fisheries Development Institute (IFOP) and conservation NGO The Nature Conservancy (TNC) signed a collaboration agreement on Friday that promotes joint research activities to advance the sustainability of fisheries in the Chilean coast and contribute to the protection of the marine ecosystem of the country. The four-year agreement will develop and expand the tools to improve monitoring, surveillance and assessment programs of the main Chilean fisheries, which is the main purpose of IFOP.

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7. Leaked UN Draft Report Warns of the Urgent Need to Cut Global Warming

Climate chageThe world is on track to exceed 1.5C of warming unless countries rapidly implement “far-reaching” actions to reduce carbon emissions, according to a draft UN report leaked to Reuters. The final draft report from the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) was due for publication in October. It is the guiding scientific document for what countries must do to combat climate change.

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8.  CA Bill Could Fund Research To Track Sharks In Real Time With Drones, Robots 

California, RobotsA recently passed state bill could provide millions to help study and track sharks off the California coast and give lifeguards and beach-goers valuable information. Assembly Bill 2191 passed the California Legislature Thursday and would provide $3.75 million to California State University, Long Beach’s Shark Lab to record the predators’ moving patterns, The Orange County Register reported.

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9.  MBARI Researchers Describe Abundant Marine Life at 'White Shark Cafe' 


White Shark, Cafe, Abundant, Monterey Bay, AquariumAn interdisciplinary group of researchers from Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, MBARI, and the Schmidt Ocean Institute conducted a month-long research cruise to the “White Shark Café.”
Halfway between California and Hawaii, this remote part of the Pacific Ocean is a gathering area for white sharks, and the researchers were trying to find out why.

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10. The Ocean Is Getting More Acidic—What That Actually Means

AcidityATLANTIC CITY, NJ Grace Saba steadies herself on the back of a gently rocking boat as she and her crew slide a six-foot long yellow torpedo into the sea. A cheer erupts as the device surfaces, turns on its electronic signal, and begins a three-week journey along the New Jersey coast.
Saba is an assistant professor of marine ecology at Rutgers University, where she is studying how fish, clams, and other creatures are reacting to rising levels of ocean acidity.

Read More...

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11. NASA, NSF Plunge Into Ocean ‘Twilight Zone’ to Explore Ecosystem Carbon Flow

A large multidisciplinary team of scientists, equipped with advanced underwater robotics and an array of analytical instrumentation, will set sail for the northeastern Pacific Ocean this August. The team’s mission for NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) is to study the life and death of the small organisms that play a critical role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and in the ocean’s carbon cycle.

Read more...
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12.  Local Interventions Boost Coral's Resilience to Bleaching

Local conservation actions, like rounding up predatory snails, can significantly boost the resilience of corals to climate-induced bleaching, according to a study led by Duke University researchers. The study, published June 18 in Nature Ecology & Evolution, comes at a time when scientists are deeply divided over whether local efforts to protect and manage coral reefs are enough to help stem the global tide of thermal bleaching that’s decimating corals worldwide as ocean temperatures continue to warm.
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13.  World Leading Microbeads Ban Comes into Force

A ban on the sale of products containing microbeads has come into force today as part of the Government’s world-leading efforts to prevent these harmful pieces of plastic entering the marine environment. From today, retailers across England and Scotland will no longer be able to sell rinse-off cosmetics and personal care products that contain microbeads – the tiny pieces of plastic often added to products such as face scrubs, soaps, toothpaste and shower gels.

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14.  Department of Primary Industries Re-opens Celito South and Fiona Beach to Hand Line Fishing in the Marine Park

Environment, ProtectionThe state government has given recreational fishers the green light to cast a line at 10 beaches and headland reserves between Batemans Bay and Cape Byron that were previously under Marine Parks protection but the exercise has been labeled a missed opportunity in Port Stephens. The beaches were placed out of bounds for fishers when Marine Parks were established over 10 years ago for environmental reasons.

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15.  Rare Manta Ray Nursery Discovered 

Rare
Marine biologist Josh Stewart was floating underwater, looking up at the manta ray that materialized out of the blue above him, when he did a double take: The animal was a juvenile, only a few feet across—nowhere near as big as a mature giant manta ray, which can be as wide across as a giraffe is tall.

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16.  Marine reserves are vital — but under pressure

Vital, Study, Coral, ReefA massive study of nearly 1800 tropical coral reefs around the world has found that marine reserves near heavily populated areas struggle to do their job—but are a vast improvement over having no protection at all. Professor Josh Cinner from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University led a team of 37 scientists examining the effectiveness of different reef conservation strategies.

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17.  Sustainable seafood distributor reportedly lied about tuna source

Sustainable, SeafoodEven after winter storms left US east coast harbors thick with ice, some of the country’s top chefs and trendy restaurants were offering sushi-grade tuna supposedly pulled in fresh off the coast of New York. But it was just an illusion. No tuna was landing there. The fish had long since migrated to warmer waters.

Read More...
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Be sure to "LIKE" http://facebook.com/SeaSave to ensure our "Week in Review" is delivered to your newsfeed every Friday. 

Sea Save Foundation is committed to raising awareness of marine conservation. The Week in Review is a team effort produced by the Sea Save staff to provide a weekly summary of the latest in marine research, policy, and news.

Saturday, June 16, 2018

Week in Review June 15, 2018: Bilbo Baggins Lends Name to Hairy-Footed Shrimp, Algae Bloom Obliterates Fish Farms, Additional Retailers Refuse Plastics and More

1. Algae Bloom Obliterates Two British Columbia Fish Farms

algae bloom, fish farms, British Columbia
Algae blooms killed around 250,000 salmon at two British Columbia fish farms last week. About half of the fish at Grieg Seafood’s farms in Jervis Inlet died from the harmful blooms of Heterosigma algae, according to a release by the company. Because the algae was in “extraordinarily high concentration” and spread throughout the water, protective measures could not prevent the extensive kill, it said.


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2. Ikea, Royal Caribbean and Sea World Are Getting Rid of Plastic Straws and Bags

plastic bottle recycling, ChinaLess than two weeks after a pilot whale died off Thailand with 80 plastic bags in its stomach, three major companies- SeaWorld, Ikea and Royal Caribbean - have vowed to remove plastic straws and bags from their properties.  The companies are now linked to a host of businesses, governments and others across the world that have joined an effort to dramatically reduce the 8 million metric tons of plastic that pollute oceans each year — “one garbage truck into the ocean every minute,” according to a 2016 report released by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Read More...
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3. Scientists Explore Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Discover Dramatic Mountain Range

ROV, Deep Sea SpongesA multi-national team of ocean exploration experts led by Dr. Aggie Georgiopoulou, University College Dublin, returned to Galway on World Ocean Day (8th June 2018) after spending three and half weeks exploring and mapping the tectonic spreading at the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge on the Marine Institute’s RV Celtic Explorer.  Using the remotely operated vehicle Holland I, “we collected spectacular film footage of sponge gardens and even a skate nursery at 2000m under the sea. A discovery of more than 70 skate eggs was found, which is a first for the deep-sea” explained Chief Scientist Dr. Aggie Georgiopoulou.
Read more...

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4. Shrimp Species With 'Extremely Hairy Feet' Named For Bilbo Baggins


Indonesia, shrimp, Bilbo BagginsIf you’re a fan of JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, then you’ll be excited to learn that a newly discovered shrimp species has been named after Bilbo Baggins, the Hobbit who started the entire fantastical quest when he accidentally obtained the One Ring of power from Smeagol. A new species of shrimp found in Indonesia has been named after Bilbo Baggins because of its small size and eight extremely hairy pereiopods -- feet -- and inspired its fanciful scientific name, Odontonia bagginsi.
Read more...

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5. Antarctic Ice Loss Has Excellerated Three Fold During Past Decade

Antarctica, Antarctica Ice Loss
Antarctica is melting, and it’s happening at a much faster rate than scientists previously anticipated.  According to a study published in Nature on Wednesday, losses in Antarctica’s ice sheets—which hold 60 to 90 percent of Earth’s fresh water, The New York Times’ Kendra Pierre-Louis notes—have tripled since 2007.  The study presents the most comprehensive analysis of Antarctic ice loss to date, drawing on 24 surveys conducted by 84 scientists from 44 institutions. These researchers estimate that a decade ago, Antarctica lost ice at a rate of 73 billion metric tons per year. Now, that figure is up to 219 billion tons of ice lost per year, a staggering rate that scientists say, could raise sea levels six inches by 2100.

Read more...

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6. Great Barrier Reef - Gets Fertility Treatment

Australia, Great Barrier Reef, Coral Reef Bleaching, Coral IVFA coral fertility treatment designed to help heal damaged parts of Australia's Great Barrier Reef is showing signs of success and now needs to be scaled up to create a bigger impact, the lead scientist tells CNN.  Peter Harrison, a professor at Southern Cross University in Australia, said he is "excited by the results" which show the experimental process known as "coral IVF" is working on a small scale. Recently returned from a trip to the reef, Harrison said his team managed to "significantly increase" the numbers of baby coral on reefs at Heron Island and One Tree Island, where they laid millions of coral larvae 18 months ago.
Read more...

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Be sure to "LIKE" http://facebook.com/SeaSave to ensure our "Week in Review" is delivered to your newsfeed every Friday. 

Sea Save Foundation is committed to raising awareness of marine conservation. The Week in Review is a team effort produced by the Sea Save staff to provide a weekly summary of the latest in marine research, policy, and news.