Marine Reserves Enhance Resilience to Climate Change
A new study, led by a University of Southampton scientist, highlights the potential for fish communities in marine reserves to resist climate change impacts better than communities on fished coasts.
The Squeeze On Europe’s Coastline Continues
“Balancing the future of Europe’s coasts”, a new report from the European Environment Agency (EEA), argues that Europe needs to improve its knowledge to better understand the long-term damaging effects of current human and economic pressures on the coastal environment, jeopardizing the essential maintenance of the natural capital.
Rate Of Coastal Wetlands Loss Has Sped Up
The U.S. lost an average of 80,000 acres of coastal wetlands from 2004 to 2009, according to the latest data published by federal agencies. More than 70 percent of the estimated loss came in the Gulf of Mexico; nationwide, most of the loss was blamed on development that incurred on freshwater wetlands.
The Landscape Can Protect Our Health, If We Can Protect The Landscape
Friday marks the final day of the United Nations COP19 climate change conference in Warsaw, Poland. One issue intersecting both global warming and extreme weather has received little attention: how changes to the natural landscape may be putting public health at greater risk…
Ubiquitous. Vital. Delicate. Vulnerable
Ocean acidification has taken up an unlikely mascot: the shelled pteropod. While “charismatic megafauna,” the large creatures that pull at our heartstrings, are typically the face of environmental problems, think polar bears on a shrinking iceberg and oil-slicked pelicans, these tiny sea snails couldn’t be more different.
Texas Oyster Reef Restoration Project Begins In Gulf Of Mexico
A deep sea oyster reef restoration being touted as the largest ever in the Gulf of Mexico began in an unlikely place: a quarry in landlocked Missouri.
Antarctic Marine Reserve Threatened By Sunset Clause
Talks to create the world’s two largest marine reserves in the Antarctic could be undermined by a last-ditch push for a “sunset clause” that would allow protections from fishing and oil drilling to be stripped away in the future, conservationists have warned.
Evidence of Unsustainable Fishing in the Great Barrier Reef
Sea cucumber fishing in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park shows worrying signs of being unsustainable. Many species being targeted are endangered and vulnerable to extinction, as determined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Fossil Record Shows Crustaceans Vulnerable as Modern Coral Reefs Decline
Many ancient crustaceans went extinct following a massive collapse of reefs across the planet, and new University of Florida research suggests modern species living in rapidly declining reef habitats may now be at risk.