The world dumps 2,000 truckloads of plastic into the ocean each day. Here’s where a lot of it ends up – CNN
The western coast of Java in Indonesia is popular with surfers for its world-famous breaks. There’s a majestic underwater world to explore, too. But it’s impossible to surf or snorkel without running into plastic water bottles, single-use cups and food wrappers. The garbage sometimes forms islands in the sea, and much of it washes ashore, accumulating as mountains on the beach…
The Gulf Coast is home to one of the last healthy coral reefs. It’s surrounded by oil – Grist Magazine
While the Gulf of Mexico is a region known for oil, it’s also home to something far less expected. Nestled among offshore oil platforms, about 150 miles from Houston, is one of the healthiest coral reefs in the world: the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary….
Naomi Longa wins 2024 Whitley Award for coral reef conservation in Coral Triangle – Oceanographic Magazine
Last night, the 2024 winners of the Whitley Awards were announced in London. Amongst other grassroot activists, Naomi Longa was given the prestigious award for her inspiring work with the Sea Women of Melanesia…
What will it take to get companies to embrace reusable packaging? – Grist Magazine
The Philippine capital is the latest city to address rampant plastic pollution through a community-guided protocol.
Add sand, lose sand, repeat. The climate conundrum for beaches – E&E News
Rebuilding beaches after hurricanes is costing U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars more than expected as the Army Corps of Engineers pumps mountains of sand onto storm-obliterated shorelines…
‘Like wildfires underwater’: Worst summer on record for Great Barrier Reef as coral die-off sweeps planet – CNN World
Rising sea temperatures around the planet have caused a bleaching event that is expected to be the most extensive on record…
Great Barrier Reef’s worst bleaching leaves giant coral graveyard: ‘It looks as if it has been carpet bombed’ – the Guardian
Last month the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority released a report warning that the reef was experiencing “the highest levels of thermal stress on record”. The authority’s chief scientist, Dr Roger Beeden, spoke of extensive and uniform bleaching across the southern reefs, which had dodged the worst of much of the previous four mass bleaching events to blight the Great Barrier Reef since 2016…
Corals are bleaching in every corner of the ocean, threatening its web of life – the Washington Post
First around Fiji, then the Florida Keys, then Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and now in the Indian Ocean. In the past year, anomalous ocean temperatures have left a trail of devastation for the world’s corals, bleaching entire reefs and threatening widespread coral mortality — and now, scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and International Coral Reef Initiative say the world is experiencing its fourth global bleaching event, the second in the last decade…
The Widest-Ever Global Coral Crisis Will Hit Within Weeks, Scientists Say – the New York Times
The world’s coral reefs are in the throes of a global bleaching event caused by extraordinary ocean temperatures…It is the fourth such global event on record and is expected to affect more reefs than any other. Bleaching occurs when corals become so stressed that they lose the symbiotic algae they need to survive. Bleached corals can recover, but if the water surrounding them is too hot for too long, they die…