The Speed of Change: Oceans in Distress, An International Report

Sponsored by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), the 27 participants from 18 organisations in 6 countries produced a grave assessment of current threats, and a stark conclusion about future risks to marine and human life if the current trajectory of damage continues: that the world’s ocean is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history.

Northwest Coast of Madagascar

The Betsiboka Estuary on the northwest coast is the mouth of Madagascar’s largest river and one of the world’s fast-changing coastlines. Nearly a century of extensive logging of rainforests and coastal mangroves has resulted in nearly complete clearing of the land and dramatic rates of erosion. Astronauts describe their view of Madagascar as “bleeding into the ocean.”

A Giant Brought to Its Knees: The Atlantic Coastal Forest

The Atlantic Forest is a shadow of its former self. Originally covering more than 386,000 sq. miles along Brazil’s coast, extending into eastern Paraguay and northeastern Argentina. Today less than 7% of that cover remains, in the wake of centuries of forest clearing for agriculture and urban development, and fragmented by centuries of unsustainable use and logging.

Division over future of Chagos islands and islanders

Meeting in London addresses environmental issues surrounding the ban on inhabitation of the Indian Ocean archipelago. The central question was how to balance the archipelago’s environmental importance with its original inhabitants’ argued right to go home.

New Rights Challenge to Belo Monte Dam in Brazil

A group of independent Brazilian scientists, who recently studied the environmental impact report, concluded that the project was not viable. The Xingú river basin is home to four times more biodiversity that the whole of Europe.