Oceans, seas and marine resources

Photo: Dugong mother and offspring from East Timor. Credit: Nick Hobgood | Wikimedia Commons.

Global Meeting Decides to Protect Sea Cows and their Habitats

By Jaya Ramachandran

BERLIN | ABU DHABI (IDN) – There is a glimmer of hope for Dugongs, also known as sea cows, and their seagrass habitats. The endangered species, which has been under threat by human activity such as entanglement in fishing gear, collision with boats and habitat loss, occurs across the East coast of Africa, South-East Asia, Pacific Islands and Australia.

Governments of 23 out of the 40 countries that are home to the Dugong have agreed in Abu Dhabi to work with the Dugong and seagrass research and conservation community to undertake more standardized research and monitoring activities as a prerequisite for devising tailored conservation measures in their own countries. They were guided by the conviction that better coordination of surveys and data exchange on Dugong populations between countries will improve transboundary protection.

: Jaya Ramachandran; UN INSIDER; 16 March 2017

Photo: Photo: Dugong | Copyright: Mandy Etipson

Loss of Seagrass Meadows Threatens their Dugong Denizens

By Dr. Thani Ahmed Al Zeyoudi and Dr. Bradnee Chambers

Dr. Thani Ahmed Al Zeyoudi is the Minister of Climate Change and Environment of the United Arab Emirates and Dr. Bradnee Chambers is the Executive Secretary of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals.

Note: This article is an updated version of the one published on 9 March 2017. - Editor

BONN (IDN) - The on-going bleaching of coral in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef continues to generate great concern worldwide. Islands of plastic waste in the oceans contaminating the food chain make the headlines. So why then is there a deafening silence on the deteriorating condition of the world’s seagrasses?

: Dr. Bradnee Chambers; OPINION; 13 March 2017

Photo: Representatives of the CARICOM Secretariat and senior environment officials of the Caribbean Community at the CARICOM Regional Workshop on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity beyond Areas of National Jurisdiction

Caribbean Gearing Up for Marine Resources Treaty

By Desmond Brown

BELMOPAN, Belize (IDN) – The countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have been fine-tuning their positions ahead of the next United Nations preparatory meeting to establish an international legally-binding agreement on sustainable use of marine resources.

The UN meeting is scheduled for March 27 to April 7 and senior environment experts from CARICOM held a two-day workshop here from February 20-22 to discuss the issue.

United Nations negotiations for the new treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological resources in the world’s oceans – nearly 64 percent of which lie beyond national jurisdictions – began in 2016.

: Desmond L. Brown; THE WORLD; Latin America & the Caribbean; 09 March 2017

Image: Three of the major groups of islands in the Pacific Ocean. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

South Pacific: ‘Sea-Level Rise’ Migrants Posing a Problem

By Henry Oritimae and Sonal Shivangani*

This is the second in a series of features on the South Pacific produced in collaboration with Wansolwara, an independent student newspaper of the University of the South Pacific.

SUVA, Fiji (IDN) - With sea levels rising rapidly across the South Pacific and the resulting movement of people within and across countries, the region is facing a new problem of a lack of proper migration policies to address the issue, according to experts.

Inhabitants of artificial islands in the Soloman Islands are migrating to settle in the bigger islands because of sea-level rise and coastal inundation.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; HUMAN RIGHTS; Migration; 15 December 2016

Photo: Dr. Alfonso Aguirre-Muñoz, Executive Director of Grupo de Ecología y Conservación de Islas, A.C. (Mexico) Dr. Yury Darman, Director of WWF-Russia Amur Branch (Russia) and Dr. Vandana Shiva, Founder and Director of Navdanya (India)

UN Honours Three Activists for Biodiversity Protection

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) - The United Nations has honoured activists for their relentless commitment to biodiversity protection: India's Dr. Vandana Shiva, Founder and Director of Navdanya, Mexico's Dr. Alfonso Aguirre-Muñoz, Executive Director of Grupo de Ecología y Conservación de Islas, A.C., and Russia's Dr. Yury Darman, Director of WWF-Russia Amur Branch.

They received the prestigious MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity at an Award Ceremony on December 2, 2016 in Cancún, Mexico, in conjunction with the high-level segment of the thirteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 15 December 2016

Photo: Adelie penguins in Antarctica. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Peace in Antarctica Exemplary for International Relations

By Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - In 1772, sailing to the far south, Captain James Cook deflated the prevailing myth of Antarctica, that it was a temperate land, fertile and populated. Although he never landed on the continent he saw the vast icebergs, the frozen sea and the “worst weather anywhere in the world”. He wrote that “it is a continent doomed by nature” and doubted that man would ever find a use for it.

The words had not been long out of his mouth before governments started to make tentative grabs. The British were the first to make a move, claiming sovereignty on the grounds that the government needed to regulate commercial whaling.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 15 November 2016

Credit: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

Scientists Warn of the Perils of Sea-level Rise

BERLIN (IDN) - During the past millennia sea level has never risen nearly as fast as during the last century, says a new study. It warns that even if ambitious climate policy follows the 2015 Paris Agreement, sea levels would rise by 20 to 60 centimetres by 2100 and stresses the importance of coastal protection.

The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) has in fact come to the conclusion that sea levels worldwide might rise by 50 to 130 centimetres by the end of this century if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced rapidly. For the first time it combines the two most important estimation methods for future sea level rise and yields a more robust risk range.