Managing Global Coasts

The IUCN Global Marine and Polar Programme (GMPP) recently released their latest annual report.  This looks back on 10 years of collaboration with the Total Foundation, celebrates new advances in global marine protected area coverage and reports on GMPP's work from around the world, as well as that of IUCN's Regions, Commissions and partners. 

Read the full report  and review previous reports.

Photo courtesy of IUCN

The Convention on Biological Diversity brings focus to the remote ocean

Kristina Gjerde, Senior High Seas Advisor, IUCN Global Marine and Polar Programme reports on the developments from the 11th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Hyderabad, India (8-19 October) - which last week took an important step for the global ocean commons, the largest habitat for life on Earth. 

Oceana finds never before seen species and litter in the Gorringe Seamounts

Regarded as an untouched enclave in the Atlantic, the Gorringe now displays signs of pollution due to human activity.   Deep-sea sharks, hydrocoral, glass sponges and black coral, among the new findings in these seamounts. 

Stop Bankrupting Our Oceans

For 30 years Europe’s Fisheries Ministers have made poor decisions that have resulted in overfishing, sending our fishing industry into decline. Now many European fishing fleets concentrate their fishing efforts elsewhere, increasing the pressure on fish stocks globally. If this continues we will bankrupt our oceans and our fishing economy.  

Marine scientists charting the location of North Atlantic deep-sea coral reefs

A team of marine biologists and geologists have unveiled the first-ever set of maps detailing where vulnerable deep-sea habitats including cold water coral reefs and sponge fields are likely to be found in the North East Atlantic.

The team from Plymouth University, the Marine Biological Association, and the British Geological Survey, have used complex modelling techniques to chart a surface area more than three times the size of the UK's terrestrial boundaries.

Illegal Bluefin: Challenges to Accurately Counting Bluefin in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean

The eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean stock of bluefin tuna (BFTE) has long been below a healthy population level. Although the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which manages bluefin in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, has significantly reduced quotas in recent years, several independent studies indicate that the actual catch of bluefin greatly exceeds annual quotas due to substantial illegal fishing. 

Deep trouble for deep-water species

A new study reveals severe mismanagement of European deep-water stocks, according to this week’s online version of the journal Ocean & Coastal Management.

Sebastian Villasante and coauthors have analyzed scientific recommendations and total allowable catches concerning deep-sea fish stocks from 2002 to 2011. This is the first systematic analysis of the efficacy of the EU management regime for deepwater species. The study concludes that in 60% of cases, quotas for deep-sea species were higher than the value recommended by scientists and that the catch exceeded the quotas in 50% of cases.