By Safina Center Staff It took the United States decades to develop and perfect an effective fisheries management plan that helps keep enough fish to feed both the nation’s people and its animals. The landmark legislation that turned around the country’s widespread overfishing problem was called the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, passed in…
Returning to sea for the first time in nearly a decade brought back memories of the wildest three weeks of my life — when we sailed Mir down the Red Sea in July 2010 during her maiden voyage from Malta to Singapore and were faced with suffocating heat, sun-blotting dust, grumpy sharks, and the very…
By Safina Center Staff Pebble Limited Partnership is the mineral exploration corporation behind a proposed project to build a gold and copper mine in the headwaters of Bristol Bay, Alaska, imperiling the world’s last great sockeye salmon run. Environmentalists, scientists and local residents have criticized the project as a wish for certain destruction of this…
By Carl Safina and Sylvia Earle When the first World Oceans Day was held in 1992, the oceans were very different than today. The oceans were less acidic because less carbon dioxide had dissolved into them. They were a little cooler because the atmosphere was cooler. More large predatory fish like tunas and sharks existed,…
By Rachel Downey (Australia National University & British Antarctic Survey) and Claire Christian (ASOC) Sponges may historically be one of world’s greatest survivors, but on our planet, we have a number of new human-made challenges that sponges have not come up against before. The deployment of fishing gear that smash seabed habitats, the laying…
By Rachel Downey (Australia National University & British Antarctic Survey) and Claire Christian (ASOC) In our last post, we introduced you to one of nature’s underappreciated animals, the sea sponge. Sponges have been around for over 600 million years, by developing some fascinating adaptations that make them one of our greatest global survivors. Long existence…
Within a few short decades, we are faced for the first time with losing an entire ecosystem on which we depend. Humanity’s pivotal challenge to save coral reefs will be a test of our will, ingenuity and ability to collaborate globally. If we succeed, we will not only save up to a million species that…
By Rachel Downey (Australia National University & British Antarctic Survey) and Claire Christian (ASOC) Every so often, conservationists make a concerted effort to get the public to care about some humble or overlooked species. Cephalopod Awareness Day, anyone? Photos of unusual species lacking the fur or feathers typically required for cuteness, might even…
By Erica Cirino It’s been nearly 9 years since The Cove brought the story of dolphin massacres in Taiji, Japan, and the issue of captive cetaceans before the eyes of millions of people around the world. The film shows viewers the images of fishers corralling dozens of thrashing and squealing dolphins into nets set up…
Shortly after sunrise on April 2nd we successfully navigated Mir back to her mooring in Banyuwedang Bay in northwestern Bali after over three months at sea — a three months that brought us clear across the Indonesian archipelago and back, covering over 2,500 nautical miles along the way, all in the name of adventure and…
North Atlantic right whales are facing a breeding and survival crisis, due in large part to entanglements in fishing gear. Humpback whales are dying in unprecedented numbers off the Northeastern U.S., some are also casualties of entanglements while others have fatally collided with ships, and the causes of death of others are unknown. Vaquitas face…
Since my daughter Pilar was born three years ago, I became a different human being. It’s been a dream of mine to develop a series of books that will inspire and educate children, with a special emphasis on empowering young girls to dream big, and to understand they should aim for the stars to pursue…
By Shawn Heinrichs As young child growing up on the Wild Coast of South Africa, the ocean I knew was a very different place than the ocean we know now. The ocean of my childhood was vast and unfathomably bountiful, where billions of sardines migrated annually in shoals so vast and dense, that they turned…
Sailing S/V Mir through remote Raja Ampat has been like traveling back in time to a wilder, less-peopled world. I spend a lot of time imagining what this planet was like even just a few centuries ago, before people began altering Earth’s living systems on a global scale. Human beings have been leaving their mark…
The Biosphere Foundation’s crew aboard S/V Mir recently spent ten days working on reef restoration and education projects on the island of Mansuar in Raja Ampat. While there, we were reunited with some very special people. You might even call them heroes. Sutama Pak Ketut Sutama is a self-motivated, grassroots, ocean conservationist, which in…
