PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea — A moratorium on deep-sea mining established by a group of Pacific island nations has struck a blow to the Solwara 1 project in Papua…
As climate change raises global sea temperatures, coral bleaching events are becoming more frequent and intense around the world. Yet researchers say some coral reefs may have found a way…
KAVIENG, Papua New Guinea — Papua New Guinea’s minister for mining confirmed in early August that a deep-sea mining company would once again be looking to mine the seafloor under…
A recent study found that locally managed marine areas in Fiji strengthened the mechanisms believed to advance conservation efforts but ultimately led to few social, economic or even ecological benefits.…
How do you make people care about protecting marine habitats and wildlife? You tell stories, says Enric Sala, an explorer-in-residence and founder of the Pristine Seas project at the National…
Across Hawai’i’s sprawling islands of towering tree ferns in the wet mountains to the night-blooming maiapilo flower on the coasts, down to the vibrant lionfish in the seas, an Indigenous…
Environmental advocates have long called for a ban on bottom trawling on seamounts in the South Pacific’s international waters, and they hoped one would finally be instituted at a regional…
Machine learning can help conservationists monitor climate impacts across large swaths of marine ecosystems over extended periods of time, a task never possible before. The Delta Maps machine learning tool…
During the 16th century, European traders sailed to the Maluku Islands, in what is today eastern Indonesia, seeking spices like nutmeg, cloves and pepper. The traders also found something else…
The black-and-white motion-triggered video looks like an outtake from a cheap horror movie: A handful of rats circle a smooth, platter-sized mound of sand. Suddenly a sea turtle hatchling appears,…
When Niueans are babies, their parents traditionally take them down to the seashore and throw them in the water so they learn to swim, Mona Ainu’u told Mongabay. That’s more…
Over the past two decades, fewer vessels have trawled the South Pacific’s high seas. Companies from only one country have kept at it, an island nation with a green reputation:…
In April 2009, ocean explorer Enric Sala and a team of marine biologists dove into the waters around the southern Line Islands, an uninhabited archipelago in the central Pacific that…
A hawksbill turtle’s protective shell is in some ways its greatest weakness. Exquisitely patterned and thick enough to sculpt, hawksbill shells are the most popular type of tortoiseshell, a material…
JAKARTA — Coastal communities in the tropics that rely heavily on both agriculture and fisheries are most vulnerable to the losses caused by high global carbon emissions, a new study…
RAROTONGA, Cook Islands – Every Saturday, a group of Cook Islands Māori youth slide into scuba gear, grab sticks from the ironwood trees (Casuarina equisetifolia) growing along Rarotonga’s beachfront, and…
Earth’s vast underwater kelp forests are a vital source of food, pharmaceuticals, and more, while storing huge amounts of carbon. These undersea forests are also at risk, but researchers are working to restore them.
LISBON — Should we mine the seabed, a part of the world rich in resources, but less mapped than the surface of the moon? A growing number of politicians, scientists…
GORO, New Caledonia – Known widely as the “Madagascar of the Pacific,” New Caledonia is coated in remnant Gondwana rainforest and surrounded by reefs rich in marine life that constitute one…
GORO, New Caledonia — On the south side of Grand Terre, the largest and principal island of New Caledonia in the south Pacific, mountains rise like a spine out of a…
Lower incomes and loss of employment were among the most urgent issues faced by fishing and seafood-processing workers in Asia and the Pacific during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an…
With a four-page letter, the Pacific island nation of Nauru pushed the world closer to a reality in which large-scale mining doesn’t just take place on land, but also in…
It’s not easy to try to describe how a dolphin experiences sound in the ocean, says Lindy Weilgart, a noise pollution expert at Dalhousie University in Canada. “We have terrestrial…
Pelenatita Kara travels regularly to the outer islands of Tonga, her low-lying Pacific Island home, to educate fishers and farmers about seabed mining. For many of the people she meets, seabed mining…
When Cindy Van Dover started working with Nautilus Minerals, a deep-sea mining company, she received hate mail from other marine scientists. Van Dover is a prolific deep-sea biologist, an oceanographer…
Humans have created so much plastic that it now exists from the slopes of Mount Everest to the extreme depths of the oceans. When we consider the effects of plastic…
500 kilometers (310 miles) off the Pacific coast of Colombia lies Malpelo Island, a barren rock that marks the center of the Malpelo Fauna and Flora Sanctuary World Heritage Site.…
Kolombangara Island forms a 30-kilometer (19-mile) circle of green in the Solomon Sea. One of more than 900 islands that make up the Solomon Islands, it is fringed by coral…
The Pacific island nation of Nauru has stated its intention to start deep-sea mining in two years’ time, despite the fact that the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the U.N.-mandated body…
A solitary whale frequently spotted in the Bohol Sea in the southern Philippines has long had a nickname: Bughaw, or "blue." Now, thanks to recently published research, the whale also…
