The global COVID-19 pandemic gives us all pause about what the future holds. Our focus and attention are on all those hurt by this terrible disease. But for many of us, this is also a time of deep reflection about society and the world we’ll inhabit when this scourge is over. So for me, it’s also a moment to reflect on the prospects for the ocean, one of the planet’s fundamental life-support systems — making it vital to human health and well-being. Read More
By Dovilė Meliauskaitė
A tool found in corporate boardrooms may soon help future-proof our fisheries.
Climate change presents new challenges to the ocean and the fishermen and fishing communities that rely on healthy ocean ecosystems. In many areas, fishermen are already seeing changes in range and abundance of a variety of species, often well outside of normal fluctuations. And scientists are grappling with making sense of increased ocean acidification, declining dissolved oxygen levels, warmer water and how those changes are affecting productivity, availability and endangered species interactions. New approaches are urgently needed to prepare for climate change impacts on fishing communities and fishery management, including along the U.S. West Coast. Read More
By Christopher Cusack, Rod Fujita and Katie Westfall
Global fisheries are at a crossroads. The demand for seafood is growing fast, and fishermen are expending ever-increasing effort to catch a declining amount of fish. We know how to fix this, and indeed, many fisheries are producing large and sustainable yields that benefit people and bring profit to fishermen. But too many marine ecosystems and communities still suffer from damaged ecosystems, illegal, unreported and unregulated fisheries and threats from human sources of pollution such as micro-plastics. And we face all of this under the increasing pressure that climate change will put on our ecosystems.
There are reasons for all this. Read More
After an hour of flying in a small plane across the Pacific Ocean with no land in sight, we began to wonder how much farther it would be before we would see land again. About two hours into the flight, the peaks of one of the three volcanic islands rose above the local cloud cover, indicating that we were arriving at the Juan Fernández Islands off the coast of Chile. As we got closer, we saw the first and largest of the islands: Robinson Crusoe Island. Read More
Much of EDF’s work in the Asia-Pacific region has focused on the small-scale fisheries, or SSF, sector — home to some of the most marginalized fishers in the world. These are people who are highly dependent on marine resources for their livelihood, often living in remote, coastal areas with few alternatives for employment. Small-scale fishers are also facing extremely dire threats — in their ability to sustain themselves and continue their way of life — from challenges like species depletion, coastal development, pollution and the growing impacts of climate change. Read More
The main focus of the United Nations COP25 in Madrid was squarely on whether and how the nations of the world could agree on the measures necessary to reduce climate change emissions in a comprehensive and forceful fashion. In that regard, COP25 did not live up to expectations nor planetary needs if we are to avert the worst impacts of climate change.
