https://phys.org/news/2019-12-adventurers-arctic-ocean-thinning-ice.html
Marine Genetic Resources: Building Capacities for Ocean Governance
17 December 2019 at 4 pm – 5.30 pm (CET / UTC +1)
Through the Ocean Awards, we aim to highlight the plight of our oceans and to celebrate and aid the pioneering individuals who are bringing about change.
The nomination process for 2020 will open at the Awards ceremony on Monday 10 June and remain open until Friday 13 December 2019
https://www.witf.org/2019/11/29/what-can-be-saved-sanctuaries-safeguard-...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/29/call-for-australia-t...
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/trump-plan-push-seafloor-mapping...
Aquaculture production is an increasingly important component of global seafood production. Seafood production from aquaculture has expanded nearly six-fold 
since 1990, while capture fisheries production has remained relatively stagnant. According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization’s most recent analysis of global fisheries and aquaculture, seafood production from aquaculture (excluding seaweeds) exceeded production from marine capture fisheries for the first time in 2016.[i]
Aquaculture’s reputation is mixed, however. It obviously has the potential to feed many people, but it has is associated with a number of observed and potential negative environmental impacts, including:
This negative view obscures the incredible diversity of aquaculture types and their diverse interactions with marine environments. Aquaculture enterprises vary in:
Editor’s note: Thierry Chopin is a professor of marine biology and director of the Seaweed and Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Research Laboratory at the University of New Brunswick in Canada. He is also president of Chopin Coastal Health Solutions Inc. His research focuses on the ecophysiology/biochemistry/cultivation of seaweeds and the development of Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) for environmental sustainability, economic stability, and societal acceptability.
Chopin: With IMTA, farmers cultivate species from different trophic levels and with complementary ecosystem functions in proximity. They combine fed species (e.g., finfish that need to be provided with feed) with extractive species (e.g., seaweeds, aquatic plants, shellfish, and other invertebrates that extract their food from the environment) to take advantage of synergistic interactions among them. In these systems, biomitigation operates as part of a circular economy (i.e., nutrients are no longer considered wastes or by-products of one species, but instead are co-products for the other species).
By Tundi Agardy, Contributing Editor, The Skimmer. Email: tundiagardy [at] earthlink.net
A recent publication “Marine zoning revisiting: How decades of zoning the Great Barrier Reef has evolved an effective spatial planning approach for marine ecosystem-based management” published in Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems distills important lessons from Australia’s evolving commitment to manage the world’s most iconic multiple use marine protected area. It casts a critical eye on what has worked and what has not, and it pushes us beyond our marine comfort zone to face the challenge of true ecosystem-based management (EBM), which neither ocean zoning nor marine spatial planning (MSP) in their current applications can adequately provide. With this publication, Jon Day and his coauthors have given the world a valuable gift that will keep on giving – if we can acknowledge this gift and heed it.
Day and his colleagues (including Richard Kenchington, who like Day has been intimately involved in the design and management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park [GBRMP] through its various iterations over the years) recount how zoning both set the stage for multiple use management and evolved to provide the legal framework for regulations to protect the world’s largest barrier reef. The use of zoning had to be adapted over decades because the GBRMP Authority was a pioneer in spatial management and the allocation of space to uses of the marine environment. Zoning on land may have provided a glimpse of the possible, but adapting zoning approaches to the fluid and obscured ocean realm required experimentation and a fair amount of risk taking.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/ministers-assess-prote...
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/11/08/asia-pacific/science-health...
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/11/deadly-virus-spreadin...
Dear colleagues,
You are invited to participate in the EGU 2020 session "Plastic in the marine environment: observing and explaining where it comes from and where it goes" co-organised by ITS/OS and the BG division. All research related to plastics in marine environments is welcome, regardless of method, and from any geographic location, including plastics in sea ice or on the beach.
Please submit the abstract via the following link:
Hello everyone,
I am writing to share a new Research Topic special issue in Frontiers in Environmental Science whose title is Microplastics in the Marine Environment: Sources, Distribution, Biological Effects and Socio-Economic Impacts.
Microplastic pollution is among the global environmental concerns of the 21st century due to its transboundary distribution and persistence in marine ecosystems. Increasing amounts have been recorded in the sedimentary cycle of marine environments, making microplastics potential indicators of the Anthropocene. However, efforts to mitigate plastic pollution are impaired by increasing annual production rates (> 340 million tonnes worldwide); by plastic material versatility, low cost and durability; by unregulated global trades; and by inefficient recycling and disposal practices worldwide. Preventing plastics and microplastics from entering the oceans must start with reducing plastic input at sources as well as improving waste management in a circular economy approach, as a long-term solution.
Title:
A global spatial analysis reveals where marine aquaculture can benefit nature and people
Speaker:
Seth Theuerkauf, PhD, Aquaculture Scientist, The Nature Conservancy
Sponsor:
NOAA's National Ocean Service Science Seminar; coordinator is Tracy.Gill [at] noaa.gov
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-antarctic-marine-sanctuary-deadlocked-eigh...
Editor’s Note: From the Archives calls attention to past Skimmer/MEAM articles whose perspectives and insight remain relevant.
Coverage of social media usually focuses on how social media platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook) can be used to communicate with and educate stakeholders and the general public. But social media also provides publicly available information on how people are using and feeling about the marine environment. Learn how social media and other digital data are being used for marine conservation and management.
Editor’s note: In 2016, roughly one-third of the total value of the world’s trade of fish and fish products was invertebrates. (They were approximately one-fifth of the global fish trade by live weight.) To learn more about the state and future of invertebrate fisheries management, The Skimmer interviewed Heike Lotze, a professor in the Department of Biology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.
OCTO and its services (The Skimmer, EBM Tools Network, OpenChannels.org, MPA News, and more) are currently scheduling their 2020 webinar series. Are there any topics you would like to see covered or presenters that you would like to hear from, please let us know at skimmer [at] octogroup.org!
Some popular webinars from this past year (recordings available) include:
See the full list of upcoming webinars and find recordings of previous webinars.
Nayyir Ransome builds relationships between the government and the people it serves to support the ocean. As Senior Analyst with Ocean Conse...
