By Roel Catoto 21 July 2013 SURIGAO CITY (MindaNews) – Five towns in Surigao del Norte are under tight watch by the Philippine National Police Maritime Office Caraga for alleged rampant dynamite fishing. Edgard Cuanan, regional director of PNP Maritime Caraga named the five towns as Tagana-an, Placer, Claver, Socorro and General Luna. Cuanan admitted […]
By Jeremy Hance18 July 2013 (mongabay.com) – Brazil has launched a military campaign to evict illegal loggers working from the fringes of an indigenous reserve home to the Awá people, reports Survival International. Inhabiting the Amazon rainforest in northeastern Brazil, only around 450 Awá, also known as Guajá, survive today, and around a quarter of […]
By Bettina Boxall 16 July 2013 (Los Angeles Times) – When oil sheen appeared on the sea surface last fall not far from the site of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, authorities wanted to know where it was coming from. Was BP’s sealed Macondo well — the source of the biggest […]
17 July 2013 (BBC News) – Hundreds of dead stingrays have been found on a beach in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz. The stingrays – more than 250 in total – were spotted on Chachalacas beach near the town of Ursulo Galvan on Tuesday. Some locals reported seeing fishermen dumping the rays on the […]
10 July 2013 (Japan Times) – The Nuclear Regulation Authority said Wednesday it strongly suspects highly radioactive water at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is seeping into the ground and contaminating the Pacific Ocean. “We must find the cause of the contamination … and put the highest priority on implementing countermeasures,” NRA Chairman […]
By Jo Fidgen14 July 2013 NORWAY (BBC News) – Whale hunters tend to shy away from publicity because of the controversy surrounding their profession. But the crew of the Jan Bjorn in Norway – a country whose fishermen kill around 500 minke whales a year for commercial purposes – agreed to let us join them […]
David Mcfadden12 July 2013 BLUEFIELDS BAY, Jamaica (AP) – Young fish leap in the wake of a warden’s patrol boat as it motors through waters off Jamaica’s southwest coast that are a brilliant palette of blues. Beneath the surface, reefs bristle with spiny lobsters, and rainbow-colored parrotfish graze on algae and seaweed. After rampant destruction […]
(FAO) – Major marine stocks are shrinking rapidly. The proportion of stocks estimated to be under- or moderately exploited declined from 40 percent in the mid-1970s to 12 percent in 2009. In contrast, the proportion of overexploited, depleted or recovering stocks increased from 10 percent in 1974 to 30 percent in 2009. The proportion of […]
By Dennis Pillion12 July 2013 PENSACOLA, Florida (al.com) – To get a better understanding of the full impact of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, renowned marine scientist Roger Payne is thinking big. That is to say, he’s looking at sperm whales, one of the largest inhabitants of the Gulf and the largest of the […]
10 July 2013 (mongabay.com) – A new mapping tool based on NASA satellite data confirms that the majority of fires that drove the recent haze over Sumatra and Malaysia were concentrated in deforested peatlands and scrub, rather than natural forest areas. The interactive fire risk tool, developed by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), […]
