• Oceans

Climate Change and Brexit Upsetting EU Fishers and Markets

• Boris Johnson
• Brexit
• cod
• fisheries
• fishing

The United Kingdom is threatening to close its waters to fishers from other countries in Europe once it leaves the European Union next week, and if it does, the impact would be immediate and severe on fishing communities in neighboring nations that are now seeing their local fish stocks decline due to climate change.

Why This Matters:  One of the key issues in the Brexit negotiations that will begin after the U.K. formally leaves the EU on Friday is bound to be fisheries – right now all EU nations have free access to the U.K.’s lucrative fishing grounds.

• Oceans

Smart Phones Improve Both Fisheries Management And Consumer Choices

• climate change
• fisheries
• overfishing
• smart phones
• technology

Several U.S. environmental organizations with the support of large philanthropic organizations are working to help countries around the world achieve better fisheries management, and increasingly they are using smartphones and technological innovations to empower fishers to decide where and when to fish in order to get the best price.

Why This Matters:   Here, with the help of technology and the support of U.S. NGOs, fishermen and consumers are benefitted by technology that is now readily available on smartphones.

• Oceans

Ocean Acidification Will Cause Big Economic Losses in the U.S.

• coral reefs
• fisheries
• jobs
• king crab
• ocean acidification

A new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released last week as part of a Congressionally-mandated review of ocean acidification, states that increasing acidity in the U.S. ocean waters could cause “billions of dollars in damage to the U.S. economy,” with detrimental impacts on Alaskan fisheries and tourism due to degraded coral reefs in Florida and the Caribbean.

Why This Matters:  Climate impacts are costing our economy already due to severe weather events such as wildfires and hurricanes.  Even though increasing ocean acidification may not be visible to the eye, its costs are just as devastating.

• Oceans

Elizabeth Warren Releases “Blue New Deal”

• Blue New Deal
• Elizabeth Warren
• fisheries
• ocean conservation
• oceans
• offshore wind

The UN climate meeting currently underway in Madrid, Spain, known as COP25, is being called the Blue COP, to highlight its focus on oceans and the climate. Oceans play an outsized role in regulating our climate and 2020 presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren took the opportunity to release a Blue New Deal–her plan to address ocean […]

• Oceans

Our Oceans Are Suffocating

• deoxygenation
• fisheries
• oceans
• oxygen

The largest study of its kind has concluded that oxygen levels in the world’s oceans declined by roughly 2 percent between 1960 and 2010. Sixty-seven scientific experts from 51 institutes in 17 countries, came together for the largest peer-reviewed study conducted so far on ocean deoxygenation for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). […]

• Oceans

Fisheries In Crisis Bringing Hardship to Coastal Towns In the Developing World

• climate change
• fisheries
• Illegal fishing

The Washington Post’s excellent series entitled “2 Degrees: Beyond the Limit” by Max Bearak and Chris Mooney with amazing photos by Carolyn Van Houten has highlighted the many ways that the climate crisis is already causing great hardship around the globe.  The most recent installment tells the story of Tombwa, Angola — a small fishing village of […]

• People

Interview of the Week: Former Secretary of State John Kerry on the State of Our Ocean

• #OneOceanOnePlanet
• #OurOcean
• climate change
• fisheries
• Our Ocean Conference

  Our Daily Planet was fortunate to catch up with Former Secretary Kerry as the 6th Our Ocean Conference in Oslo, Norway was drawing to a close.  ODP:  Since launching the Our Ocean Conference five years ago, this meeting has resulted in 1,370 commitments from governments, the private sector, philanthropies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and academia valued […]

• Food

We’re Catching More Tuna Than Ever, What This Means for Your Poké Bowls

• fisheries
• oceans
• seafood
• tuna

Tuna is a popular fish, from lunchtime sandwiches, to trendy poké bowls Americans are eating a lot more seafood and the mighty tuna may be at risk. A new study, published in Fisheries Research has found that the amount of tuna being fished in the world’s oceans has increased by a staggering 1000% over the past 6 decades–a rate that scientists are calling unsustainable. 

• Food

Climate Change Could Drive Omega-3 Shortages

• fisheries
• food insecurity

The developing human brain needs a molecule called docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA which is an omega-3 fatty acid. However, as Scientific American recently reported, a new study “predicts that by 2100, increasing water temperatures brought on by a warming planet could result in 96 percent of the world’s population not having access to an omega-3 […]

• Oceans

Ocean Optimism: A To-Do List of Possible Climate Solutions

• aquaculture
• carbon storage
• coastal restoration
• fisheries
• ocean
• renewable energy
• shipping

The IPCC Oceans report released on Wednesday painted a dire picture of the health of the ocean today.  The ocean is a carbon sponge and has absorbed 93% of the excess heat caused by climate change and it is reaching a breaking point according to the IPCC.  But another panel that was formed last year […]

• Oceans

IPCC Report Points to Vast Changes in Both Oceans and Ice

• fisheries
• IPCC
• oceans

Just as the IPCC Report warned that warming will lead to loss of glaciers and permafrost, Italian officials had to close a road and put locals on emergency notice because a 250,000-cubic-meter mass of ice is about to break off the highest mountain in the Alps, Mont Blanc, due to unusually high temperatures during August […]

• People

Banking on Sustainable Fishing For the Next Generation of Fishers

• banking
• Cape Cod
• fisheries
• fishers
• fishing
• sustainability

But now, with the rise of social impact investing from philanthropic organizations such as the Walton Family Foundation, companies like Catch Together are building a nationwide network of community fishing permit “banks” that provide low-interest loans to fishermen so that they can lease and eventually buy a fishing permit.