• People

Interview of the Week: Brian Skerry, National Geographic Photojournalist

• #30x30
• National Geographic
• ocean
• ocean conservation
• photo
• photojournalist
• wildlife photography

Brian Skerry is the 2019 NOGI Award Winner (“The Underwater Oscar”), the author of numerous beautiful photo books, and a fantastic Friend of the Planet.  Here are some of the highlights of our talk with him. ODP:  Tell us about how you view your work as a photojournalist and storyteller? BS:  I have always viewed […]

• Ocean

Achieving Fully Protected Marine Reserves Is Increasingly Urgent

• 30 by 30
• MPA
• ocean conservation

by Jenna Sullivan-Stack, Postdoctoral Scholar, Oregon State University Department of Integrative Biology When preparing for the birth of my son this February, I decided to make him a mobile of some of the things that are most important to me (I am not crafty, so this was a real labor of love). What I ended […]

• Ocean

Scientists Say Oceans Can Be Restored by 2050, With Big Commitments to Conservation

• 30 by 30
• biodiversity
• ocean conservation
• oceans
• UN

A new study published in the journal Nature has revealed that oceans are remarkably resilient and could be restored to health by 2050 if “major pressures—including climate change—are mitigated.” As the BBC reported, the researchers identified nine components that are key to rebuilding the oceans: salt marshes, mangroves, seagrasses, coral reefs, kelp, oyster reefs, fisheries, […]

• Climate Change

Chile Makes Good On Its Promise of an Azul COP

• #BlueCOP
• climate change
• ocean conservation
• sea level rise

One of the major ways that this year’s UN Climate meeting is greatly different from previous ones is its recognition of oceans as a major part of the climate problems (with support from the findings of the IPCC’s recent Oceans and Cryosphere report) and also its solutions. Chile’s Foreign Minister, Teodoro Ribera Neumann explained today that Chile elevated ocean issues because they are integral to both climate change and to his country.

Why This Matters:  The UN climate meetings in the past had failed to take oceans into account when looking at how to address climate change and that, frankly, was a major oversight.

• Ocean

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 […]

• Ocean

TNC commits $1.6 billion to ocean conservation

• ocean conservation
• oceans

Environmental group The Nature Conservancy (TNC) announced this week its $1.6 billion plan to help ensure the new protection of up to 1.5 million square miles of the world’s most biodiversity-critical ocean habitats, which is a 15% increase in protected areas of this nature already in existence. As GreenBiz explained, the “Blue Bonds for Conservation […]