Coastal & Marine Conservation

first-ever ecosystem health report card released today shows Long Island Sound earning grades of very good for water quality in Eastern Long Island (an “A”) to very poor for water quality in the Western Narrows (an “F”) near New York City. The evaluation covers the entire Long Island Sound, a vast watershed home to 9 million people that includes about 1,300 square miles and close to 1 million acres of open and coastal waters. The report card assessment was conducted by scientists at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

Linwood Pendleton was quoted in the French newspaper Le Monde on the effects of global warming on oceans. Read more (in French)

The few remaining places in the wider Caribbean with relatively healthy reefs have one thing in common: a greater abundance of parrotfish and other herbivores. They also benefit by being adjacent to islands with comparatively small populations, more modest development and less pollution. You find this in the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in the northern Gulf of Mexico, on reefs around Curaçao and Bonaire and in protected marine areas in the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands.

There is widespread acceptance among the scientific community that human activities are the primary cause of present day climate change. But, how a changing climate impacts ecosystems is still a source of confusion to the public. Some of this confusion is associated with a lack of clear communication among journalists and scientists, particularly when it comes to addressing variability and uncertainty in ecological datasets.