Coastal & Marine Conservation

When the sun sets on the human race, and the cause of death isn’t an asteroid scorching the Earth, whoever or whatever comes after our kind might uncover the documents that defined us—the Magna Carta, any number of national constitutions and international treaties, classic works of fiction. And more recently, that canon has come to include a series of special reports from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, warning of the unfolding catastrophe we’ve created for ourselves.

A landmark multinational agreement protecting Antarctica’s Ross Sea offers valuable lessons for similar global conservation pacts in the future, according to a new analysis coauthored by a CU Boulder researcher. The Ross Sea region Marine Protection Area, which was adopted by the international community in October 2016 after more than five years of negotiations, preserves vital biodiversity in the Southern Ocean and has been praised for being the world’s largest marine protected area.

The latest episode of ESSENCE Magazine's UnBossed podcast features Fellow Ayana Johnson. She says, "I really strongly believe that one of the reasons that the environmental movement has not succeeded to the extent that it needs to so far is that it’s been dominated visibly by White people.”

Our policy engagement training partners, COMPASS, published an abridged version of a UCSD TedX Talk by Fellow Natalya Gallo. Her preparation and persistence enabled her to become a resource for international policy makers, bringing ocean science to climate discussions.

The National Audubon Society is getting involved in a lawsuit over the future of a national monument in the ocean off New England because of the area's importance to seabirds, especially colorfully beaked puffins. Fishing groups sued in federal court against creation of Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which former President Barack Obama designated in 2016. The case is on appeal. Court documents show Audubon has moved to file a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of keeping the monument.

... “We typically think about climate change in terms of extreme events like hurricanes and wildfires, but it actually causes impacts in all sorts of other ways,” said coauthor Miyuki Hino of Stanford University. “This is one way where it’s really a part of people’s daily lives. It’s chronic.” Annapolis is seeing seas rise at about twice the global rate, and Hino said the flooding there foreshadows the problems other coastal communities can expect.

Conscious Company Media recently chose its 2019 lineup of courageous female-identifying game-changers paving the way for positive global impact. Fellow Melissa Garren was one of them! ... Melissa Garren is a marine biologist on a mission. She helped found Pelagic Data Systems in 2014 to address the interwoven challenges coastal communities face when it comes to food scarcity and the sustainability of fisheries.

Fellow Ayana Johnson was featured in a "Strong Opinions Loosely Held" video on how ocean conservation is a social justice issue. Watch the video on Facebook