International Conservation & Development

Reducing the complexity of research on ocean ecosystems does not mean dumbing down your science, it means delivering science in a series of short chapters. If you can get the readers hooked, and don’t confuse them, you can tell a complex story. But that takes work and training that many scientists don’t have, writes Fellow Linwood Pendleton.

How did 24 diverse countries, including Russia, China, and the United States, come to agree to protect 1.55 million km2 of the Southern Ocean, more than 70% of which will be closed to commercial fishing? How did the US and Russia find common ground in the Southern Ocean, when it has been so difficult in other diplomatic arenas? Fellow Cassandra Brooks has an interesting answer.

Well-regulated and well-managed marine protected areas (MPAs) established in biologically significant places benefit marine wildlife [1]. One lingering question, however, has been about the value of MPAs for conserving highly-mobile species, like sharks, that move easily across their boundaries. Robust shark populations are necessary to keep marine ecosystems healthy, and many shark populations are threatened by shark finning.

The US helped forge the Paris agreement for international reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions. Now the election of Donald Trump is resetting the climate-diplomacy landscape, and casting a Green Climate Fund for developing nations into doubt. ... “I have nothing positive to say about the financing. Developing countries are right to worry,” said Kelly Sims Gallagher, a former Obama official who helped negotiate a 2014 bilateral emissions reduction pact between the US and China.

At the end of October, a room full of politicians, biologists, and conservationists in Australia erupted in applause. After five years of negotiations, 24 countries and the European Union unanimously agreed to create a marine protected area (MPA) in Antarctica’s Ross Sea, which is considered the most pristine marine ecosystem in the world. Fellow Cassandra Brooks has worked in the region on this project for years, but says the agreement comes with some important caveats.

The US$ 48 million Nagaland Health Project will empower village health committees to deliver better health service delivery across the state and strengthen existing health systems and public health facilities. This will include capacity-building and results-based financing for village health committees, who are responsible for local health services, to improve services as well as enhance the knowledge and awareness of their communities.

Approximately 95 percent of global fishing is conducted in small-scale boats, often unequipped with AIS (Automated Identification System) technology. As a result, most small-scale fishing activity goes untracked. Transparency in fishing behavior provides both benefits to the environment and economic advantages for fishermen and communities that depend on fish resources.

The U.S. is one of the largest consumers of wood and paper products. Recent investigations into illegal logging in Russia, the Amazon, South East Asia and Africa indicate it’s a widespread and highly lucrative enterprise. It’s also highly destructive – causing the loss of ancient forests and habitats critical to wildlife. And chances are American consumers are unwittingly contributing to the problem. Some environmentalists believe one solution is to track every step of the supply chain to ensure products that make it to the American market come from legal wood.

In the southern Pacific Ocean, off south-central Chile, is a wind-swept island with a mountain blanketed in old-growth forest. This mountain is inhabited by 70% of the world’s Pink-footed Shearwaters, a globally threatened seabird related to albatrosses. The island is called Isla Mocha (pronounced with a hard “ch”: Mo-cha), and is also home to around 600 Mochanos—residents who live in the plains below the mountain, harvesting shellfish and seaweed, grazing cattle and sheep, and fishing in the ferocious currents that roil around the island.