Palau
Latest News

Palau Delights in Vast Pacific Marine Sanctuary

NGERULMUD, Palau, November 4, 2015 (ENS) – The remote Pacific island nation of Palau has created a new marine sanctuary the size of California that will be the world’s sixth largest protected ocean area, sheltering 1,300 fish species and 700 kinds of coral. […]

Energy

Obama Cancels Arctic Oil Leases After Shell Pull-out

WASHINGTON, DC, October 18, 2015 (ENS) – “In light of current market conditions and low industry interest,” the U.S. Department of the Interior says it will cancel the two potential Arctic offshore lease sales scheduled under the current five-year offshore oil and gas leasing program that ends in 2017. […]

seals
Latest News

Chile Protects Three Areas of Pristine, Fragile Ocean

VALPARAISO, Chile, October 5, 2015 (ENS) – Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet today announced the designation of three new marine sanctuaries in Chilean waters, including the Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park, the largest marine protected area in the Americas. […]

urchins
Latest News

New Zealand to Establish Extensive Ocean Sanctuary

WELLINGTON, New Zealand, October 3, 2015 (ENS) – To safeguard a unique, pristine ocean environment, New Zealand intends to create a new sanctuary in the Kermadec Islands region of the South Pacific, about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) northeast of the country’s North Island. […]

algae
Latest News

Toxic Algae Contaminate Two of the Three U.S. Coasts

SEATTLE, Washington, August 12, 2015 (ENS) – A record-breaking algal bloom continues to spread across the North Pacific from as far north as the Aleutian Islands to as far south as southern California. At the same time, this year’s Gulf of Mexico dead zone is larger than average. […]

ship
At Risk

Bunker Fuel Spill Fouls Vanouver’s English Bay

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada, April 10, 2015 (ENS) – The Marathassa, a Korean bulk grain carrier on its first voyage, is the source of the heavy bunker fuel oil that spilled into the waters of English Bay in Vancouver Wednesday, the Canadian Coast Guard confirmed today. […]

Latest News

Madagascar’s New Shark Sanctuary Protects 19 Shark Species

ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar, February 13, 2015 (ENS) – The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society has assisted the Government of Madagascar to create the country’s first marine sanctuary for sharks as part of a new law to safeguard the country’s marine resources and the communities that rely on them […]

Exxon Valdez
Latest News

Single Hull Oil Tankers Barred From U.S. Waters

WASHINGTON, DC, January 2, 2015 (ENS) – As of January 1, 2015 single-hull oil tankers are no longer allowed in U.S. waters. The single-hull tankers are forbidden under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, passed after the disastrous 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska. […]

Bristol Bay
Energy

Obama Bars Oil Industry From Alaska’s Bristol Bay

WASHINGTON, DC, December 16, 2014 (ENS) – President Barack Obama today designated the waters of Bristol Bay as off limits to oil and gas leasing for exploration, development or production. This action safeguards one of the nation’s most productive fisheries and preserves an ecologically rich area of the Bering Sea that is vital to the commercial fishing and tourism economy and to Alaska Native communities. […]

Scott Base
Latest News

Sunscreens, Cosmetics Found in Antarctic Waters

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand, December 10, 2014 (ENS) – Polluting chemicals found in personal care products such as cosmetics, soaps and sunscreens has been discovered in waters off Antarctica at the same levels as many urban areas, according to new research from New Zealand. […]

Palmyra
Latest News

Obama Creates World’s Largest Marine Reserve

WASHINGTON, DC, September 26, 2014 (ENS) – In the remote reaches of the Pacific Ocean, President Barack Obama Thursday created the world’s most extensive marine reserve by expanding a National Monument established in the waning days of the Bush Administration. These pristine waters are now protected from commercial resource extraction and fishing. […]

ocean
Latest News

World Oceans Day 2014 Dawns on Oceans in Danger

NEW YORK, New York, June 9, 2014 (ENS) – Oceans cover three quarters of the Earth’s surface, contain 97 percent of the Earth’s water, and represent 99 percent of the living space on the planet by volume. But human pressures, such as overexploitation, illegal fishing, unsustainable aquaculture, pollution, habitat destruction, alien species, climate change and ocean acidification are taking their toll. […]

sawfish
Latest News

Global Protection Strategy Proposed for Endangered Sawfish

DURBAN, South Africa, June 5, 2014 (ENS) – A global strategy to prevent extinction and promote recovery of sawfishes, devastated worldwide by overfishing and habitat loss, was introduced today by the Shark Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN. […]