Can seaweed farming save Indonesian fishermen?
For centuries seaweed has been a farmed product, but it wasn’t until the 1930s that the use of carrageenan – a seaweed-derived thickening agent – turned commercial. In Indonesia, seaweed farming has been growing over the last three decades.
Beach asphalt removal project underway; Gulf Islands National Seashore
The goal of the $10.85 million project, which began earlier in October, is to clean decades of debris from blacktopped roads and parking lots eroded by tropical storms and hurricanes. This work to remove small asphalt chunks from miles of gleaming white beachfront is expected to take years.
EU proposes total commercial fishing ban on Atlantic sea bass
The move, to cut sea bass catches from 570 tonnes a year to zero, follows what the EU calls “very alarming” advice from fisheries scientists, who found that numbers had fallen below “safe biological limits”…
Saving Mexico’s endangered sea turtles will be good for tourism too
Seven of the world’s eight sea turtles species nest on the beaches of Mexico. But in a country with one of the world’s most extensive shorelines, nesting beaches for turtles are disappearing. Climate change, human development, and the complex interaction between the two are to blame.
Taking Down Dams and Letting the Fish Flow
Nationwide, dam removals are gaining traction. Four dams are slated for removal from the Klamath River alone in California and Oregon by 2020. And the lessons are the same everywhere: Unplug the rivers, and the fish will return.
World Must Tackle the Biggest Killer of Whales – and it’s not Whaling
It is scarcely believable but accidental entanglement in fishing gear – or bycatch – kills over 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises, every year. And that’s a conservative estimate based on data from 2008. No one knows the real figure but it far outstrips the less than 2,000 whales that are deliberately hunted and killed for commercial purposes each year.
Impact of the Fukushima accident on marine life, five years later
Five years ago, the largest single release of human-made radioactive discharge to the marine environment resulted from an accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. A new study explores the environmental consequences in the marine environment of the accident.
The search for sand, beaches face rising costs, depleting supply
The beach might be running out of sand, money and time.
Officials confirm some Kailua Beach Park sand is going to city golf courses
Kailua residents are demanding answers after a dump truck filled with sand was spotted leaving Kailua Beach Park and heading to town. Residents say it was all the more suspect because of the Kuhio Beach erosion headlines at the same time.