News

In June 2019, the Kingdom of Bahrain revealed its plans to ban plastic bags. The move took many by surprise. Ahmed Rajab, a photographer in Bahrain for the Gulf Daily News, is one supporter of the decision.

Sam Bencheghib is passionate about adventure and the environment. The 22-year-old athlete and environmental activist’s voice is enthusiastic and exuberant about his quest to raise awareness about the world’s plastic pollution crisis.

Update:  Hailed as conservation superstar after she was rescued in April, Thailand’s iconic orphaned baby dugong Marium died on 17 August after a stomach infection linked to ingesting plastic.

UN Environment and the Schurmann Family have signed a Memorandum of Understanding formalizing their partnership The Clean Seas campaign advocates will embark on their fourth expedition in December 2019 The “Voice of the Oceans” project will record and share with the world the family’s experience and findings while at sea to raise awareness about marine pollution

Brasilia, 4 July 2019 - Ahead

Interview with JJ Harvey, Director of The Reef-World Foundation, about the charity’s new Dive Guide e-Course—a free online course to train dive guides on best environmental standards.

“Our world is swamped by harmful plastic waste. Microplastics in the seas now outnumber stars in our galaxy. From remote islands to the Artic, nowhere is untouched. If present trends continue, by 2050, our oceans will have more plastic than fish. The message is simple: reject single use plastic. Refuse what you can't reuse. Together, we can chart a path to a cleaner, greener world,” said United Nations Secretary General António Guterres.

When people think of the Caribbean, it’s the turquoise seas, clean beaches, coral reefs teeming with fish, turtles and balmy breezes that come to mind.

For us, this paradise is what we call home. We depend upon its riches for sustenance and, often, to make a living. It is the origin of much of the pride we feel when we say we are from the Caribbean.

The brick-clay industry employs around 10 million people in India. The industry also burns around 35–40million tonnes of coal per year, emitting carbon dioxide and sulfur, contributing to air pollution.

June 8, 2019 – For World Ocean’s Day, World Scouting is teaming up with UN Environment to create a new movement for action in the battle against plastic pollution.

Gator Halpern, Young Champion of the Earth for Latin America and the Caribbean and Co-founder of Coral Vita, has opened the world’s first land-based commercial coral farm for more resilient reef restoration in Grand Bahama.

People in the coastal districts of the eastern Indian state of Odisha are increasingly suffering from the effects of climate change. Most households in the area are dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods from fishing, forest foraging and paddy cultivation.

By Miao Wang

Our oceans are the largest carbon sink on the planet. This big blue diffuser, for decades helping to buffer the impacts of climate change, is finally giving way. It is sending us a signal, and we ignore it at our peril. 

A new type of insurance to protect coral reefs has been announced at the 2018 World Ocean Summit in Mexico. Swiss Re is proud to have supported the design of this new product which will not only help the conservation and swift restoration of the reef, if damaged by a major hurricane, but it will also support the economic resilience of the region and offers an opportunity to create a scalable new market for the insurance industry itself.

Managing Mangroves for Climate Change Regulation and other ecosystem services in Kenya.

This grants programme is a joint initiative of the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) and UN Environment, to catalyze implementation of the ICRI Plan of Action 2016-2018 and the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) resolution 2/12 on sustainable coral reefs management.

A seascape Genomics approach to improving Coral reefs Conservation Strategies against bleaching.

Fifteen years ago, the waters around Islas Marietas in Mexico’s Nayarit State were so abundant with corals that people could see them for miles.

They were hard to avoid, too. “To go and surf in that area, you would have to wear tennis shoes because it was full of coral mountains,” said Javier Alvarez, a tourist operator and owner of outdoors shops from Puerto Vallarta, the nearest mainland city.

A carpet of algae, floating dead fish for as far as the eye can see, a stench so powerful it irritates the lungs and stings the eyes… these are some of the effects of algal blooms, caused by ocean eutrophication, a deadly phenomenon for aquatic ecosystems.

Nearly 80 per cent of the air we breathe is nitrogen, a harmless inert gas. However, nitrogen also combines with other atoms to form chemical compounds—known as “reactive nitrogen” or “fixed nitrogen” (Nr)—that are essential for life on Earth but, at high concentrations, also hugely damaging to the environment.

Did you know that several countries, such as the Maldives, Malta and the Bahamas, meet all their water needs through the desalination process—that is, they convert seawater to freshwater?

Coral reefs are fast disappearing due to human activities that cause climate change, pollution from land or direct damage to reefs.

Will Gadd is a UN Environment Mountain Hero and the 2015 National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. He’s the first person to ice climb up the Niagara Falls.

Jessea Lu is China’s freediving Champion. Freediving is a sport that requires little in equipment compared with scuba diving. All you need is a mask, a snorkel, fins and powerful lungs that allow you to hold your breath for as long as possible. And in the case of Jessea, a video recorder, since she films her diving experience to share the beauty of nature and raise awareness of ocean conservation.

Pair trawling is when two ships travel in parallel several hundred metres apart towing a huge net which indiscriminately scoops up marine animals in its path.