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When Ali Tewa started fishing after leaving school in 1990, the waters around Lamu County in southern Kenya were teeming with fish.

“Back then you could go to fish for about half an hour to a maximum of two to three hours and end up catching almost 200 to 300 kg of fish,” he said.

“Now, you could go a whole day without catching any.”

Ascension Island, in the southern Atlantic Ocean, is getting a new marine protected area twice the size of the United Kingdom (UK).

Full protection of 443,000 square kilometres of ocean around the British overseas territory will safeguard green turtles, swordfish, sharks, tuna and marlin as well as frigatebirds and terns.

Joyce Msuya, Acting Executive Director of UN Environment is presenting the highlights of day 4 at the UN Environment Assembly.

Nairobi, 11 March, 2018 – The global fight against plastic pollution comes into sharp focus at the Fourth UN Environment Assembly this month in Nairobi, Kenya, with the launch of three reports each addressing different aspects of, and solutions for, the growing impact of plastics on the world’s marine environments.

As delegates made their way into the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi this week, many were pulled up short by the sight of a rainbow-hued traditional dhow boat resting serenely on the grass.

Throughout human existence, the oceans and seas have been a source of food, leisure, exploration, and a natural carbon sink. But with a rapidly growing global population—and more than half of people living within 100 kilometres of a coast— oceans and seas, and the marine life within them, are facing an unprecedented level of human threat.

From the fight against plastic pollution to the quest for more sustainable lifestyles, young innovators in Latin America are coming up with bold, groundbreaking ideas that could transform the way we live, and pave the way for a more sustainable planet. 

Check out these four innovations “made in” Latin America, and the enthusiastic young leaders behind them.

A treasure inside avocados

Bangkok, 4 March 2019 – Japan and the United Nations Environment Programme today announced they will join hands in effort to boost information and know-how to develop countermeasures against marine plastic litter in Southeast Asia and India.

We’re excited to welcome our seven 2018 Young Champions of the Earth to Kenya for the Fourth United Nations Environment Assembly. The seven prize winners, powered by Covestro, will join delegates in Nairobi from 11 to 15 March 2019 for a series of high-level meetings and events.

Wild for Life is UN Environment’s campaign against illegal trade in wildlife. International and national laws protect many species because their populations are at risk. If animals, plants or their parts are taken from the wild or killed, then they are part of the illegal trade.

This trade is not only pushing species to the brink of extinction, it also poses environmental, economic, development and security risks.

World Wildlife Day on 3 March 2019 focuses for the first time on marine species

 With some of the world’s most beautiful beaches paying a heavy price for our plastic addiction, the travel and tourism industry is taking action to reduce its plastic footprint and encourage its customers to do the same.

The remote Galápagos islands offer a distressing reminder of the destructive power of our plastic addiction with horrifying images of iconic species struggling on rubbish-strewn shorelines that were for so long a byword for isolation and purity.

Sabah, Malaysia: George Woodman’s first experience of fish bombing in Sabah—a Malaysian state in the northern part of the island of Borneo—was in 1994 during an underwater survey of the area’s renowned coral reefs.

“It's not so much something you hear, but something you feel,” said Woodman, a founding member of the Hong Kong-based non-governmental organization Stop Fish Bombing!.

Stone Town, 7 February 2019 – After fourteen days and 500 kilometers on the water, the Clean Seas-Flipflopi expedition has arrived at its final destination: the island of Zanzibar.

Ocean lovers are often left out of the bigger environmental discussions and so struggle to see how they can do their part to stop climate change.

But one organization, Sustainable Surf, is committed to changing all that by directly engaging the global surfing community to save and restore threatened mangrove forest ecosystems. Mangroves are five times more effective at sequestering carbon emissions than land-based trees. 

As the Flipflopi glided towards Jomo Kenyatta Public Beach in Mombasa this week, scores of people gathered on the sand, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the flamboyant dhow made from recycled plastic that has become an African icon for a new plastic revolution.

Every day, hundreds of thousands of pieces of lost or abandoned fishing equipment haunt the world’s oceans, killing indiscriminately and endangering marine life and livelihoods.

As it drifts, this ghost fishing gear takes on a life of its own; trapping fish, entangling all kinds of animals from seabirds and turtles to dolphins and whales, and snagging or smothering coral reefs.

Since Miranda Wang won the Young Champions of the Earth Prize for North America in September, things have been busy.  

Gator Halpern, winner of the Young Champion of the Earth award 2018 in Latin America and the Caribbean, and his team at Coral Vita are off to a flying start in 2019.  

As a metaphor for the back-to-basics simplicity needed to stem the toxic tide of plastic pollution engulfing the world’s seas, the image of a dhow sailing boat sliding silently through the tranquil waters of the Indian Ocean is peerless. Especially if that dhow is made from recycled plastic and thousands of discarded flip flops.

When Miao Wang started diving, she was shocked at the deterioration of the ocean ecosystem around her. Now, three months after winning the Young Champions of the Earth prize for Asia and the Pacific, she has made great strides in addressing ocean protection.

World first expedition in a boat made from plastic waste and flipflops 6 stops along the African coastline to inspire communities on how to repurpose their own plastic waste, and promote UN Environment Clean Seas Campaign. Only 9% of the 9 billion tonnes of plastic the world has ever produced has been recycled.

January 10, 2019: A traditional dhow sailing boat made entirely from plas

On a cool and cloudy January day in the Chinese coastal city of Xiamen, tens of thousands of men and women pounded the streets in the first IAAF Gold Label road race of 2019. But this was a competition with a difference -- heavy on sustainability, light on single-use plastics and the first international marathon to join UN Environment’s Clean Seas campaign.

An interview with Mr. Ola Elvestuen, Minister of Climate and Environment of Norway

UN Environment has been a megaphone for marine litter and microplastics. Norway is particularly proud to have partnered with UN Environment to put this issue on the global environmental agenda. Now we need to take it to the next level.