Coral Reef Fact: “6.5 million tons of litter enter the world’s ocean each year. 50% is long-lasting plastic that will drift for hundreds of years before it is degraded. 80% of marine pollution comes from land-based sources.” Fact source: http://oceaninfopack.worldoceannetwork.org/index.php?page=home&id=315&typepage=notype Check out this animated video of a sea turtle and marine debris http://www.tourdeturtles.org/flash/MarineDebris.swf Join Reef […]
Reef Relief has been invited to the NMEA Annual Conference to be held 6-28-11-7/3/11 in Boston, MA. Rudy Bonn, Reef Relief’s Director of Marine Projects, & Amanda Gambill, will be presenting “Coral Camp for Kids” to an international audience of marine educators on 7/1/11. This invitation recognizes Coral Camp for Kids as one of the […]
By NATALIE ANGIER . The New York Times. Published: June 6, 2011 BALTIMORE — Until I met Doug Allen, the wiry, ponytailed senior aquarist who guided me through the extremely popular jellyfish exhibit at the National Aquarium, my personal experience with jellyfish consisted mainly of using them as yet another excuse not to go swimming: […]
ScienceDaily (June 5, 2011) — A team of 21 researchers from 11 nations, including professor Robert “JJ” Orth of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, has completed the first-ever study of the risk of extinction for individual seagrass species around the world. The 4-year study, requested by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature […]
Coral reef in Maui. photo: Eduardo Castro. World Oceans Day This June 8th marked the 19th year that people across the globe have celebrated World Oceans Day. This year’s focus is “Youth: the Next Wave for Change”. Reef Relief has been working hard to reach our future ocean caretakers to spread the message of ocean […]
May 27, 2011 UPDATE – read to the end to download a new Technical Report released by the National Marine Fisheries Service recommending TEDs in skimmer trawls to save sea turtles! A legal loophole deadly to sea turtles allows shallow water shrimp vessels known as skimmer trawls to operate without sea turtle escape hatches, known […]
ScienceDaily (May 30, 2011) — A new study from University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science scientists Chris Langdon, Remy Okazaki and Nancy Muehllehner and colleagues from the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the Max-Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Germany concludes that ocean acidification, along with increased ocean temperatures, […]
ScienceDaily (May 30, 2011) — Nitrogen pollution in our coastal ecosystems, the result of widespread use of synthetic agricultural fertilizers and of human sewage, leads to decreased water transparency, the loss of desirable fish species, and the emergence of toxic phytoplankton species — such as the algae behind the infamous “red tides” that kill fish. […]
Forget about the spurious benefits of eating shark fin soup, a traditional Chinese delicacy that is said to be responsible for the needless destruction of some 73 million sharks a year. In Palau, the first country in the world to proclaim a shark sanctuary, the sharks that frequent the Pacific island country’s reefs generate enormous […]
By North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy, wires Updated Thu May 26, 2011 7:52pm AEST Greenpeace says data from its radiation monitoring in the ocean off Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant shows massive levels of contamination in seaweed and other marine life. The environmental group is warning that both the environment and people are at long-term […]