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Hope Spot Announcement Leads to Marine Protection for the Great Fringing Reef of the Red Sea

Featured image: Renata Romeo
New MPA to protect more than 2000km of coral reef along Egypt’s Red Sea Coastline.  
SHARM EL SHEIKH, EGYPT –
Yasmine Fouad, The Egyptian Minister of the Environment, has announced protection for the entire Great Fringing Reef in the Red Sea Hope Spot. The announcement of the new marine protected area occurred on Ocean Day at the United Nations Climate Conference (COP27) in Sharm el Sheikh immediately following the official announcement of The Great Fringing Reef of the Red Sea Hope Spot by Mission Blue, The Ocean Agency and HEPCA.
“The international recognition brought to the Great Fringing Reef by the declaration of a Mission Blue Hope Spot undoubtedly played a big part in securing the protection for the reef”, said Prof.…

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Spain’s Canary Islands Declared a Hope Spot Amid Global Climate Change Discussion at CoP25

TENERIFE-LA GOMERA, CANARY ISLANDS, SPAIN (December 11th, 2019) –
(Spanish Translation Appears Below)
The brilliant blue waters between the Canary Islands of Tenerife and La Gomera have been called the “Hawaii of Europe” for being one of the finest examples in the world of a thriving pelagic archipelago system. Within the waves lives an extraordinary assemblage of open-ocean species, including the short-finned pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus), also known as the “cheetahs of the sea”. More than 700,000 visitors travel each year from every corner of the globe to whale and bird watch, SCUBA dive and hike along the islands’ scenic cliffs.
 
 
These waters span several preexisting protected areas, or Special Areas of Conservation, such as the SAC Teno-Rasca in Tenerife, and in La Gomera SAC Santiago-Valle Gran Rey and SAC Los Organos.…

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A Blue New Deal for a Blue Marble Planet

By David Helvarg

Sylvia Earle likes to say ‘No Blue, No Green’ in explaining the role of the ocean as the incubator and cradle of life on earth, also the driver of climate, weather and rain, the generator of over half the oxygen we air breathers consume and the salty home of some of the deepest, widest, weirdest habitats and marine critters from eel grasses to methane seeps, sarcastic fringeheads to narwhales.
Incredibly, after four billion years of ocean evolution, all of this has now been put at risk by our own species’ thoughtless and greedy actions over the last fifteen decades or so.  We’ve been ignorant about the impacts of many of our activities failing to adopt the precautionary principle, “First, do no harm.” …

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Polar Bears of Svalbard

By Courtney Mattison for Mission Blue

For those who have observed polar bears in the wild, the experiences they recall often sound reverential and daring. The world’s largest land predator, polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are larger and more carnivorous than grizzlies and hunt both on land and in the sea. But on Mission Blue’s latest Hope Spot Expedition to the Norwegian Arctic, the bears we observed were more threatened than threatening.
“So we just came upon a mother and cub and they are very very skinny,” said Mette Eliseussen, Manager and Expedition Leader for Arctic Voyagers at Basecamp Spitsbergen, as she led the Mission Blue Expedition Team aboard an inflatable boat within a safe distance of two polar bears. Kip Evans, Mission Blue Director of Expeditions and Photography and leader of the expedition, focused his camera lens at the bears and began shooting images.…

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Spitsbergen Beneath the Surface

By Courtney Mattison for Mission Blue

Imagine rolling backwards off an inflatable boat into icy Arctic waters… on purpose. Enveloped in protective gear, you stay mostly dry as the cold sinks into your body and you descend into the frigid depths below.
“The first thing that hits you is just the shock of the cold,” says Dr. Helena Reinardy, Associate Professor of Ecotoxicology at The University Centre Svalbard (UNIS) and member of the Longyearbyen Dive Club. She continues, “You think, I’ve got to get out right now!… But then you very quickly get used to it.”
Beneath the waves, you find yourself immersed in planktonic life, including some surprisingly large zooplankton—pulsing golden green jellies the size of marbles, skittering shrimplike amphipods and graceful sea angels (Clione limacina).…

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Stories From the Ice

By Courtney Mattison for Mission Blue

If you’ve never experienced an iceberg before, you might assume that they are silent, bobbing solitarily in the ocean. In reality icebergs can be loud, crackling and popping, crunching and even rolling into one another. When a glacier expands and “calves,” it makes an explosive “bang” as a giant chunk falls off into the water, forming a new iceberg.
Ride an inflatable Zodiac among them and the sounds grow, emanating from tiny air bubbles trapped thousands of years ago and then suddenly released into the air around you. Floating ice such as this and sea ice—ice formed directly from frozen seawater—provides platforms for seals and seabirds to rest, sunbathe and catch fish. Polar bears, the Arctic’s top natural predator, rely on sea ice to hunt seals.…

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Mission Blue Launches First Arctic Expedition to the Svalbard Archipelago Hope Spot!

Rachel Krasna

Imagine journeying all the way to the Arctic only to find nothing, just sheer barren cold desert leading into the open blue. That scenario is not so far fetched lately, as scientists start to struggle with the reality of the melting Arctic landscape. With increasingly warmer waters and temperature rising, the Arctic could face ice-free periods each summer by 2050. This poses grave concern for countless species and biota that call this ecosystem home, particularly in one of the Mission Blue Hope Spots – the Svalbard Archipelago. Why should we care? Arctic sea ice is critical for wildlife, and also helps regulate the planet’s temperature. Recent studies also say that Arctic sea ice — and the lack of it — can impact natural weather patterns in distant areas like the United States (USA Today, 4/3/18).…

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Glimmers of Hope from an Ancient World

by Courtney Mattison

Undulating in the clear cerulean water, long blades of Posidonia oceanica seagrass glittered green through the window of my scuba mask. As I sank among them, I felt as if I could disappear within their dense, elongated strands. I peered down and discovered a painted comber (Serranus scriba), twenty-five centimeters long, staring back at me from its hiding spot. Gazing ahead to the other divers in our group, I spotted a golden yellow brittle star climbing up the arm of Manu San Félix, an underwater filmmaker and marine biologist who was our guide on this dive.
“The first time you jump on a place with Posidonia and you look through your mask, you will see a green meadow,” remarked Manu San Félix after the dive.…

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Great Barrier Reef Legacy: Safeguarding Australia’s National Treasure

Mission Blue is proud to partner with Great Barrier Reef Legacy! 
By: Jenna Rumney

Great Barrier Reef Legacy (GBR Legacy) aims to change the way the Great Barrier Reef is understood and protected by operating the reefs only independent research vessel. Our team consists of marine scientists, educators, tourism operators and media experts with over 90 years of collective reef knowledge and experience. Our ‘floating laboratory’ will provide free access to scientists, an interactive classroom for students, a platform for collaboration between existing environmental organizations, and a multimedia powerhouse to share news from the reef with the rest of the world.
Our mission is to create a groundswell of community connection and passion for coral reefs which is of global significance.…

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Finding New Homes Won’t Help Emperor Penguins Cope with Climate Change

Mission Blue is a proud supporter of the WHOI emperor penguin study in collaboration with WHOI and The French National Research Agency!

If projections for melting Antarctic sea ice through 2100 are correct, the vanishing landscape will strip Emperor penguins of their breeding and feeding grounds and put populations at risk.  But like other species that migrate to escape the wrath of climate change, can these iconic animals be spared simply by moving to new locations?
According to new research led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), they cannot. Scientists report that dispersal may help sustain global Emperor penguin populations for a limited time, but, as sea ice conditions continue to deteriorate, the 54 colonies that exist today will face devastating declines by the end of this century.…

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