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CCAMLR Meets Again to Determine Fate of Ross Sea Hope Spot

Representatives of two-dozen countries and the European Union—the member governments of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, or CCAMLR—are meeting to determine whether some of the waters of the Antarctic, including the Ross Sea, one of Mission Blue’s original Hope Spots, will be protected or left open to industrial fishing and other human activities.
Fishing and oil drilling could be banned across more than two million square kilometres of the frigid seas around Antarctica in a historic attempt to conserve the last pristine ocean.
Negotiations will centre on a proposal for a 1.25m square kilometre “no take” zone, which would cover much of the Ross Sea. Another proposal would establish several other smaller protected areas in the seas around East Antarctica, adding a further 1.9m sq km protection zone.…

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Bold Plan for 50 Ocean Hope Spots Announced at IMPAC 3

Exciting news has come out of the 3rd International Marine Protected Areas Congress (IMPAC 3): Her Deepness Sylvia Earle, Mission Blue and IUCN have launched 31 new Mission Blue Hope Spots — Marine Protected Areas — across the globe to massively scale up the level of marine protection that experts consider necessary for a sustainable future.
A Hope Spot is an area of ocean that merits special protection because of its wildlife and significant underwater habitats. Each Hope Spot can give the ocean a breathing space from human activities so that it may recover and flourish. Dr. Earle named these areas Hope Spots because they represent a real hope to restore the health of our imperiled ocean.
The 31 new announcements come in addition to the 19 Hope Spots that Mission Blue has worked to protect over the last four years.…

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New Hope Spots to be Announced at IMPAC 3!

Next week, the Third International Marine Protected Area Congress (IMPAC 3) will convene in Marseille and Corsica. The Congress brings together major maritime stakeholders from around the globe to work together for the conservation and sustainable development of the oceans, and is the largest gathering of its kind ever held.
On Tuesday, October 22, Dr. Earle will host a celebration, “Hope for the Oceans with Dr. Sylvia Earle.” Mission Blue’s new global Hope Spot map will be unveiled, and Her Deepness has exciting Hope Spot news to share. Also appearing will be Dan Laffoley of IUCN and Mission Blue Board Director, Dr. Lance Morgan of Marine Conservation Institute, Jenifer Austin Foulkes, Manager, Explore the Ocean layer in Google Earth and Mission Blue Board Director,  Charlotte Vick of Mission Blue and Google Earth’s Explore the Ocean Layer and Kristina Gjerde of The Sargasso Sea Alliance and the High Seas Alliance.…

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2013 SeaKeeper Award Goes Out Tonight

Our friends at SeaKeeper and the Sargasso Sea Alliance are gathering at the St. Francis Yacht Club tonight to present the 2013 International SeaKeeper Award to honor and promote key figures who have made extraordinary commitments to protect this unique area of our ocean.
The event will take place along with the America’s Cup which will be in full swing this week. In attendance will be Dr. Sylvia Earle, Mission Blue director Patty Elkus and more passionate ocean advocates from the Sargasso Sea Alliance and other hardworking nonprofits. For last minute tickets, click here.

The Sargasso Sea, one of Mission Blue’s 19 Hope Spots, is a dynamic ecosystem of thriving diversity that contributes to overall ocean health. Located near Bermuda, the Sargasso Sea is the only sea without a land boundary.…

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Featured Video ~ Sylvia Earle on the Ross Sea

On July 11th, CCAMLR, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources will meet in Bremerhaven, Germany to again debate the fate of the Ross Sea. Let the world know you are watching, and send a message to the countries who may stand in the way against Antarctic protections by following this link. Click on one of the countries that is still on the fence, and send an email (which the Antarctic Ocean Alliance has done for you!) It’s easy & quick and so important!
In this video, Mission Blue teams up with Biotherm and the Antarctic Ocean Alliance to speak out in support of our Ross Sea Hope Spot. You can make your voice heard too! We’ll be posting more in the next weeks about how you can help.…

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A New Marine Preserve for the Bering Sea?

Today we’re featuring great news out of Juneau, Alaska! Our newest Mission Blue Hope Spot, the Bering Sea Deep Canyons is well on it’s way to protection after this week’s meetings with the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.
To give you the complete picture, we’re highlighting two blogs – from Phil Radford and Jackie Dragon of Greenpeace USA.  Read about how a coalition of organizations, together with 100,000 of you, and yes, even some big corporations spoke out, loud and clear – and succeeded in making a huge leap forward for the blue heart of our planet, and for us all.  
~ Ed.
A Breakthrough in How We Work to Protect Our Oceans
By  Phil Radford, Executive Director, Greenpeace, USA
The Bering Sea is known to scientists and conservationists as one of the most remarkable places on Earth — a home to sponges, coral, fish, crab, skates, sperm whales, orcas, Steller sea lions, and a vast array of other species all part of a delicate ecosystem extremely vulnerable to human activity.…

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Trip Report: Mission Blue – Australia’s Coral Sea and the Great Barrier Reef

May 2013:  The Mission Blue film crew and Dr. Sylvia Earle left port from Cairns, Australia to explore and document the remote Holmes and Osprey Reefs in the outer Coral Sea (over 250km offshore mainland Australia) – with a planned stop on the Great Barrier Reef on the return trip in.
Heavy winds and weather restricted us to the seldom visited Holmes Reef for the majority of our trip.  The water quality was incredible at Holmes, but the poor health of the corals and shortage of fish life left a real concern.  Some have blamed the weather and cyclones for the coral die off – but even with the minimal time we had there, we were surprised at our how much of the area seemed to be struggling overall. …

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Photo of the Day ~ Bering Sea Canyons Hope Spot Exploration

From the 2012 Greenpeace Expedition, an exciting description of his experience exploring the Zhemchug and Pribilof Deep Canyons, from John Hocevar ~ Ed.
If you’re a SCUBA diver, you’ve probably got a favorite wall dive. It’s hard to beat the feeling of moving slowly up a steep reef, with dense marine life above and below. I’ll always remember my first deep wall dive, on a visit to Curacao as a teenager in the 80s.
My new favorite, though, involves a submarine rather than SCUBA. After a few dozen dives in Pribilof and Zhemchug Canyons, on the Bering Sea shelf break, I thought I had some idea of what to expect: gradual slope, soft sediment bottom, with coral and sponge density somewhere around 1 per square meter.…

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Photo of the Day ~ Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man On Ice

Da Vinci’s 500-year-old Vitruvian Man was reinvented on the Arctic Sea Ice in 2011 with the help of Mission Blue Partner Greenpeace and Los Angeles artist John Quigley in an effort to “draw attention to how climate change is causing the rapid melting of sea ice beyond most predictions.”
Constructed with copper banding, which was later removed and recycled, a team of Greenpeace activists laid out “Melting Vitruvian Man” on an ice sheet which was the size of four olympic-size swimming pools, following artist Quigley’s specifications.

Using Greenpeace’s ice-breaker, the Arctic Sunrise, they travelled to a remote area 500 miles from the North Pole, after scouting for the perfect ice canvas from the air. The installation was created in the Fram Strait between Greenland and Norway’s Svalbard Islands.…

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